Main Lib, 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 B1C LOGY 
 
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 Accession ............ 9.16-59 ...... cl(US 
 
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 SOME CREATURES OF THE SEA. 
 
WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. VOL. VIII 
 
 SHELLS AND SEA- LIFE 
 
 BY 
 JOSIAH KEEP, A.M. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE, MILLS COLLEGE 
 
 (( UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 SAN 
 
 THE WHITAKER AND BAY COMPANY 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 1901 
 
BIOLOGY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 G 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 
 
 BY 
 JOSIAH KEEP. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IT is well for young people to get acquainted with the crea- 
 tures which are living all around them. Birds and bees and 
 squirrels are near neighbors to a great many of us, and they 
 Avill prove good neighbors or bad neighbors, to a large degree, 
 in accordance with our treatment of them. The same is true 
 of many creatures that are not so well known as birds and bees. 
 It may be necessary, at times, to restrict their numbers, and 
 always to define the limits which they must not pass ; and yet, 
 how many people in this world live on bad terms with their 
 neighbors, both brute and human, because they do not take 
 the trouble to become acquainted with their good qualities. 
 
 A warm, generous heart is a source of pleasure which can- 
 not be overestimated ; and a narrow, cruel spirit is a source of 
 untold grief, not only to its possessor, but also to those with 
 whom he comes in contact. The true teacher has a great 
 mission. It is not merely to impart knowledge; far higher 
 than that, it is to develop life, life that is pure, truthful, 
 honest, loving, and happy. For such a great work the teacher 
 needs all possible aids. 
 
 We seldom love that of which we have but slight knowledge. 
 It is the aim of this book to assist the teacher in developing 
 the interest of the pupils in a class of animals which is not 
 so commonly studied or so well known as some other classes. 
 If the interest can be awakened, good results are pretty sure 
 to follow. 
 
 The author's book on WEST COAST SHELLS has been consid- 
 erably circulated and has been freely consulted by some of 
 our young people. It cannot, however, be extensively used in 
 the classroom, where a smaller and cheaper book would be 
 
 8 
 
 91659 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 appropriate. It is the author's hope that this little volume 
 may give to many children a better knowledge of the life of 
 mollusks than they would be apt to obtain otherwise, and 
 that even dead and dry shells may awaken trains of thought, 
 and restore, as it were, the life of the creatures which once 
 inhabited them. 
 
 The mollusks which live on the land and in fresh water 
 have been mentioned, since very many children will have a 
 chance to study these, who can seldom or never visit the sea- 
 shore. The later chapters of the book are devoted largely to 
 the other forms of sea-life which a visitor to the beach would 
 be most likely to meet. It is hoped that this may make the 
 book useful, in some degree, as a kind of guide to those who 
 are not familiar with the abundant forms of life, some of 
 which they will be sure to encounter. 
 
 But few Latin names are given in the text, though they are 
 not to be feared, and children may easily become accustomed 
 to them; they seem, however, more appropriate in the List 
 of Figures, which should be freely consulted. A few simple 
 directions concerning the collection and preservation of speci- 
 mens have been added, in the belief that they might some- 
 times prove useful. 
 
 Acknowledgments are especially due to Miss LAURA M. 
 MELLEN for drawings of shells, and to Miss ALICE B. TABOR 
 for the initial letters and most of the other drawings in the 
 book; also to MESSRS. J. K. OLIVER and C. BARLOW for pho- 
 tographs of marine scenery. 
 
 In conclusion, it is hoped that this volume may take a 
 prominent place in that instructive series of readers which 
 is giving to the children of this Coast such choice and fresh 
 themes. 
 
 JOSIAH KEEP. 
 
 MILLS COLLEGE, CALIFORNIA, February 6, 1901. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CREATURES OF THE SEA 7 
 
 A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS 16 
 
 THE SEA. (Poem) 25 
 
 EASTERN OYSTERS 27 
 
 THE SOFT-SHELLED CLAM 37 
 
 SNAILS AND SLUGS 43 
 
 ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS 50 
 
 THE STORY OF A PECTEX 62 
 
 MUSSELS 71 
 
 THE SEA-SHELL'S ANSWER. (Poem} 76 
 
 FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS 78 
 
 A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS 86 
 
 A WALK ALONG THE SHORE 95 
 
 A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS 103 
 
 OTHER CREATURES WHICH LIVE IN THE SEA 112 
 
 .SOME CREEPING THINGS 119 
 
 ANOTHER SEASIDE TALK 129 
 
 SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS, AND OTHER SEA-THINGS .... 137 
 
 THE CRABS' TEA-PARTY. (Poem) 146 
 
 SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES . . 151 
 
 How SEA-BIRDS KEEP HOUSE . 158 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SEA-BIRD. (Poem) ........ 166 
 
 SEALS AND SEA-LIONS . 169 
 
 A WATER-TELESCOPE 175 
 
 THE HARVEST OF THE SEA 183 
 
 How TO COLLECT AND PRESERVE SPECIMENS 194 
 
 LIST OF FIGURES ............... 197 
 
 INDEX . ... 200 
 
 5 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SHELLS AND SEA-LIFE Frontispiece. 
 
 SUMMER SCENE BY THE SEASIDE 10 
 
 A SCENE ON THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA 24 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE 29 
 
 A CHINESE SHELL-STAND NEAR CYPRESS POIXT .... 58 
 
 A NESTING COLONY OF CORMORANTS .114 
 
 SEA-URCHIN SHELLS PREPARED FOR MARKET 122 
 
 SOUTH FARALLONE ISLAND 159 
 
 THE FARALLONE MULE 160 
 
 BABY GULL IN NEST 161 
 
 SUGAR-LOAF ROCK, FARALLOXE ISLANDS 163 
 
 BIRD ROCKS 165 
 
 SEA-LIONS AT HOME . . 168 
 
 A GOOD CATCH OF FISH 188 
 
 6 
 
THE CREATURES OF THE SEA. 
 
 IVERY boy or girl who goes to school, 
 and is able to read this book, knows 
 that California is bounded on the 
 ?b west by the Pacific Ocean. And 
 perhaps more than half of all the 
 
 boys and girls who live in the Pacific states, and 
 
 have reached the age of thirteen years, have seen 
 
 with their own eyes at least a small portion of 
 
 that great body of salt water which rolls and 
 
 splashes against our Western shore. 
 
 A great many have stood on the beach and 
 
 watched the long lines of breakers come tumbling 
 
 in as if they were anxious 
 
 to drown everybody who 
 
 is looking at them. Oth- 
 ers have never been to the 
 
 open beach, but have seen 
 
 the more quiet waters of a 
 
 bay or inlet connecting 
 
 with the ocean. And still 
 
 others have spent all their 
 
 short lifetime on the moun- 
 
 REFEKEXCE TOPICS. 
 The breakers. 
 The tides. 
 The coast-Jine. 
 Deep-sea creatures. 
 A dredge. 
 Lobster-catching. 
 Seaside resorts. 
 Coral islands. 
 The Greek language. 
 Geology. 
 
8 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 tains or in the valleys, away from the salt water, 
 and have never yet had a chance to visit the 
 coast. 
 
 I hope they may, one of these days, and I feel 
 pretty sure that they will. I had never seen the 
 ocean when I was thirteen, but since I became a 
 man I have seen it often, and have learned to love 
 it very much. 
 
 Suppose you try to find out what per cent of 
 the members of your class have seen the broad 
 ocean, what per cent have seen only a bay, and 
 what per cent have never seen either. That will 
 be a good practical problem in percentage. Of 
 course, the sum of the three answers should equal 
 one hundred, no matter what the size of the class 
 may be. 
 
 The line where the land and the ocean meet is 
 a place where a great many creatures live. It is 
 a pretty broad line in some places, for the tides 
 rise and fall twice a day, and the shore at high 
 tide may lie half a mile from the low tide-line. 
 
 And then beyond this line there is a space 
 where the water is not very deep, though the bot- 
 tom is always covered, and this region of shallow 
 water is one which abounds in living things, both 
 animal and vegetable. Then comes the deep sea, 
 where living things are less common. One reason 
 
THE CREATURES OF THE SEA. 9 
 
 is, that it affords no resting-place for creatures 
 that do not like to be swimming about contin- 
 ually, while another reason is, that there is a lack 
 of food in very deep water. 
 
 It is true that some strange creatures are occa- 
 sionally brought up from great depths, but the 
 cold, black abyss of the deep sea will probably 
 always remain a place of mystery, while the shal- 
 low rim of the ocean will be better and better 
 known as the years go by and new explorations 
 are made. Perhaps some of you may help make 
 them. 
 
 We may say, then, that the whole shore-line of 
 California, Oregon, and Washington is the home 
 of countless animals. And by shore-line we will 
 include all that space which reaches from the 
 spray-splashed rocks on the land side, out to 
 water which is too deep to be readily explored by 
 the dredge. 
 
 All sorts of creatures live in this sea-coast re- 
 gion. First, there are the fishes in abundance, 
 ranging in size from the sharks that are as long 
 as a good-sized house, down to the smallest rock- 
 fishes that have just been hatched from the egg. 
 
 Occasionally a whale comes blowing around, or 
 some smaller creatures of the same class, like the 
 grampus and the porpoise. There are seals, with 
 
THE CREATURES OF THE SEA. 11 
 
 finny hands and fat sides, and round heads with 
 bright eyes, which are ever looking out for fish for 
 their Friday dinners and every day is Friday to 
 the seal. 
 
 And we must not forget the birds, for there are 
 thousands of them, ducks and gulls, and divers 
 and murres, shags and sand-pipers, and herons 
 and pelicans; birds that dive, birds that swim, and 
 birds that spend most of their time on the wing. 
 yes, the sea-coast is a wonderful place for birds, 
 for the waves give them food in abundance. 
 
 And down in the water and along the beach 
 are all kinds of funny creatures, some with many 
 legs and some without any. There are crabs and 
 lobsters, shrimps and sand-fleas, barnacles and 
 starfishes; sea-urchins that cannot run, and sea- 
 cucumbers that are not good for pickles; sea- 
 worms and sea-slugs and sea-pens and sea-hares 
 and sea-anemones, and sea-almost-everything, ex- 
 cept sea-boys and sea-girls, and in summer they 
 are there too. 
 
 Besides all these there are hydroids and jelly- 
 fishes, and corals and sponges, and squids and cut- 
 tles, and limpets and clams, and a hundred kinds 
 of creeping snails. It would take you a lifetime to 
 learn all that is now known about these creatures, 
 and then there would be plenty left for the next 
 
12 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 generation to discover and investigate. Two 
 things seem sure: that they are all having what is 
 to them a happy existence, and that they are all 
 living in the places which they seem best fitted to 
 inhabit. 
 
 Out of all this throng of life we may each select 
 one particular kind, and seek to know them more 
 thoroughly than we do the rest. I have selected 
 the Mollusks, because they have beautiful shells 
 and interesting habits, and because they may be 
 found in so many and so diverse situations. Be- 
 sides, there are a great many mollusks which do 
 not now live in the ocean, though perhaps their 
 remote ancestors did, away back in the dim past. 
 
 But at this time we have land mollusks and 
 fresh-water mollusks in abundance, besides the 
 many marine forms. So it is not necessary for 
 you to go to the seaside to gather living mollusks, 
 and if you happen to live off in the valleys or in 
 the mountains, you will be pretty sure to find 
 some of them, and to have a chance to study their 
 forms and their habits. 
 
 There are three classes of mollusks which live 
 along the sea-shore, and each of these classes is 
 further divided into many genera and species. The 
 first class includes all those creatures which resem- 
 ble the squid and the cuttle-fish. They have a 
 
THE CREATURES OF THE SEA. 13 
 
 prominent head, with big, staring eyes, and a beak 
 like a parrot's, which is surrounded by a circle of 
 arms or tentacles, set with many hooks or suckers. 
 While they sometimes crawl on the bottom of the 
 sea, most of them can swim freely, if they wish to, 
 and they have a comical habit of pouring out a 
 quantity of black ink to darken the water when 
 they wish to hide or escape from some enemy. 
 They are called Ceph-al-o-pods, from two Greek 
 words meaning head and foot, because they some- 
 times use the arms on. their heads as organs for 
 walking. 
 
 The second class have very small eyes set on 
 little stalks, and their mouths have neither beaks 
 nor suckers, but a curious tongue clothed with 
 very numerous little hooked teeth. They cannot 
 swim, but they lie flat on the rocks, and creep 
 along very slowly by means of little muscles in a 
 disk or foot which forms the lower part of the 
 body. When they stop moving they can hold on 
 like a sucker, and so they can resist the force of 
 the waves. 
 
