"The Spiny Chiton is found in the south seas. It has a wide border, as you may see, furnished with long, sharp, blackish spines.
"The Magnificent Chiton grows five inches long, and is found in Chili, often in very exposed places, fixed to wave-beaten rocks. The soft part of all the Chitons, that is, you know, the animal when alive, is furnished with a sucker on the under part, by which it sticks hard to the rocks."
THORNY WOODCOCK.
Uncle Brown next gave Charley one of the most beautiful shells, that, he thought, he had ever seen. Our young readers will see whether Charley was not right, by looking at the cut of it. It is called by several different names, such as the Murex, Tenuispina, or Thin Spined Murex; The Thorny Woodcock; and Venus's Comb. It lives in the Indian Ocean, which, you know, is many thousand miles off from where we live.
| OLD SHELLS. | YOUNG SHELLS. |
| PTEROCERAS SCORPIO. | |
With this he gave him four shells, two young, and two grown up ones, which are called the Pteroceras Scorpio; and three others besides, one young and two grown up ones, which go by the name of Cypraea Exanthema.
He told Charley to put all these shells together in his Museum, because, in certain particulars, they are alike, and all have, besides their own special names, the same generic name of Gasteropoda. They are so called, because they have something like a foot proceeding from the body which they use for moving about. Some of them have a distinct head, furnished with feelers, and eyes, and some means of smelling and hearing. Commonly the shell has but one valve, but sometimes more. Their shell is secreted or made out of their skin, which is called a mantle. I ought to tell you also, that all these shell-fish have another name, still more general, which is Mollusca, or Molluscs.
