Some of the shells which protect their soft
bodies, and are formed by the animals themselves, are marvels of beauty,
and many of them are secured from injury by a waterproof coating. A number
of extinct animals, such as Ammonites and Belemnites, belong to this
group--their shells may be seen in any good museum; those of the
Belemnites, as their name implies, are shaped like a dart; those of the
Ammonites, like that of the beautiful Nautilus of our times; but the
fisherfolk of Whitby, where they are found in numbers, say they are "snakes
turned to stone."
But as we have been speaking so much of sea-creatures, I think we will
now leave the oysters, cockles, mussels, and razor-fish, and choose the
familiar garden-snail as our specimen of the Mollusca, or Soft-bodied
Family. I fancy you need no introduction to that snug little householder.
Often, however, as you have touched his soft horns, you possibly do not
know that the very house in which you first made his acquaintance has been
his habitation ever since; for young snails come from the egg with the
shell upon their backs, and they never quit that first house for a larger
one, for as they grow, their shell-house grows too. Look at this empty
snail shell, and say whether God has not given a beautiful coat of mail to
protect a creature without a bone in its body, and so sensitive that
"Give but his horns the slightest touch,
His self-collecting power is such,
He shrinks into his house, with much
Displeasure.
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