 They are called Gas-ter-o-pods, because they 
 creep, as it were, upon their stomachs. All the 
 snails belong to this class. Most of the Gastero- 
 pods are protected by a single shell, usually spiral 
 in shape, though there are plenty of slugs, both 
 
14 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 on the land and in the sea, that have no shells 
 whatsoever. 
 
 The third class of mollusks have no heads at all, 
 though they all have mouths and lips, and a few 
 of them have eyes also. They live within a pair 
 of shells, which they can open or close at will. 
 Most of them dig burrows with a fleshy foot 
 shaped like a hatchet, and hence they are called 
 Pel-e-cy-pods, meaning hatchet-footed creatures. 
 
 Besides these three classes there are certain 
 other mollusks which are seldom seen in these 
 times, though long before man lived on the earth 
 they were very numerous. We need not think of 
 them now, but when you study geology you will 
 learn a great deal about them, for very many of 
 their shells are found preserved in the rocks. 
 
 As for the three long Greek names, they are all 
 very proper to know, but for our purposes suppose 
 we call the three classes Swimmers, Creepers, and 
 Bivalves; for the Cephalopods swim, the Gastero- 
 pods creep, and the Pelecypods have double shells. 
 
 Now, leaving the Swimmers to take care of them- 
 selves in the ocean waves, we may group all of the 
 Creepers and Bivalves into three great divisions, 
 according to their favorite places of habitation. 
 We will name them Rock-lovers, Sand-dwellers, 
 and Mudsills. 
 
THE CREATURES OF THE SEA. 15 
 
 Some may think that the name "mudsill" is a 
 term of reproach. Well, it is sometimes used so, 
 in reference to men; for no man likes to be com- 
 pared to a log sunk in the mud; but with mollusks 
 it is different. They are fitted for the mud, they 
 get their food there, and they have never been 
 known to complain of their location, or to be 
 ashamed of their lowly home. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 barnacles (bar'na-klz), hydroids (hfdroids), mollusk 
 (mol'lusk), cephalopod (sefal-o-pod), gasteropod (gas'ter- 
 o-pod), pelecypod (pel'i-si-pod), particular (par-tik'u-lar), 
 tentacles (ten'ta-klz), prominent (prom'i-nent), genera 
 (jen'e-ra), the plural of genus (je'nus) ; species (spe'shez), 
 abyss (a-bis'). 
 
A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS. 
 
 and 
 
 x you ever go camping in the sum- 
 mer ? Did you and your 
 friends ever get tired of liv- 
 ing in one place all the year, 
 \ and decide to take a tent and 
 go out to some shady spot 
 have fun and fresh air and 
 freedom for a little while? I hope 
 so, for there is nothing quite so good as a few 
 days of tent life to brighten up all the rest of the 
 year. 
 
 Perhaps your tent was near a mountain stream, 
 where you could watch the speckled trout in the 
 deep holes; perhaps it was 
 in the woods, where there 
 were great trees watching 
 over you, that had been 
 growing for centuries; per- 
 haps it was by the sea- 
 shore, where you could lie 
 awake at night and hear 
 the waves pounding away 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Summer camping. 
 Granite rocks. 
 "Sweet home." 
 Color protection. 
 Volcanoes. 
 Tide limits. 
 The horned owl. 
 Air suction. 
 
 16 
 
A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS. 17 
 
 on the granite rocks or breaking into foam on the 
 sandy beach; perhaps it was in a field, or even in 
 a back yard; but anywhere under a tent there is 
 a charm which you cannot get anywhere else. 
 
 Now, there is a whole group of mollusks that 
 live in tents all their lives, and they always pitch 
 their tents on the rocks. And each tent is just 
 big enough for one camper to live in; and if the 
 camper grows, why, he builds on to the edge of his 
 tent, and keeps it just big enough to cover him 
 whenever he settles down for a good night's rest. 
 
 When you went camping you set up poles, and 
 spread the tent-cloth over them, and fastened it 
 all down with ropes and pins. But our little mol- 
 lusk campers make their tents of shell, and they 
 are so stiff and firm that there is no need of poles 
 and ropes to keep them spread. 
 
 You used to come out of your tent in the morn- 
 ing and rush down to the brook to wash your 
 hands and face. Our little campers get up too, 
 but they always carry their tents with them, on 
 their backs; and as for washing their faces, they 
 never need to be troubled with that duty, for they 
 live in the water most of their lives, and they get 
 their faces washed with clear, cold water, whether 
 they wish it or not. 
 
 These little campers are called limpets, and 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 82 
 
18 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 their coverings are sometimes called saucer-shells; 
 for some of their empty tents, when turned over, 
 might be used for little shallow dishes, like very 
 small saucers. On the coast of Mexico there are 
 some that are large enough for mush-bowls, but 
 they do not grow so large in our part of the 
 ocean. 
 
 A few of the tents have a kind of chimney-hole 
 at the top, and the creature that lives in such a 
 shell is called a keyhole limpet. Although the 
 opening looks like a keyhole, there is no lock con- 
 nected with it, but only a fold of the animal's 
 mantle, and it really serves as a kind of chimney 
 or ventilating-flue for keeping the tent sweet and 
 clean. In those limpets which have no chimney 
 to the shell, all the circulation of water must be 
 carried on under the raised edges of the tent. 
 
 Most of these little campers have a pleasant 
 habit of pitching their tents in the same spot 
 every night, however much they may have wan- 
 dered during the day. Home is home, even if it 
 is only a little flat spot on the side of a huge cliff. 
 And so I trust you have found, whenever you 
 have been camping, that the best part of it all was 
 the coming home again. 
 
 Of course our limpets get hungry and must 
 search for their food, but, fortunately, it consists 
 
A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS. 19 
 
 chiefly of the soft vegetable matter that is found 
 so abundantly on the sides of the rocks which fur- 
 nish them with a camping-ground. With their 
 little tongues they can easily rasp off food enough 
 to satisfy their appetites, after which they have 
 plenty of time for rest and meditation. 
 
 Some limpets camp on the stems of the big 
 seaweeds, and have a jolly time rocking back and 
 forth as the weeds are swayed and tossed by the 
 waves. But most of them prefer a solid founda- 
 tion, especially selecting those rocks which are left 
 bare a part of the day, when the tide is low. 
 
 A few, like the one in the picture (Figure 1), 
 creep up so high that they are 
 seldom covered with water, and 
 seem to prefer the occasional 
 splashing of the spray to a real 
 all-over bath. Perhaps you have 
 known children who were in- 
 
 Figure 1. 
 
 clined to sympathize with them. 
 
 The color of this little limpet's tent is a mottled 
 gray, and as he generally lives on granite rocks, it 
 is sometimes difficult to distinguish his shell from 
 a little knob of rock. You will be surprised to 
 notice how many creatures in this world are pro- 
 tected in some degree by the likeness of their 
 covering to their surroundings. 
 
20 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 There are brown shells on brown seaweeds, 
 gray shells on gray rocks, dust-colored squirrels 
 and rabbits in dusty fields, bright-winged butter- 
 flies on brilliant flowers, green caterpillars on 
 green leaves, and funny little owls about the color 
 of twilight. 
 
 There are three or four fine keyhole limpets to 
 be found on our coast. The 
 most common one (Figure 2) is 
 shaped like a mountain with a 
 k crater at the top. You often find 
 Figure 2. the white shells with red stripes 
 
 running down the sides, looking for all the world 
 like streams of red-hot lava. And so this limpet 
 is called \^issurella volcano, or)the Volcano shell. 
 
 ^Figure 3 is a good picture of the Rough Keyhole 
 Limpet, while Figure 4 is a rather small picture of 
 a very pretty white 
 shell which sometimes 
 grows as large as your 
 hand, and is known as<| 
 the Giant Keyhole 
 Limpet. Figure 5 rep- 
 resents the Spotted 
 Keyhole Limpet,which 
 
 is no bigger than the nail of your smallest finger. 
 Its Latin name, however, is as long as your longest 
 
A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS. 21 
 
 finger, so I will 
 
 not give it here, 
 
 but will advise 
 
 those of you who! 
 
 wish to look it upf 
 
 to study the List 
 
 of Figures at the 
 
 end of this book, 
 
 or to consult the Figure 4. 
 
 books on shells in your school library^ 
 
 The shell is too small to be of much use as a 
 tent to the little creature that carries it, since it 
 covers only a small portion of his back. There 
 ^^^ are a few other kinds, not commonly found, 
 ^SfiP and for a description of these I would also 
 Figure 5. refer you to the books on shellsj 
 
 Of the common limpets, those that have no 
 chimney-holes, there are so many kinds that it 
 is sometimes very difficult to be sure of the right 
 name. \Figures 1 and 6 show the shape of the 
 Ribbed Limpet, which is gray in color and lives 
 on the highest cliffs. Most of 
 the specimens of it that you find 
 will be smaller than the picturej < 
 
 On the rocks between the tide Figure 6 ' 
 limits, you may find a number of different kinds; 
 (some like Figure 7, the Plate Limpet, others 
 
22 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Figure 8. 
 
 like Figure 8, the Shield Limpet, and still 
 others like Figure 9, in which the point of the 
 shell is almost at one end, 
 like the nose of a mask, and 
 it is therefore called the 
 Figure?. Mask Limpet.^) 
 
 All of these are of a dark color on the outside 
 and lighter within, but there is one pretty little 
 tent, that you will be 
 very likely to find, that 
 is pure white all over. 
 It is a round shell, (like 
 Figure 10, jand looks 
 like a little snowclad 
 peak of a mountain. It is often called the White 
 Capj^and its Latin name is Acmxa mitraj 
 
 Inside the shells of all the lim- 
 pets there are sometimes curious 
 markings, which show where 
 Figure 9. fa e fleshfpf the mollusl^ was at- 
 
 tached to the hard covering. Sometimes these 
 markings greatly resemble the outline of a horned 
 owl, fas is shown in figure HfdF- 
 Great Owl Shelp^It is the 
 largest of all of our limpets, arid 
 is frequently found as big as the* 
 bowl of a kitchen spoony 
 
 Figure 10. 
 
A GROUP OF ROCK-LOVERS. 
 
 23 
 
 Here we must leave our 
 great family of campers 
 that carry their tents 
 with them. They have 
 many enemies, as the 
 crabs and starfishes, and 
 to guard against being 
 eaten alive they hold on 
 to the rock very firmly 
 with their broad foot, 
 and pull down their 
 strong shelly tent, and Figure n. 
 
 thus they live safely, because they are well pro- 
 tected. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 centuries (sen'tu-riz), ventilating (veii'ti-lat-ing), espe- 
 cially (es-pesh'al-ly), sympathize (sim'pa-thiz), distinguish 
 (dis-tm'guish), Fissurella (fis-shu-rel'la), specimens (spes'- 
 i-menz), fortunately (for'tu-nat-ly). 
 
o. 
 
 THE SEA. 
 I. 
 
 THE broad blue sea, 
 r 9 It has charms for me ; 
 For I love to stand 
 On its rim of sand, 
 
 And look far off where its great waves rise, 
 As if they were mounting up into the skies ; 
 Then see them break into foamy spray, 
 Leaving patches of snow as they melt away 
 
 II. 
 
 O, the broad blue sea, 
 
 It has charms for me ; 
 
 For I love to hear 
 
 Its music so clear, 
 
 When the thundering bass of its breakers roars, 
 As its billows dash on the rock-bound shores, 
 And the wavelets answer with melody sweet, 
 As they die on the sands that lie at my feet. 
 
 III. 
 
 O, the broad blue sea, 
 It has charms for me ; 
 For I love to explore 
 The caves of its shore, 
 
 To gather its mosses and pebbles and shells, 
 To note the rich bower where the fair sea-nymph dwells ; 
 While from each living creature there rises a call 
 To praise the great Giver of life unto all. 
 
 25 
 
26 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 O, the broad blue sea, 
 It has charms for me ; 
 For I love to dream 
 Of islands that seem 
 
 Like beautiful regions far out in the west, 
 Where frosts never blight, and all nature is blest ; 
 Till I long to set sail, with the red setting sun, 
 And find on their shores a new life begun. 
 
 V. 
 
 O, the broad blue sea, 
 It has charms for me ; 
 For I love to believe 
 That I yet shall perceive 
 New sources of power revealed by its waves, 
 New lessons of wisdom and life in its caves ; 
 
 And the voice of the sea shall grow sweeter each day, 
 Till the voices of earth shall all fade away. 
 
EASTERN OYSTERS. 
 
 I. How THEIR CALIFORNIA HOME WAS PREPARED. 
 
 \HE water of San Francisco Bay is 
 quite deep in the central portions, 
 but along the edges there are 
 extensive mud-flats. Parts of 
 
 1 these flats are exposed to the 
 
 J jpjl 1 air as often as the tide falls 
 even a moderate amount; and 
 whenever there is an unusu- 
 ally low tide, hundreds of 
 
 acres of the dark, muddy surface may be seen by 
 
 any one who walks along 
 
 the shore. 
 
 The material from which 
 
 these mud-flats have been 
 
 constructed has largely 
 
 been brought down from 
 
 central California by those 
 
 muddy rivers, the Sacra- 
 mento and the San Joaquin. 
 
 These, in their turn, have 
 
 received their load from 
 
 27 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Sail Francisco Kay. 
 Rivers of California. 
 Placer-mining. 
 Results of mining:. 
 Crossing the bar. 
 Puget Sound. 
 Transcontinental 
 
 roads. 
 
 Canned oysters. 
 Destructive fishes. 
 Cattle-raising. 
 
 rail- 
 
28 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 three sources: first, from the muddy rills which 
 in times of rain run down from the fields which 
 lie along the river banks ; second, from brooks 
 and creeks extending far inland, which in the 
 rainy season receive the washings of the country 
 through which they flow; and third, from the gold 
 mines in the mountains. 
 
 Formerly, many gold mines were worked by 
 turning great streams of water from huge hose- 
 pipes upon banks of gravel, in which were small 
 pieces of the precious metal. The water and 
 gravel and gold would then all rush together 
 down a long trough, or flume, in the bottom of 
 which were contrivances to catch the gold. 
 
 The stones and the heavier parts of the gravel 
 would soon settle in the bed of the stream which 
 flowed away from the flume, but the lighter por- 
 tions would travel on and on with the water, till 
 the current became so slow that the mud preferred 
 to settle. 
 
 So much mud and gravel was brought down 
 from the mines, that some of the smaller rivers 
 became clogged and overflowed their banks, and 
 at length a law was passed, forbidding the work- 
 ing of " hydraulic mines," unless the miners would 
 keep their refuse at home. 
 
 As this was almost impossible, most of these 
 
EASTERN OYSTERS. 29 
 
 mines ceased to be worked, and the miners paid 
 more attention to getting gold directly from the 
 rocks. And so the gravel banks are waiting for 
 some process which will allow men to secure the 
 gold without washing away the country also. 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 
 
 When the muddy water of the rivers reaches 
 the bay, it meets the sea-water coming in from 
 the ocean, through the Golden Gate. This must 
 happen twice a day, when the tide is rising, and 
 at such times the flow of the rivers is stopped. 
 
30 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The water then spreads out to the sides, and much 
 of the mud settles on the great flats. 
 
 Then the tide falls, and the water in the center 
 of the bay goes rushing out through the strait into 
 the ocean. All the mud it carries now quickly 
 settles, for mud and salt do not like each other, 
 and besides, the motion of the river is stopped by 
 the ocean, and it must lay down its burden. The 
 mud and sand at this point form a great horse- 
 shoe-shaped bar, making the water shallow, and 
 causing much trouble for ships when the waves 
 are high. 
 
 But at present we are not concerned about the 
 
 bar, nor the 
 rough waves 
 which make 
 passengers so 
 sick when they 
 go over it in 
 Figure 12. the steamer s. 
 
 We are thinking of the great mud-flats which are 
 left bare at low tide. These flats are the home of 
 distinguished visitors from the East, and we will 
 now proceed to make their acquaintance. 
 
EASTERN OYSTERS. 
 
 II. WHO THEY ARE, AND How THEY CAME HERE. 
 
 A great many years ago there were plenty of 
 large oysters living in the sea off the coast of Cali- 
 fornia. Some of them were very large indeed, 
 so big that a ten-year-old boy would not want to 
 carry one very far without resting. The shells 
 would be almost as long as one of his arms and a 
 good deal thicker than his fist, and what a time 
 he would have in trying to open one of them. 
 
 But all of that kind of oysters have been dead 
 for thousands of years; possibly they were all dead 
 before there was a man upon the earth. Yet we 
 now find their shells in the rocks, high up on the 
 coast mountains, in the western part of Fresno 
 County, and in other localities. 
 
 Long, long ago, the ocean waves must have 
 rolled over those places, and the great oysters 
 had a happy life; but there came a change, and 
 the ocean beach was slowly lifted up, and changed 
 into a range of mountains, while the sea crept 
 away to the westward. 
 
 Well, after this age there came another one, 
 and the oysters of the new age were far smaller 
 than those of the old one. In fact, they were lit- 
 tle fellows, with thin shells about as large as the 
 petals of a big rose. The meats were good eating, 
 
32 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 but so small that a man needed about a hundred 
 to make a good meal. 
 
 These "native" oysters now live all along our 
 coast, being especially good in the northern parts, 
 about Puget Sound. In some parts of San Fran- 
 cisco Bay their shells wash up on the shore and 
 are gathered in great quantities. They are sold 
 for making walks, for feeding to chickens, and for 
 other purposes. 
 
 As soon as the railroad from California to the 
 East had been built over the mountains and across 
 the plains, there was a chance to bring live oysters 
 from the Atlantic coast and plant them in the 
 shallow waters of the bay. Young oysters can be 
 conveniently packed in barrels, and if they are 
 kept moist and cool, they will live for a week or 
 more, and that is long enough to bring them on 
 the cars from one ocean to the other. 
 
 When they arrive in Oakland, they are at once 
 put upon rafts and taken to the places which have 
 been well fenced to keep out the big fishes that 
 like oysters as well as we do. Then a man on the 
 raft takes up a shovelful of little oysters, and sows 
 them into the water as a farmer sows grain. 
 
 In this way large spaces were planted with 
 Eastern oysters. The water was not very deep, 
 and in some parts of the beds the oysters would 
 
EASTERN OYSTERS. 33 
 
 be left bare at low tide, but they did not care, for 
 in a little while they would be covered again with 
 water, and could open their shells again without 
 danger of drying up. 
 
 After living three or four years in our bay, the 
 little oysters have grown from the size of a dime 
 or a silver quarter to be as large as one of your 
 hands, and now it is time for them to be taken 
 to market. 
 
 So a man goes out on a raft, and with a pair of 
 tongs shaped like two rakes hinged together he 
 gathers the oysters from the bottom of the bay 
 and piles them up on the raft. In many cases a 
 number of shells have grown together, but they 
 are easily separated by a light hammer, and then 
 the oysters are sorted and put in different piles, 
 according to their size. 
 
 The largest ones are put into boxes and sent to 
 the city markets, where they are sold for forty or 
 fifty cents a dozen. A second size are sold for 
 less, while those that are too small for the market 
 are thrown back into the water and allowed to live 
 a year or two more. Perhaps you will ask why 
 all of them are not kept till they will fetch the 
 highest price in the city markets. 
 
 There are two answers that might be given. In 
 the first place, the oyster-men have been to great 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 83 
 
34 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 expense in bringing the young oysters from the 
 Atlantic, and they are anxious to get their money 
 back as soon as possible. And in the second 
 place, oysters, like many other creatures, have a 
 habit of dying after they have lived a few years, 
 and the owners would prefer to sell a hundred 
 dozen this year at thirty cents a dozen, rather 
 than run the risk of having only fifty dozen live 
 ones two years hence, worth even fifty cents a 
 dozen. 
 
 Besides, the oyster has several enemies, some 
 of which are likely to break in upon the beds and 
 cause great destruction. One of these enemies is 
 the starfish, of which we will speak later, and 
 another is a big triangular fish with a huge 
 mouth that is so armed with teeth that he can 
 crush an oyster's shell and suck out the delicate 
 meat. This fish is called the Ray, and since he 
 has a sharp, bony thorn on his back, the boys 
 call him a sting-ray, or more commonly, a 
 stingaree. 
 
 To keep these fishes out of the " oyster-pasture," 
 a close fence is made by driving poles or stakes 
 into the mud. This fence must extend entirely 
 around the portion of the bay which is to be 
 planted, and the stakes must be so close together 
 that the fishes cannot get through. They must be 
 
EASTERN OYSTERS. 35 
 
 examined frequently, for a single broken stake 
 might let in enough enemies in one night to 
 cause great destruction. 
 
 And so you see the oyster lives in a kind of 
 prison; but the defenses are not to keep him in, 
 but rather to keep his enemies out. Even then 
 the starfishes may creep in between the stakes, 
 but they move slowly, and when they are found 
 they are slaughtered without mercy. 
 
 There are just two other enemies to oysters 
 that we will mention at this time. Since neither 
 of them are alive, they cannot be destroyed by 
 killing. In this they differ from the starfish. 
 Their names are frost and mud. 
 
 Frost comes on cold winter nights, and mud 
 comes in the time of very heavy rains. Frost 
 never does any harm unless a very low tide comes 
 with it, leaving the tender oysters exposed to 
 the cold night air. Then the poor things are 
 liable to shiver for a while, and then go to sleep, 
 never to wake up again. But this enemy is not 
 much feared in California. 
 
 With mud the case is different, for if the oyster- 
 grounds are too near the inlet of a brook, it is 
 possible that in times of freshet a great quantity 
 of soil will be brought down from the land and 
 spread over the bottom of the bay, burying the 
 
36 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 unfortunate bivalves out of sight. They are help- 
 less creatures, and cannot dig their way out, as 
 clams might do, and so they are liable to perish 
 before the oyster-men are able to go to their as- 
 sistance. 
 
 So you see that the raising of oysters, like the 
 raising of cattle, is attended with much expense 
 and many difficulties; and though their food costs 
 nothing, for they eat the little living particles 
 that exist in sea-water, still it is not probable 
 that they will ever be very cheap on this coast. 
 
 This seems all the more true, since young 
 oysters are continually being brought from the 
 East, instead of being raised here at home. It is 
 thought that the very young oysters, which come 
 from the tiny eggs of the old ones, mostly perish 
 in the cold waters of the bay before they get a 
 good start in life, and so the traffic in " Eastern 
 oysters " is likely to go on for many years. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 extensive (ex-t6n'siv), material (ma-te'ri-al), contri- 
 vances (kdn-triv'an-sez), acquaintance (ak-quant'ans), 
 conveniently (k6n-ven'yent-ly), triangular (tri-ari'gu- 
 lar), particles (par'ti-klz), continually (kSn-tm'u-al-ly), 
 slaughter (sla'ter). 
 
THE SOFT-SHELLED CLAM. 
 
 FEW years after the first Eastern 
 oysters had been planted in San 
 Francisco Bay, a man who studies 
 shells was much sur- 
 prised to find a new 
 clam living near them. 
 r- There were only a few 
 specimens of the strange clam, and these were not 
 very large, but they were examined with much 
 care. They greatly resembled the clams of Rhode 
 Island, which are so much prized in that state, 
 but as they were supposed to be somewhat differ- 
 ent, they were given a new name. This name was 
 selected in honor of Mr. Henry Hemphill, a gen- 
 tleman who has collected 
 and studied our Western 
 shells very extensively. 
 
 The first shells were 
 found in November, 1874, 
 but in a few years they 
 began to be very common, 
 and then it was found that 
 
 37 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Rhode Island clams. 
 
 Latin names. 
 
 The microscope. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Cost of oysters. 
 
 "Happy as a clam." 
 
 Importations by rail. 
 
38 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 a mistake had been made, and that the clam was 
 not new at all. It was only the soft-shelled clam 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 It is almost certain that a few had been brought 
 with the young oysters, and that they had multi- 
 plied rapidly and spread to other parts of the bay. 
 Figure 13 is a picture of the inside of one of the 
 shells. Its Latin name is Mya arenaria. 
 
 Since that time they have increased exceedingly, 
 and have gone wherever they could find good 
 
 ground to live 
 in, and now mil- 
 lions of them in- 
 habit the great 
 mud-flats which 
 are laid bare by 
 the fall of the 
 tides. 
 The young oy- 
 
 Figure 13. 
 
 sters, as we have 
 
 learned in the last chapter, are tender creatures, 
 and most of them seem to perish before they get 
 their shells. But it is not so with the clams. 
 Their young ones seem to delight in the cool 
 waters of the bay, and they speedily find a good 
 field of mud, and begin to grow and dig and 
 build a good pair of shells. 
 
THE SOFT-SHELLED CLAM. 39 
 
 The habits of the clam are very different from 
 those of the oyster. At first they are very much 
 alike, being tiny, swimming bodies, without shells, 
 and too small to be seen without a strong micro- 
 scope. At length the little oyster settles on an old 
 shell or a stake, turns upon his side, and begins 
 to form a pair of shells, one of which becomes 
 attached to the support. 
 
 This spot is his home, and of his own accord 
 he never leaves it so long as he lives. He has no 
 foot to dig with and no pipe to breathe through; 
 so he lives by opening his shells in the water, and 
 letting it pass over his gills, which gather any 
 
 Figure 14. 
 
 particles of floating food. If an enemy comes, he 
 can close his shells, and that is all that he can do. 
 But with the clam it is very different. His first 
 instinct is to dig a hole and get down out of the way 
 of all his enemies. His little tongue-shaped foot 
 is the organ which he uses as a spade, and in a 
 little while he is safely out of sight. 
 
40 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 But safety is not enough. A band of robbers 
 may be perfectly safe in a deep cave, but they can- 
 not stay there always, unless they are willing to 
 starve. So our little clam must have communica- 
 tion with the sea, and must get fresh supplies 
 from that great source of food. 
 
 But he cannot conveniently come up out of his 
 burrow, for he is getting bigger every day, and 
 the hole by which he entered is too small to let 
 him out. However, he has no need to come out, 
 for he has two slender tubes attached to his body, 
 though they are grown together so as to look like 
 one. 
 
 When the tide is out, he lies snug and quiet at 
 the bottom of his burrow, just waiting. By and 
 by he hears a faint splashing, and soon a cool 
 bath of salt water comes running down his little 
 burrow. He is happy now, for he knows that the 
 tide has risen, and that his quarters are well con- 
 cealed by the flowing water. So he sends up the 
 two tubes, or siphons as they are named, though 
 some people call them his neck, and opens their 
 ends in the clear water at the surface of the mud. 
 
 Now, on his gills are thousands of very minute 
 hairs, called cilia, and he sets these cilia to lash- 
 ing in such a direction that the water is pulled 
 down one tube and forced up the other. What a 
 
THE SOFT-SHELLED CLAM. 
 
 41 
 
 grand contrivance! for with the water there comes 
 down a small amount of air also, which had been 
 dissolved by the foamy waves. This air passes 
 over his gills, which are really a series of fine tubes 
 containing the creature's 
 blood, and as it passes, 
 the blood absorbs the rich 
 oxygen of the air, and 
 thus becomes purified. 
 
 But the gills also collect 
 the food-particles which 
 are in the water, and roll 
 them along to one end, 
 where they are gathered 
 together by the four white 
 lips, and pressed into the 
 mouth, that is ever ready 
 to receive them. What a 
 happy creature is the clam ! 
 And yet, I do not think 
 his happiness is of a very 
 high order. Do you? 
 
 The enemies that ever 
 threaten the oyster can never harm the clam. 
 The starfish cannot reach him; the sting-ray can- 
 not bite him; he has no fear of mud, for he lives 
 in it; and as for frost, he is too deeply buried for 
 it to touch him. 
 
 HENRY HEMPHILL, who now 
 lives in San Diego, California, 
 has made remarkable collec- 
 tions of shells. He is a mason 
 by trade, and did not begin 
 to gather shells till he was of 
 adult years, when he picked 
 up a few fora scientific friend. 
 Mr. Hemphill began to get in- 
 terested in the subiect, and at 
 length devoted most of his 
 time to the work of exploring 
 the shores and the mountains 
 for their shells. He spent two 
 winters in Florida, collecting 
 for the government. He has 
 also explored the mountains 
 of Utah and Idaho very exten- 
 sively, searching for snails, 
 of which he has found many 
 species and varieties. 
 
 He is very methodical in his 
 work, and his specimens are 
 beautifully cleaned and pre- 
 pared for the museum. He 
 has probably gathered more 
 shells than any other man 
 now living. 
 
42 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 His chief enemies are men; for they are not 
 slow in finding out his places of retreat, and with 
 shovels they quickly uncover his hiding-place and 
 gather him into their baskets. His flesh, though 
 not quite so delicate as that of the oyster, is very 
 palatable, and a well-made clam chowder is a dish 
 not to be despised. 
 
 Another point in his favor is his cheapness. 
 Comparatively few people can afford to eat oysters 
 freely, on account of the expense, and no one can 
 enter the inclosures and gather them, without per- 
 mission from the owners of the tide-lands. But 
 clams can be found almost anywhere along the 
 borders of the bay, and in most places any one is 
 allowed to dig them out whenever the tide is low. 
 
 And so we see that the railroad has been instru- 
 mental in introducing not only the aristocratic 
 oyster, that is eaten chiefly by the rich, but also 
 the humble clam, which now daily furnishes a 
 large quantity of cheap and nutritious food. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 extensively (ex-ten'siv-ly), Mya (mi'a), arenaria (ar-e- 
 na'ri-a), microscope (mi'kro-skop), communication (k6m- 
 mu-m-ka'shtin), conveniently (kon-ven'yent-ly), concealed 
 (kon-seld'), palatable (pal'at-a-bl), aristocratic (a-ris'to- 
 krat-Ik), nutritious (nu-trlsh'tts), cilia (sll'I-a). 
 
SNAILS AND SLUGS. 
 
 , HERE is an old proverb that a lazy boy 
 is as slow as a snail. The proverb 
 is true, but the snail is not to 
 blame. The blame should all fall 
 upon the lazy boy. The snail is 
 slow because he has no feet like 
 the lizard, no bones and scales like the snake, and 
 no wings like the bee. When he moves, he must 
 glide along the surface on which he is resting, 
 without walking, swimming, or flying. 
 
 Under his body is a flat, muscular organ, some- 
 times called the foot, and on this organ he rests 
 while he is making his slow progress along the 
 ground. As you look at 
 him from above, the won- 
 der is that he can move at 
 all. But if you put him 
 on a moist pane of glass 
 and look through to this 
 curious foot, you will be 
 surprised to see the move- 
 ments of the hundreds of 
 
 43 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Nature of muscles. 
 
 What countries have 
 warm, moist climates? 
 
 Dry climates? 
 
 Why names are in Latin. 
 
 Habits of the blue jay. 
 
 Kindness towards ani- 
 mals. 
 
44 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 little muscles which stretch from one side to the 
 other. 
 
 When he is moving, those muscles in front con- 
 tract first, making his body a little longer; then 
 those farther back, and so on to the very end. 
 You may see half a dozen waves of muscle at one 
 time, one behind the other, and all of them slowly 
 urging the little body onward. You will proba- 
 bly cease to think of the snail as slow or lazy, 
 and will be pleased to see how rapid and perfect 
 are the movements of the parts of this strange 
 foot. 
 
 The snail loves a moist, warm climate. His 
 progress is too slow to make it safe for him to un- 
 dertake a long journey in the daytime, when the 
 sun is shining brightly, and so he does most of 
 his traveling at night, when there is no danger 
 of his being dried up en route. For you see he 
 cannot carry a canteen along with him, like the 
 camel, but must depend on local supplies of 
 moisture. 
 
 For this reason he prefers the winter climate 
 of California to that of the summer, except in the 
 mountains, where snows lie deep for months at a 
 time. In such places, however, you do not often 
 find many snails, for the climate is too cold in 
 winter and too dry in summer to favor their rapid 
 
SNAILS AND SLUGS. 
 
 45 
 
 increase. Most warm, well-watered islands, as the 
 West Indies, abound with snails. 
 
 But in spite of our dry summers a good many 
 snails manage to exist in California, especially ia 
 the neighborhood of the ocean, where the incom- 
 ing fogs keep their soft bodies moist and healthy. 
 If a dry time come, they creep into some sheltered 
 spot, like a crack in a stump, or get under *% 
 friendly old board. Then they retreat into their 
 shells, and spin a heavy curtain across the en- 
 trance, to keep out the dry air and to protect 
 themselves from troublesome intruders. They 
 are cunning fellows, these snails. 
 
 There are two kinds of creatures that are com- 
 monly called snails: those that have shells and 
 those that have none. Of these, the former are 
 the true snails, while those without shells are 
 properly called slugs. The latter are more hardy 
 than the snails, and in some parts of California 
 they are so numerous that they become quite 
 disagreeable. The big yellow ones are often as 
 long as a new lead pencil and three times as far 
 through. Figure 15 shows the appearance of one 
 of these yellow slugs. 
 
 Figure 15. 
 
46 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 They are very fond of orange-peel, and may 
 often be found contentedly gnawing a piece that 
 has been thrown down beside some path. They 
 will also drink milk from a saucer. But, while 
 they enjoy the aromatic orange-peel, they are 
 nearly as willing to feast on the remains of a dead 
 comrade; so you see their tastes are not fastidious. 
 
 There are other slugs, much smaller in size, 
 and usually of a dark color. Some of these lurk 
 in the soil of flower-beds, and come up at night to 
 
 eat the young sweet 
 peas or pansies, but 
 are gone again before 
 Figure 16. y OU CO me out in the 
 
 morning to lament over your misfortune. Lay 
 down some pieces of old board among your flow- 
 ers, and you may be able to trap the spoilers. 
 
 All of the true snails have pretty spiral shells, 
 which they carry around with them wherever 
 they go, as is shown in Figure 16. A part of the 
 body always remains inside the shell; but when 
 the animal is moving or feeding, the greater part 
 of the body is outside, and the place which it once 
 occupied is filled with air. You can find a little 
 hole in the soft ring around the opening of the 
 shell, where the air goes in and out, as need may 
 require. 
 
SNAILS AND SLUGS. 
 
 47 
 
 Figure 17. 
 
 Most of the snail-shells which you find near our 
 coast are of a brownish color, and many of them 
 are marked by darker 
 bands running spirally 
 along with the whorls, or 
 turns of the shell. One 
 of the finest of these 
 shells is shown in Figure 
 17. It is found in Ore- 
 gon and Washington, chiefly in the western por- 
 tions, and it extends as far east as the Cascade 
 Mountains. The Latin name is 
 Helix fidelis, and we can translate 
 it as the " Faithful snail. " 
 
 Figure 18 represents a snail- 
 shell that is found in southern 
 Figure is. California, and Figure 19 shows 
 
 another that is found in the same region. This 
 shell, however, is very different in shape and 
 color. It is almost black, and 
 looks like a great button. When 
 summer comes, its owner bur- 
 rows in the ground arid remains 
 concealed and asleep till the win- 
 ter rains revive its dormant life. Figure 19. 
 
 All of the snail-shells are very pretty objects 
 for the cabinet, and live snails may be kept as 
 
48 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 pets. They will live in boxes spread with moist 
 earth, and as for food, they enjoy such leaves as 
 we ourselves eat, as lettuce and cabbage. 
 
 They like to creep under a convenient piece 
 of bark or an old board, and we must remem- 
 ber that they are most active at night. If 
 you give them a large wire-covered box, they 
 will lay eggs in the springtime, and after a 
 few weeks you may have a fine brood of little 
 snails. 
 
 During the summer months most of the snails 
 either burrow in the sand or seek sheltered spots 
 under logs or pieces of bark. They then retire 
 into their shells as far as possible, and remain 
 dormant till the autumn or winter rains call them 
 out to their active life once more. 
 
 During their period of retirement they are 
 sometimes found by hungry birds like the blue 
 jays, which break open the brittle shells with 
 their strong bills, and cruelly devour the sleeping 
 occupants. I think the plumage of the blue jay 
 is much more to be admired than his character; 
 for he is a willful and cruel destroyer. 
 
 In all our dealings with animals, let us not imi- 
 tate the jay; but on the other hand, let us not in- 
 flict unnecessary pain, nor take any life wantonly. 
 And as we become acquainted with these humble 
 
SNAILS AND SLUGS. 49 
 
 animals, we shall see much to admire and much 
 to give us instruction. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 muscular (mtis'ku-lar), contract (kon-trakf), intruders 
 (m-trud'erz), fastidious (fas-tid'i-us), Helix (helix), fldelis 
 (fi-de'lis), retirement (re-tir'ment), occupants (6k' ku- 
 pantz). 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 84 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 
 
 with me early some morning and 
 we will make a little excursion to the 
 home of the abalones. We will go 
 down to a place where the 
 great cliffs have been pounded 
 and broken by the waves and 
 storms of centuries. All the 
 softer parts of the rock have been gone for a long 
 time, and as fast as new portions crumble, they 
 are swept away immediately and made into sand 
 or clay. 
 
 The harder portions of the ledge stand out, rough 
 and stern, and through 
 the channels between these 
 jagged remains the water 
 surges, cool and green. 
 We put on our long rub- 
 ber boots and wade fear- 
 lessly in where the water 
 is not too deep, though al- 
 ways keeping an eye open 
 for breakers ahead; for we 
 
 50 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Jagged coast-lines. 
 
 Protective organs. 
 
 Can turtles turn over ? 
 
 Salt and fresli waters. 
 
 California Indians. 
 
 Shell-mounds . 
 
 Let us spare natural ob- 
 jects. 
 
 The " Japanese cur- 
 rent." 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 51 
 
 know that waves are no respecters of persons, and 
 it would be no joke to lose one's footing so near 
 to deep water. 
 
 Here we are at last, right in the very home of 
 the creatures that build the finest shells to be 
 found on our coast. They are living on the rocks 
 all about us, and we are very glad to pay them 
 this friendly visit; for it is far from our purpose 
 to disturb 
 'these peace- 
 ful creatures. 
 Weonlywish 
 to see how, 
 theyfare,and>( 
 observe their ' 
 pleasant sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 We notice 
 that they are 
 
 * Figure 20. 
 
 all clinging 
 
 to the surface of the rocks, and that the soft parts 
 of the animal are well protected by the thick, low- 
 arched shell, on one side of which is a row of 
 holes, which answer the same purpose as the 
 chimney of the keyhole limpet. 
 
 We notice, in the second place, that many of 
 these liijollweks seek for some sheltered spot, 
 
52 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 especially for a deep crack in the rocks, into which 
 they may creep and feel secure from their ene- 
 mies. Others are clinging to the under side of 
 an overhanging shelf of stone, or are wedged in 
 between two masses of rock that are lying close 
 together. 
 
 We will put our hands on one of those that are 
 most exposed, and try to lift him up so that we 
 may hold him for a little while, as we would hold 
 a pet kitten. But he evidently is not anxious to 
 be fondled, and only clings the tighter, and ut- 
 terly refuses to accept our well-meant attentions. 
 We cannot blame the poor fellow, for he has no 
 means of knowing that we are unlike those who 
 come to take his life just for the sake of getting 
 his pretty shell. 
 
 If we insist that we must take him in our 
 hands, whether he is willing or not, we shall be 
 obliged to use either stratagem or force, or per- 
 haps both combined. So we cautiously creep up 
 to one that has his shell raised a little, and sud- 
 denly dislodge him with a chisel, or the broad 
 blade of a table-knife. 
 
 Very likely he will fall into the water, and we 
 shall have to roll up our sleeves and reach for 
 him Perhaps even then the water will be too 
 deep, and all that we shall get will be a cool arm- 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 53 
 
 bath. But we try again, and at length we have 
 a fine specimen in our hands. We notice his 
 great yellow foot, which is made up of muscular 
 fibers. It seems to be in continual motion, as if 
 it were trying to get hold of something, which, in 
 fact, is just what it is trying to do. 
 
 This foot has a rim of black skin, and above 
 this is the black mantle, with numerous little 
 feelers arranged like the threads of a fringe. 
 The cold-blooded fellow evidently does not like 
 the warmth of our hands, and so, after looking 
 at him for a little while, we decide to see how he 
 will behave when left to himself. 
 
 We put our creature down upon a mossy rock, 
 and sit down beside him to watch his motions. 
 To keep him from clinging tight again, we turn 
 him on his back; but he is no more easy than a 
 turtle would be in that position. We see him 
 put out his stumpy head, somewhat after the 
 manner of a turtle, though not so far from his 
 shell, and then his great muscular foot grows 
 long and slender, and reaches out over the side of 
 the shell. As soon as a bit of it can feel the rock, 
 it clings fast, shortens itself rapidly, and lo! our 
 abalone is right side up, and is creeping away at 
 a great rate. 
 
 The front and back parts of the single foot 
 
54 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 shorten alternately, and the creature moves clum- 
 sily forward, his gait being ludicrously like that 
 of an elephant. 
 
 We notice that his mouth is a little, puckered 
 hole at the end of a short snout, that his eyes are 
 very small and set on short stalks, and that he 
 has two short, whip-like tentacles, or feelers, just 
 above the eyes. 
 
 The poor fellow travels rapidly for a mollusk, 
 perhaps two or three feet a minute, and we are 
 very willing to allow him to reach the water and 
 once more feel at home; for we know that all his 
 motions will seem more graceful and natural 
 when he is submerged, than when he is trying to 
 work in just thin air, such as we have to breathe. 
 
 In fact, he will not live very long in the air, 
 nor even in a jar of salt water; and as for fresh 
 water, why, if you feel that you must take his life, 
 the most merciful way to do it is to drop him 
 into a pail of water from a brook or spring, just 
 warm enough to wade in, and he will be past 
 feeling in a very short time. 
 
 Then you can easily separate the shell from 
 the body by thrusting the end of a broad knife 
 between the head and the shell, and loosening 
 the great muscle which is attached to the inside 
 of the shell. And then you can see the beautiful 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 55 
 
 rainbow colors of which the lining of the shell 
 seems to be made, especially at the place where 
 you loosen the muscle. 
 
 In fact, it is to obtain these lovely pearl-lined 
 shells that so many of these creatures are an- 
 nually caught along our coasts. The small ones 
 are neglected, but men go out in boats at low 
 tide, when the waves are quiet, and with hooks 
 and chisels 
 on the ends 
 of long poles 
 dislodge them 
 from their 
 resting-places 
 on the rocks 
 and take them 
 on board. 
 
 Of late, reg- Fi e ure 21 - 
 
 ular diving-suits have been used, and in some 
 places the poor abalones have been so hunted 
 that stringent laws have been made to prevent 
 their extermination. 
 
 It is not the shell alone that is valuable; the 
 great muscular foot is also prized for food, es- 
 pecially by the Chinese. Probably it was also 
 eaten by the Indians, for along our coast, where 
 abalones abound, there may be found vast num- 
 
56 WESTERN SERIES OF READERSo 
 
 bers of old shells lying on the surrounding cliffs 
 and hills, far too high to have been cast up by 
 the waves. 
 
 They are often mixed with charcoal, ashes, and 
 various bones and shells, and sometimes stone 
 tools are found near. These show that the ab- 
 origines were accustomed to come down to the 
 seaside and gather harvests of food from its pro- 
 ductive sands and rocks. 
 
 If you dissect the head of a large abalone, you 
 will be surprised to see what a large ribbon of 
 teeth you will find in its mouth, and you will 
 understand better how it rasps its green food from 
 the little sea-plants which grow so abundantly 
 upon the wave-swept rocks. 
 
 But the tide is coming, and soon our friends 
 will be covered with the cool water, much to their 
 satisfaction. We will just glance around to see 
 what are the conditions, and then picture to our- 
 selves their ocean home. 
 
 When we, from the shore, can see nothing but 
 the tops of a few black rocks standing out amid 
 the foam of the waves, we know that at the base 
 of those rocks the cool, clear water is gently mov- 
 ing in from the deep sea, or slowly passing out 
 as the tide goes back again. 
 
 We know that a soft light conies in from above, 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 57 
 
 that the delicate sea-mosses are stretching out 
 their feathery arms and gently waving their bril- 
 liantly colored branches. 
 
 We know that the scene is full of life and 
 action; that graceful fishes are swimming about; 
 that companies of crabs, clad in red and green 
 armor, are actively marching back and forth; 
 that brilliant sponges are drinking in their food ; 
 that corals and starfishes, and seaworms and 
 sea-cucumbers, and dozens of other sea-creatures, 
 are all alive and active, and that their life is go- 
 ing on as merrily as ours does at a May Day 
 picnic. 
 
 Our particular friends the abalones then ven- 
 ture out of their cracks, and hobnob with their 
 fellows in a sociable manner until an occasional 
 puff of air from above warns them all that the 
 tide is going out, and that it will behoove all that 
 can do so to hie to safe quarters, and all the rest 
 to veil their charms as much as possible. 
 
 And so the sea weeds and mosses lie flat on the 
 rocks, the gorgeous worms creep into their holes, 
 the mollusks into their shells, and the fishes swim 
 out to sea, and when we arrive with our long 
 rubber boots, nearly everything seems to be 
 drooping or asleep. 
 
 But if it is so beautiful when it is at its worst, 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 59 
 
 how lovely must be the ocean home when it is 
 covered with water; when its plants are all grow- 
 ing, its fishes all swimming, and its creeping 
 things all creeping. 
 
 It is true that we are not fitted to live in this 
 ocean home, and it would be a very sorry thing if 
 we should ever fall overboard and actually enter 
 it; but as we stand on the brink of the sea we can 
 look off and be glad to know that under the 
 waves there is as much beauty, and perhaps as 
 much contentment, as there is above them. 
 
 There are several different species of Haliotis, 
 or abalone, some of which are rarely collected. 
 Those which you will find on the shore, or which 
 you will see in small collections, will probably all 
 belong to one or more of three species. The 
 name Haliotis is the Greek for " Sea-ear, " and 
 these creatures are so called because the shells 
 somewhat resemble a huge ear. 
 
 The most common kind in southern California 
 is the Green Abalone, shown in Figure 20. The 
 outside of the shell is of a dull-gray color, but the 
 inside is of beautiful greenish pearl, shaded with 
 blue and red. The shell is rather thin, and has 
 about six open holes. A good-sized specimen is 
 six inches long. 
 
 The Black Abalone (Figure 21) is very common 
 
60 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 in the vicinity of Monterey. It is commonly 
 smaller than the other kinds, and has a dark, 
 smooth exterior, while within it shows the rain- 
 bow colors very plainly. Sometimes as many as 
 nine open holes can be counted. 
 
 The last kind is the Red Abalone. A good 
 picture of the outside of a small shell is shown in 
 Figure 22. It lives with the last species, but it 
 
 grows to a 
 much greater 
 size, occasion- 
 ally being as 
 large as a 
 soup-plate. It 
 is thick and 
 heavy when 
 old, and is 
 readily distin- 
 guished by its 
 
 red edges and exterior, and by its few large, open 
 holes. 
 
 There is another kind that is found on the west 
 coast of Vancouver Island. These shells also 
 have a red edge, but they are very thin, and they 
 do not grow to a great size. They very much 
 resemble the abalones which the Japanese gather 
 from the shores of their country, and which they 
 
ABALONES, OR SEA-EARS. 61 
 
 use so skillfully in making various pretty dishes 
 and trinkets. For other rare kinds I must again 
 refer you to the books which describe shells more 
 fully. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 abalone ( ab-a-lo'ney ), evidently ( ev'I-dent-ly ) , cau- 
 tiously (ka'shus-ly), arranged (ar-rangd'), alternately (al- 
 ter'nat-ly), tentacles (ten'ta-klz), submerged (sftb-merjd'), 
 lining (lin'ing), extermination (ex-ter-mi-na'shun), bril- 
 liantly (bril'yant-ly), behoove (be-hoov'), Haliotis (hal-i- 
 o'tis), Vancouver (van-koo'ver), gorgeous (gor'jtts), abo- 
 rigines (ab-6-rij'i-nez). 
 
THE STORY OF THE PECTEN. 
 
 (AS TOLD BY HIMSELF.) 
 
 NE bright morning in spring- 
 time I found myself swim- 
 ming with a number of my 
 brothers and sisters in a 
 little pool which had been 
 left among the rocks when 
 the tide went down. Of 
 course I did not then un- 
 derstand that there was such a thing as a tide; 
 the only thing I did know was, that I felt happy 
 and that I could snap my two shells together and 
 make myself dart off through the water at a great 
 rate. 
 
 After doing this a little 
 while, I felt tired; so I just 
 stopped swimming, and 
 found that I slowly settled 
 down upon some sand that 
 lay at the bottom of the 
 pool. Then I opened my 
 shells and looked out of 
 
 62 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 The Pecten Shell. 
 
 "Alr-ttzz." 
 
 Best bait for flshes. 
 
 "Sea-fairies." 
 
 What is a byssus ? 
 
 Dyes that fade. 
 
 Fast colors. 
 
 Shell-cabinets. 
 
"TY 
 
 THE STORY OF THE PECTEN. 63 
 
 the little eyes which are in the margin of my 
 mantle. 
 
 I could not see far, but everything about me 
 looked so fresh and cool that I concluded to go to 
 sleep for a little while, and then wake up and swim 
 races with my brothers. 
 
 I do not know how long I slept, but after a hazy 
 dream about nothing, I was awakened by hearing 
 a rush of water over my head, or over what you, 
 perhaps, would call my head; for to tell the truth, 
 I never had a head and never expect to have one. 
 But a head is not necessary, if one has eyes and 
 ears in other parts of his body, as I have. 
 
 At any rate, I heard a great rushing sound 
 above me, and I started up in considerable alarm 
 and began to snap my shells vigorously. I was 
 so light and agile that my pair of shells served me 
 as well in the water as a pair of wings serve a bird 
 in the air; so away I flew towards the surface of 
 the water, which I soon found was in a state of 
 great commotion. 
 
 The little pool in which I went to sleep was 
 now all covered, and the waves were whirling and 
 tossing as if they intended to mix the air and 
 water together into a kind of soda-water fizz. 
 
 I have sin.ce learned that that was just what 
 they were doing, and that air-fizz is just what a 
 
64 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 great many creatures in the sea are particularly 
 fond of, and that they make their homes where 
 they will be pretty sure to get it fresh at least 
 twice a day. 
 
 But I soon saw that this place where the waves 
 were churning air was no place for me; so with a 
 few bold snaps I shot off for deeper water. I was 
 none too quick, for just as I had made up my 
 mind to move, I caught sight of a big-mouthed 
 creature, that men call a fish, coming straight 
 for me. 
 
 He doubtless knew that the incoming tide would 
 startle a great many helpless crea- 
 tures like myself, and he had come, 
 ready to swallow us as we were 
 trying to make our escape. 
 
 Luckily for me, his attention was 
 Figure 23. turned at that instant to a fat worm 
 which seemed to be swimming just in front of 
 me. His mouth closed on the worm, and in an 
 instant more he was shooting upward as if he had 
 been pulled by a string, and I never saw him 
 again. Perhaps some of you may know why he 
 disappeared so suddenly, and can guess what be- 
 came of him. 
 
 I was dreadfully scared, for there were other 
 fishes all about, and I am sure some of my poor 
 
THE STORY OF THE PECTEN. 65 
 
 brothers did not escape, but I did, and in a few 
 moments I was down in the deep water where 
 everything is quiet and still. 
 
 That night, before I went to sleep, I spun some 
 strong, silky threads with my one finger, and fas- 
 tened myself to the stem of a great seaweed, so 
 that I would be safe even if a great storm should 
 arise. You can see the little notch in one of my 
 shells, where I put out my finger and made fast 
 my threads. It is just under one of the " ears " of 
 the shell, and you can find it in Figure 23. 
 
 Well, I lived down in the water for a good many 
 months, and I saw many things that you would 
 like to see. There was a whole bed of my brothers 
 and sisters around me, and all sorts of funny 
 things used to come to visit us. Sometimes a big 
 jelly-fish would swim by, looking for all the world 
 like a glass umbrella. We seldom spoke to the 
 jellies, for they seemed rather vain of their long 
 trains, and we did not care to encourage them. 
 
 But they had some little cousins that were the 
 prettiest creatures we ever saw. They have a very 
 long Greek name, beginning with C, but we always 
 called them " sea-fairies. " They have a round 
 body, about as big as a small marble, and it is just 
 as clear as a diamond. They swim by means of 
 little rows of fringes on their bodies, and some of 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 8 5 
 
66 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 them have a pair of slender arms for catching 
 food. 
 
 We always loved to have them come and tell us 
 stories of what they saw while they were swim- 
 ming near the surface, of birds and boats and 
 bathers, and of the funny times the boys had when 
 they were learning to swim. 
 
 Sometimes they would coax us to reach out our 
 
 little fingers and 
 untie our cords and 
 take a swim. We 
 were often willing 
 to do this in fine 
 weather, and many 
 a famous j ourney we 
 have taken, some- 
 times visiting other 
 species of pectens 
 that have their 
 home far out from 
 
 Figure 24. the shore. The pic- 
 
 ture of one of these is shown in Figure 24. His 
 color is pink, and his shell is much prettier than 
 ours. Again, we would follow another kind, 
 which look like Figure 25, but some of them once 
 ventured too near a piece of marsh-land, and got 
 stranded when the tide turned. 
 
THE STORY OF THE PECTEN. 
 
 67 
 
 I grew rapidly, getting my food from little 
 plants and animals that abound in sea-water, and 
 as I kept enlarging my pretty shells, they never 
 failed to cover me when I wished to be alone. I 
 have heard that our shells have been used for 
 many purposes by men and women, and of course 
 the children al- 
 ways love to find 
 them, and use 
 them for spoons 
 and dishes. 
 
 An old crab 
 told me that one 
 day he found a 
 book lying open 
 on the rocks. Of 
 course he could 
 not read it, for it 
 was not written 
 in crab language, 
 but he did look Figure 25 - 
 
 at the pictures, and he declares that one of them 
 was of a pilgrim with a shell like ours in his hat. 
 
 He also saw pictures of needle-books and pin- 
 cushions with scallop-shells on the sides. You 
 know that some people call us scallops, though we 
 really prefer to be known as pectens. 
 
68 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 But the funniest thing of all was told me by an 
 oyster, who said his grandfather had heard a 
 fisherman say that sometimes the meats of oysters 
 are mixed with cracker-crumbs and butter and 
 baked in large scallop-shells, and so when they 
 are brought to the table they are called escalloped 
 oysters. 
 
 And he said, too, that lately the cooks leave out 
 the shells (for which I am very thankful), but 
 keep the name, though somewhat shortened, and 
 so they are called " scalloped oysters, " even if they 
 are baked in an earthen dish. And a sea-gull 
 once told me that he had seen shells like ours 
 carved in marble or fine wood and used for beau- 
 tiful decorations. 
 
 I feel that I ain growing old, and that in a little 
 time nothing but my shells will be left; so I have 
 been asking carefully about my ancestors and my 
 kindred, for I want to know who have gone be- 
 fore me. 
 
 I find that my family is a very old one, and 
 that we have colonies all over the world. Our 
 flesh has always been esteemed a delicacy, and our 
 shells have been much admired by men. But, 
 better than that, I find that we, and a very few of 
 our near relatives, are the only bivalves in the 
 ocean that have the power to swim freely when- 
 ever they choose. 
 
THE STORY OF THE PECTEN. 69 
 
 Some of my relatives have shells that are 
 fully six inches across, while others are tiny 
 little things not larger than a dime. But our 
 oddest relative is the rock-oyster, or winter-shell, 
 as some people call him. 
 Figure 26 shows you how 
 he looks, and he may be 
 found all along the coast 
 of California. 
 
 When his children are | 
 young, they look like lit- 
 tle yellow-shelled pectens, 
 and they swim about and 
 moor themselves as we do. 
 But after a while they grow 
 weary of a wandering life, 
 and then they settle down 
 in an old abalorie-shell or 
 a hollow place in some 
 
 rock, and cement one of their shells firmly to the 
 new support. 
 
 As time goes by, they enlarge their shells on 
 whatever side there is the most room, and so when 
 they get to be old, some are long and narrow, some 
 round and flat, while others are cramped or half 
 doubled up. 
 
 And as soon as they settle down they close up 
 
70 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 the finger-hole, for they have no more need to 
 spin anchor-threads; but you can always see on 
 the shell the place that used to be open. You can 
 tell their shells, even if they are old and broken, 
 for they always color the part next to the hinge 
 with a rich purple that never fades or washes out. 
 But, good by, now, for I must go, or the tide 
 will leave me high and dry. When I am dead 
 you may find my shells washed up on the beach. 
 If you do find them, please put them in your cab- 
 inet with a proper label; and whenever you look 
 at them, think of me, and of my little story about 
 the pectens. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 vigorously (vig'or-fts-ly), commotion (kftm-mo'shiin), 
 escalloped (es-kol'ftpt), ancestors (an'ses-terz), colonies 
 (ktfl'o-mz), bivalves (bfvalvz), delicacy (deTi-ka-sy). 
 
MUSSELS. 
 
 NE of the most devoted rock-lovers to 
 be found in the whole ocean is the 
 mussel. It seems to know that 
 it must make itself fast to a 
 rock, and it is due to this in- 
 stinct that the mussel is able 
 to live in very rough water, 
 and to safely keep house where 
 
 many other mollusks would shortly lose their 
 
 lives. 
 
 The common mussel of the Pacific coast has 
 
 been known for a long time. As early as 1789, 
 
 Captain George Dixon wrote home to England 
 
 that he had found on our northern coast a kind of 
 
 mussel very much larger 
 
 than those of Europe. He 
 
 wrote that he had seen 
 
 one shell that was nine 
 
 and one half inches in 
 
 length; and he added that 
 
 the natives sharpened these 
 
 shells to a fine point and 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Tools made from shells. 
 Early voyages to this 
 
 coast. 
 Epidermis. 
 
 Structure of wharves. 
 How creatures bore 
 
 holes. 
 
 71 
 
72 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 used them for the heads of their harpoons and 
 fish-spears. 
 
 '(The shells are wrinkled," wrote Captain Dixon, 
 and if you will notice Figure 27, you will see some 
 of the wrinkles of which he speaks. This mussel 
 is very abundant in rocky places up and down the 
 coast. The picture represents a common-sized 
 shell, but in places where they are not often mo- 
 lested, they glow much larger. The color of the 
 shell is a rich bluish purple, sometimes mixed 
 
 with white and brown. 
 When they are polished, 
 some of them are very 
 beautiful. 
 
 Like all of the bivalve 
 mollusks) tho young mus- 
 sels are sent out into the 
 ocean as tiny swimming 
 things that would soon 
 perish if they did not 
 quickly find a place of 
 refuge. They find this 
 most commonly on the 
 face of a rock, for they 
 have a wonderful power 
 of spinning a set of strong, 
 horny threads, called a 
 
 CAPTAIN GEORGE DIXON was 
 the commander of a vessel 
 named the Queen Charlotte. 
 Captain Portlock command- 
 ed a larger vessel, called the 
 King George. These two ves- 
 sels were sent out from Eng- 
 land in the year 1785, to ex- 
 plore the northwest coast of 
 America and establish trade 
 relations with the natives. 
 The scheme was very success- 
 iul, and large quantities of 
 fine furs were purchased by 
 these captains, which they 
 took to China and sold at 
 a great profit. The ves- 
 sels touched several times at 
 the Sandwich Islands, which 
 had been discovered a few 
 years before by Captain 
 Cook. After sailing round 
 the world, they returned to 
 England in 1788. An ac- 
 count of the voyage was 
 published in 1789. 
 
MUSSELS. 
 
 73 
 
 byssus, and fastening themselves firmly to the 
 solid support. 
 
 And so you can often find the side of a ledge 
 that faces the sea almost covered with mussel- 
 shells, set as closely as they can lie, and all so 
 firmly anchored by the horny threads that you 
 can hardly pull off one shell at a time. 
 
 When the tide comes in, you can see why they 
 need these strong anchor-chains, for the waves 
 will sweep up and down the face of the ledge, 
 washing away everything that 
 is not fastened in the securest 
 manner. 
 
 But this dashing of the 
 waves is just what the mussels 
 enjoy. They know that they 
 cannot be torn off; so they just 
 open their shells and breathe 
 in the refreshing salt foam, 
 which purifies their sluggish 
 blood and brings to their 
 mouths an abundance of food. 
 What care they for the howl of 
 the tempest or the dash of the 
 breakers? They have " built 
 their house upon a rock," and 
 the storm cannot harm them. Figure 27. 
 
74 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 If you examine the organs of a mussel, you will 
 find that the flesh is of a bright orange color. 
 There are four ffills, two on each side, looking like 
 delicate ribbons. These gills are the organs by 
 which it breathes, and they also help gather its 
 food. The outside of the shell is covered with a 
 horny skin, brown or black in color; this is apt 
 
 Figure 28. 
 
 to peel off from the older parts of the shell, show- 
 ing the purple and white beneath. 
 
 Mussels are sometimes gathered by men for food, 
 and they make excellent bait for fishing. It some- 
 times happens, however, that their flesh seems to be 
 poisonous to men, and this fact should make one 
 careful about eating too many, until they have been 
 tested. At most times they have a delicious flavor. 
 
 Besides the common mussel, there are several 
 others which have similar habits. One of these 
 lives in San Francisco Bay, and attaches itself 
 to the piles which support the wharves. Its 
 shells are small and smooth. Another kind is 
 known as the Horse-mussel. U3ne of these is 
 
\ . . Figure 29. 
 
 MUSSELS. 75 
 
 shown in Figure 28. J The shell is thin and delicate, 
 and (you notice) that the umba. or shoulder, is not 
 quite at one end, as in the true mussel. 
 /Figure 29 shows the shape of)another 
 small mussel, which sometimes lives un- 
 der stones j f ' Its shell is full of wrinkles. 
 But the oddest of the whole family of 
 mussels is th Pea-pod Shell/shown in 
 Figure 30.y This mussel is not content 
 with fastening itself by threads, but it also bores 
 a deep hole into the very rock, creeping inside as 
 it grows, and leaving only a little opening for the 
 water to come and go. 
 
 As the shell grows larger, the creature bores 
 deeper, and thus it passes its life safely, though 
 
 how little 
 it knows 
 ( of what is 
 
 re 80. going Qn 
 
 in the great world ! Are you not thankful that you 
 are not a mussel? 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 byssus (bis'-sus). A group of threads which hold a shell to a 
 
 rock. 
 
 securest (se-kur'est). In the safest and surest manner. 
 delicious (de-lish'us). Having a fine flavor. 
 harpoon (har-pobn'). A spear to which a cord is attached. 
 
 It is used for catching whales and seals. 
 
THE SEA-SHELL'S ANSWER. 
 
 I. 
 
 OSING me a song, lovely child of the sea, 
 9 For my heart seeks to fathom thy deep mystery 
 And I long for the story thy cold lips could tell 
 Of the forces which made thee a beautiful shell. 
 
 II. 
 
 O, sing of the life that fashioned thy 
 
 form 
 With such wonderful grace, and with 
 
 colors so warm 
 Has dyed thy pure marbles, that radiant 
 
 they shine, 
 Like imprisoned sunbeams ; say, was 
 
 that life thine? 
 
 III. 
 
 Did thy frail mollusk know, as he fash- 
 ioned his cell, 
 
 He was building a palace within which 
 to dwell? 
 
 Did his cold heart beat quicker as each 
 added line 
 
 Made thy beauty more perfect? Was 
 his joy like mine? 
 
 76 
 
 Figure 31. 
 
THE SEA-SHELL'S ANSWER. 77 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then the fair shell replied : Long ago it was said 
 
 That the skeptic would doubt though one rose from the dead. 
 
 Your questions are right, and the answers are plain, 
 
 But approach me with faith, or your search will be vain. 
 
 V. 
 
 Seek for what is revealed, nor with less be content ; 
 For -with every fair form a true message is sent. 
 Could the dull mollusk see what to you is so plain? 
 Or could beautiful lines bring to him aught of gain? 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lo, a Power divine in all nature is found ; 
 
 A Power omniscient, unfailing, profound ; 
 
 A great Heart, that loves beauty, and order, and light, 
 
 In the flowers, in the shells, in the stars of the night. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And this Power divine, this Heart wondrous kind, 
 
 Bids us work out a message to each human mind. 
 
 So we build as He guides us ; and happy is he 
 
 Who can read God's great thoughts in the shells of the sea. 
 
FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS. 
 
 JJPPOSE we take a summer ride to- 
 gether and visit the mountains. You 
 can leave the great city when the sun 
 is getting low in the west, and cross 
 the bay in a ferry-boat. I w r ill join 
 you at Oakland pier, where the Ore- 
 gon express train stands waiting, with its great 
 engine puffing and blowing like an uneasy giant. 
 We show our tickets and take our place in the 
 proper car; the bell rings, and we are off. 
 
 We fly through Berkeley, leaving the groups of 
 colleges on the right, follow up the east coast of 
 the bay, and at Port Costa our train is loaded 
 upon the great boat and 
 ferried over to Benicia. 
 
 It is time to go to bed 
 now, so we prepare to spend 
 the night. We travel two 
 miles while undressing, an- 
 other mile while we are get- 
 ting settled in our berths; 
 but in a space of three 
 
 78 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Great ferry-boats. 
 Sleeping-cars. 
 Mount Shasta. 
 Glaciers. 
 
 Rivers come from moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Spare the forests. 
 Pearl buttons. 
 Summer vacations. 
 
FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS. 79 
 
 miles more' we are sound asleep, and dreaming of 
 bells and whistles and other things that make a 
 big noise. 
 
 At Sacramento our train stops, and as we 
 sleepily glance out of the window we see 
 electric lights and loads of trunks, and hear 
 the watchman strike the wheels of our car 
 to tell whether they are sound or cracked. 
 
 
 
 Then we settle back and feel so sleepy that 
 
 we care but little about the other attractions of 
 
 Sacramento. 
 
 Pretty soon we know that we are moving again; 
 but that is all we do know till we rouse with a 
 feeling that it must be near morning. We look 
 out of the window, rising upon one elbow to do so, 
 and we find that it is already quite light, and that 
 we are rapidly passing by bushes, and rocks, 
 arid grain-fields; and in a little while our 
 train stops at Redding. 
 
 We hastily dress, take a sniff of fresh air, 
 and are off again. And now what a beau- 
 tiful ride is before us. We are just enter- 
 Fig. 33. ing the upper valley of the Sacramento 
 River, and all the way is full of interest. We have 
 left the broad plains, and now the mountains begin 
 to close in around us. 
 
 The river, that, farther down, was wide and still, 
 
80 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS, 
 
 is here a rushing stream, hurrying along over 
 black rocks, making here a cascade and there a 
 sand-bar, and playing hide-and-seek with the 
 railroad as it dodges first to the right side of the 
 track and then to the left. 
 
 Beside the water grow the willows, and the 
 pink azalias, and the sweet syringas. On every 
 little island and all along the banks are the broad- 
 leaved saxifrages, giving the river a tropical as- 
 pect. In the still pools we sometimes think we 
 see a big speckled trout. 
 
 On and on we go, our puffing engine turning 
 this way and that, to avoid a hill on one side and 
 to cross a bridge on the other. As we look ahead 
 as far as possible, we catch a glimpse of some- 
 thing wonderfully white and wonderfully large, 
 like a great cloud in the sky. 
 
 Was it a cloud, we wonder; for it could not 
 have been for surely we are not near Shasta 
 yet. But it was Shasta, all the same; and as we go 
 on, we see it again, and know that we are really 
 nearing that magnificent old snowy volcano. 
 
 At Mossbrae Falls the water from its melting 
 snows are fairly bursting out of the fern-clad 
 rocks; while from the Soda Springs we take a 
 draught of a delicious liquid fresh from nature's 
 laboratory. 
 
FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS. 81 
 
 And now the railroad leaves the river, for the 
 canon is too deep and too narrow for river and 
 road both, and the train creeps upward over the 
 crookedest line in the country, till we stop 
 at Sisson, right at the foot of the grand 
 old mountain. 
 
 It is almost noon now, and the sun is 
 shining full on the great white fields of 
 snow that lie above the line of green 
 woods. Here we will stop and stay for a few 
 weeks, and every day we shall be getting better 
 acquainted with Mount Shasta. 
 
 We will watch it in the morning, and at sunset, 
 and by moonlight. We will gather flowers at its 
 base and explore its green forests, and even climb 
 far up into the perpetual winter of its glaciers. 
 
 Then we shall begin to understand that if there 
 were no Shasta, there would be no Sacramento, 
 and that from those vast fields of 
 snow and ice come the pure streams 
 i of water which all the summer long 
 'flow joyously down to the parched 
 
 Figure 35. valleys, carrying health and prosper- 
 ity as they go. 
 
 "But what," you may ask, "has all this to do 
 with shells?' 7 In one sense it has everything to 
 do with them; for the melting snows fill the 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 86 
 
82 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 springs, and the springs fill the streams, and the 
 streams fill the lakes and the rivers, and in the 
 streams and lakes and rivers live the 
 fresh-water mollusks which we are to 
 study. So you see the mountains really 
 give them their home. 
 
 And some of them live very near the 
 mountain. About a mile beyond Sisson 
 a great spring bursts out from the foot 
 Figure 36. p j a fay fan w hich is itself at the foot of 
 the great mountain. The water from this spring 
 is as cold as ice and as clear as crystal, and there 
 is so much that it quickly forms a beautiful stream 
 several yards wide. 
 
 Great firs and cedars grow along its banks, red 
 lilies and blue monk's-hoods bloom 
 beside its waters, while ferns and 
 sedges bathe their roots below, and 
 grow up green, fresh, and graceful 
 above. 
 
 And in such a beautiful home, 
 right in the very source of the great 
 river, live hundreds of little black 
 water - snails, their smooth shells 
 shaped like Figure 32, though many 
 of them are larger than the picture. 
 
 Figure 37. 
 
 Ill Oregon 
 
 you find another species, with wrinkled shells like 
 the one shown in Figure 33., 
 
FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKSo 83 
 
 In many brooks you can find lively little 
 creatures with thin, horn-colored shells like Fig- 
 ure 34. Notice that the opening is on the left 
 side, while almost all shells open on the right. 
 
 Figure 38. 
 
 Again, you may find shells that are rolled up in 
 a flat coil, like Figure 35. 
 
 The name of these flat snails is Planorbis. In 
 some lakes, or even some ponds, there are also 
 creatures with thin shells shaped like Figure 36 
 or Figure 37. These are the pond-snails, called 
 Limnsea, and they are found all over the world. 
 
84 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 But besides all these creeping water-snails, and 
 many others like them that I have not mentioned, 
 there is another kind of mollusks with bivalve 
 shells, which are sometimes found living half- 
 buried in the sandy bottoms of rivers and lakes. 
 They are often called " Fresh-water Mussels/' 
 though they are very different from the mussels 
 of the sea. 
 
 Two species, of about the natural size, are 
 shown in Figures 38 and 39. Those of you who 
 live near a lake or a stream may be able to find 
 some of them, or perhaps other kinds. I have 
 been told that they live abundantly in the Sacra- 
 mento River, after it leaves the mountains and 
 becomes quiet. 
 
 Most of their shells on this coast are rather thin 
 and brittle, on account of the lack of limestone in 
 our mountains; but in the Mississippi Valley they 
 are very numerous and strong, and inside these 
 "Unio" shells are sometimes found beautiful 
 pearls. Great numbers of these shells are now 
 gathered and made into buttons and other arti- 
 cles of pearl. 
 
 There are also many small bivalves living in 
 some streams. Some of their full-grown shells 
 are not so large as a pea, but the little mol- 
 lusks living within them are active fellows, and 
 
FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS. 85 
 
 climb the stems of water-plants with the greatest 
 ease. 
 
 So, you see, wherever may be your home, or 
 wherever you go for your summer vacation, by 
 
 Figure 39. 
 
 the mountain or the river or the sea, you may 
 expect to find some of these forms of life. As 
 you study their habits and examine their shells, 
 you will better understand what a wonderful place 
 is this old world in which we live. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 hastily (has'ti-ly), azalia (a-zal'ya), syringa (sir-m'ga), 
 magnificent (mag-nifi-sSnt), delicious (de-lish'tis), ac- 
 quainted ak-quant'ed), perpetual (per-pet'u'al), monk's- 
 hood (mtinks'hood), Planorbis (plan-or'bis), Ldmnaea (Hm- 
 ne'a), saxifrage (sax'I-fraj), Unio (u'm-o). 
 
A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS. 
 
 VERYBODY knows that olives grow on 
 trees, and that they are used for making 
 oil and also for pickling. They 
 are small, smooth, oval fruits, 
 
 ^\7 -7^- and are green at first, but be- 
 : come purple when they ripen. 
 But perhaps there are many 
 people who do not know that there are many ocean 
 shells that are also called Olives. And they are 
 called so because they, too, are small and smooth 
 and of an olive shape. As to their color, they are 
 never green, but some of them are purple, and 
 almost all of them are very pretty. 
 
 The little animal that 
 lives in these shells loves 
 to burrow in the sand, 
 not very far down, but just 
 deep enough to cover the 
 shell, while a pipe thrust 
 up through the sand sup- 
 plies the creature with wa- 
 ter for its gills. 
 
 86 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 dead 
 
 Olive-culture . 
 
 Live shells and 
 shells. 
 
 Pictures on shells. 
 
 Price of clams In mar- 
 kets. 
 
 Long Beacli. 
 
 Nature of drills. 
 
 Vegetarians. 
 
A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS. 87 
 
 Sometimes a great number of these olives live 
 together, and the bed of sand will be quite alive 
 with them; but if you go again to the same place, 
 you may find that they have all decided to move; 
 and though you search for an hour, you may not 
 be able to find a single shell. 
 
 They never like to be in the air, and if you 
 wish to find them at home, you must go when 
 the tide is the very lowest, and then be prepared 
 to get wet while you are searching for them. 
 But their shells are so pretty that you 
 ought to get at least a few for your cab- 
 inet. 
 
 The common California Olive-shell, 
 when full-grown, is almost the size of 
 the picture (Figure 40), and varies in 
 color from almost pure white to a 
 
 Figure 40. 
 
 brownish purple. The animal which 
 lives within the shell spreads out folds of soft, 
 moist skin, or mantle, as it is called, and covers 
 the shell most of the time, thus keeping it smooth 
 and free from injury. But when the mollusk dies, 
 the shell is tossed about by the waves, and gets 
 worn and battered. 
 
 This last is true of all sea-shells, and it is easy 
 to tell what are called dead shells from those 
 which were taken with the animal still in them, 
 
88 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 because the former are more dull in color and 
 more rough in appearance. 
 
 The largest Olive-shells that you see in collec- 
 tions and museums come from parts of the ocean 
 which are much warmer than the water on our 
 coast. Some of them are three or four inches long, 
 and the}?- are very beautiful. The largest one has 
 
 Figure 41. 
 
 markings on it, which make it look like a camp of 
 soldiers; and so it is called the Tent-shell. 
 
 In the sand and gravel along the coast you may 
 -sometimes find other interesting shells, though 
 they seldom live in groups, like the olives. One 
 of the prettiest is shown in Figure 41, and is 
 called the Red-lined Sand-shell. The shells are 
 pure white within, and on the outside there are 
 stripes of light red, like the rays which come up 
 from a fine sunset. 
 
A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS. 
 
 89 
 
 There are also very many lines of growth. 
 These lines are markings, showing the shape and 
 size of the shell at all the stages of its growth. 
 You can see some of these lines in the picture. 
 
 Figure 42. 
 
 The last one marks the outline of the shell; then 
 as you go upward they are nearly the same shape, 
 but grow smaller and smaller, till they meet at 
 the point of the shell which is called the umbo. 
 
 In this way the simple story of the mollusk's 
 life is written on the outside of its shell. Some- 
 times a valve gets injured while the mollusk is 
 alive. If the damage is not too great, he bravely 
 goes to work to repair it, and since he works 
 
90 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 within, you can see on 
 the outside just where 
 the break has been 
 mended. 
 
 Another Sand-shell 
 is shown in Figure 42. 
 This one is pure white, 
 and has no red lines 
 
 Figure 43. 
 
 is very thin, too, but the lines of growth are quite 
 clearly shown. 
 
 There are many others, quite similar in shape 
 
 Figure 44. 
 
A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS. 91 
 
 and habits, but this book would be 
 
 too large if we were to describe them 
 
 all. I suppose every one of these 
 
 clams are good for food, though you seldom find 
 
 them in the markets. 
 
 But Figure 43 represents one that is always in 
 the San Francisco markets, where it is called the 
 Hard-shelled Clam. Other people call it the Car- 
 pet-shell, because it is thickly set with little ribs 
 or ridges, like a piece of Brussels carpet. Many 
 of the shells also have pretty patterns painted nat- 
 urally upon their outer surface. A great many 
 of these clams are gathered on the shores of To- 
 males Bay; but they live all along the coast. 
 
 Figure 44 shows another fine clam which is sel- 
 dom seen in San Francisco, but which may be 
 bought in the Portland markets; while Figure 45 
 gives you an idea of the little Wedge-shell, which 
 lives so abundantly in the sand at Lon'g Beach, in 
 Los Angeles County. Although it is so small, it 
 is used for food in the following manner. 
 
 A shovelful of the sand in which they live is 
 put into a sieve, and this is shaken in the water. 
 The sand all washes out and the shells are left. 
 When enough have been gathered, they are again 
 carefully washed, and then put into a kettle of 
 boiling water. 
 
92 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 In this way they are killed instantly, and the 
 shells open, allowing the rich juices of the clams 
 to come out and flavor the soup. The empty 
 shells settle to the bottom, and now a little sea- 
 soning is all that is necessary to prepare the 
 delicious soup for the table. 
 
 As this is the smallest mollusk that is eaten on 
 this coast, it is proper that we should now pass on 
 to the largest one. Figure 46, though a good-sized 
 picture, is only one half as long as the real shell. 
 We will call this creature the Giant Clam, though 
 
 Figure 46. 
 
A GROUP OF SAND-DWELLERS. 93 
 
 it has various names in the north, where it is dug 
 out of a very deep burrow in the sand and mud. 
 
 If you wish to know its true name, you can look 
 at the list of Names of Figures, at the end of this 
 book. But it is very proper to call it a giant; for 
 when you are making soup, you must remember 
 that it would take more than a thousand of the 
 little Wedge-shells to fur- 
 nish as much meat as is 
 contained in a single 
 Giant Clam. 
 
 There is just one more , 
 sand-dweller that we will I 
 think of to-day, and he 
 is very different indeed 
 from those we have been 
 considering. His picture 
 is given in Figure 47, but Figure 47. 
 
 that shows only the shell when the animal has 
 gone inside and has pulled in his door, or opercu- 
 lum, as it is called. 
 
 The shell is so big and round that it is some- 
 times called the Moon-shell, though its color is 
 not pure white, but somewhat spotted like the real 
 moon. Sometimes it grows to a size three or four 
 times that of the picture. 
 
 When the mollusk comes out of his shell he 
 
94 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 takes in much water, and swells up enormously. 
 Then he burrows along under the surface of the 
 sand, until he finds a clam living there. The 
 Moon-mollusk wishes to eat that clam, but the clam 
 is not willing to be eaten, and so a strife ensues. 
 
 The clam closes his shells tightly, and the old 
 robber cannot open them, and so Mr. Clam thinks 
 he is safe. Alas! do not be too sure, for the old 
 robber carries a flint drill on his tongue, and I 
 fear that he will use it. 
 
 And, surely, he grasps the poor clam with his big 
 foot, selects a place on the clam's shell just over the 
 heart, and begins to bore. / If he does not get scared 
 away, he will stay till he has drilled a hole clear 
 through, and then it is all over with Mr. Clam. 
 
 Did you ever find clam-shells with smooth, 
 round holes bored in them near the umbo? If so, 
 and they are very common, you may know that 
 Mr. Moon-shell was the culprit, and that the poor 
 clam died a violent death. But soft, I fear that 
 some of us are just as guilty as the mollusk of the 
 Moon-shell. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 appearance (ap-per'ans), museum (mu-se'Om), inter 
 esting (m'ter-est-mg), similar (sim'i-lar), Brussels (brtis' 
 selz), umbo (tim'bo), operculum (o-per'cu-ltim). 
 
A WALK ALONG THE SHORE. 
 
 CYPRESS POINT is a noted prom- 
 ontory on the coast of California, 
 ^ situated a few miles south of the 
 old city of Monterey. It is not 
 far from the celebrated Carmel 
 Mission, which was founded by the Spanish fathers 
 more than a century ago. 
 
 The Indians, for whose spiritual benefit the old 
 church was erected, have nearly all disappeared, 
 their descendants being so few and so scattered 
 that they are rarely seen. 
 
 The old church was rapidly falling into ruins 
 until a few years ago, when it was partially restored 
 and supplied with a new 
 roof, which will protect it 
 for at least another cen- 
 tury. But it stands in a 
 hay-field, lonely and de- 
 serted, save for the visits 
 of curious tourists and 
 the gathering of a few 
 neighbors when the parish 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Missions to the Indians. 
 
 Adobe houses. 
 
 Early settlement of Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 "The groves were God's 
 first temples." 
 
 Ail Arab's turban. 
 
 Hermit crabs. 
 
 Sea and shore. 
 
96 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 priest holds services within its aged walls once 
 a year. 
 
 Beneath its floor rest the bones of Junipero 
 Serra and his associates, who spent their lives in 
 an earnest endeavor to bring the gospel to the 
 degraded heathen on the west coast of America. 
 But how changed is the scene now, and how 
 rapidly has the surrounding country passed from 
 the Indians to the Spaniards, and from the Span- 
 iards to the Americans. 
 
 But out on Cypress Point there are still grow- 
 ing the same trees beneath which the Indians 
 camped centuries ago, and under whose branches 
 the reverend monks bore the bell and the crucifix 
 as they started out on their journey northward to 
 establish a new mission church. 
 
 Venerable old trees are these, which have with- 
 stood the buffetings of the west winds for scores 
 and hundreds of years. Their trunks are gnarled 
 and twisted and severe, but their tops are ever- 
 green, though beaten by the ocean storms into 
 floorlike flatness. 
 
 Some of them stand erect, boldly peering out 
 over the horizon, as if anxious to catch a glimpse 
 of some friendly ship coming in from the far 
 west; others crouch like sleeping lions, or bring 
 their green covering down to the very ground, 
 like the wall of a tent. 
 
A WALK ALONG THE SHORE. 97 
 
 A solemn peace pervades these ancient groves, 
 and the light laugh is instinctively hushed as one 
 enters their shady portals. It is not a place for 
 mirth, much less for sadness, but for quiet, for 
 thoughtfulness, and for peace. 
 
 Under these old trees there quietly lives a 
 small colony of very interesting snails. We have 
 already seen the picture of one of them in Figure 
 16. His ancestors were here long before mission 
 times, but the race is fewer now than it was for- 
 merly, for the saucy jays which flutter and scold 
 in the green branches overhead search out the 
 poor snails in their summer hiding-places, and 
 break the pretty shells to satisfy their gross ap- 
 petites. 
 
 But we may find a few good specimens even 
 yet, along with the broken shells, and we may 
 trust that there are others left, too deeply buried 
 for birds or boys to discover their place of con- 
 cealment. 
 
 Leaving the silent groves, let us go down to the 
 beach and walk along its margin on our way 
 home. Everywhere we see the work of the waves. 
 
 Here are piles of rounded stones cast up by the 
 winter's storms; there are tangles of seaweed, 
 which drifted in at high tide; beyond is a long 
 beach of smooth sand, where the waves roll up 
 
 W.S.K. VOL. 87 
 
WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 and down all the day long, and this stretch 
 is bounded by scarred and broken ledges 
 which run far out into the sea, and whose 
 presence may be known by the foam of 
 Figure 48. the white breakers. Each of these con- 
 ditions has its' own form of life, and each seems 
 ready to tell us its particular story. 
 
 As we approach the water, the first mollusks 
 we meet are the little Littorines, or Shore-shells. 
 They are clustered on the rocks, waiting .for the 
 returning tide, There are two species of 
 littorines, looking like Figures 48 and 49, 
 only many of them are not so large as 
 the pictures would indicate. They are 
 modest little shells, of a dark gray color, Flg - 49> 
 like the rocks on which they rest, and they are 
 able to resist thirst arid drought for a long time 8 
 as their shells are tightly shut by a close-fitting 
 operculum. 
 
 But if you put them m sea-water they quickly re- 
 vive, and their little black bodies 
 go creeping rapidly over the 
 rocky surface, and their rough 
 tongues rasp off the green coat- 
 ing which gathers on wet stones. 
 There is also a plenty of lim- 
 pets of different species, but these 
 
A WALK ALONG THE SHORE. 
 
 99 
 
 Figure 51. 
 
 Red Turbans, 
 
 we have already considered, so 
 
 we pass on to a group of strong, 
 
 black shells whose owners have 
 
 met together on the sheltered 
 
 side of a big rock. They are the 
 
 Turban-shells, and there are va- 
 rious species of these, also, 
 
 Black Turbans, Brown Turbans 
 
 and Blue Turbans, as well as others which you 
 
 do not often find. 
 
 The Black Turbans are by far the 
 most numerous. You see a picture of 
 one in Figure 50. Their shells are 
 strong and heavy, enabling them to 
 resist the knocking of the waves. In- 
 Figure 52. side, they are beautifully pearly, like 
 
 the abalone. The aperture is closed by a circular, 
 
 horny front door. 
 
 The little black animals are vegetable-eaters, 
 
 like the littorines, and they as- 
 sist greatly in keeping the rocks 
 
 clean and fresh. 
 
 A little nearer the water are 
 
 the Brown Turbans (Figure 51). 
 
 In fact, they seldom come up far 
 
 from the lower tide limits, though 
 
 you may find them alive in caves Figure 53. 
 
100 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 and pools when the tide is low. They are much 
 prettier than their black cousins, but they are far 
 less numerous. The Blue Turbans (Figure 52) 
 are even more unwilling to leave the sea; but still 
 you may perhaps find some live ones in a rock 
 grotto, or clinging to the long stem of some sea- 
 weed. The thin outer coat of the shell is not 
 blue, but brown, though when it is a little worn, 
 as around the apex of the shell, the blue pearl is 
 seen, and a little acid brings it out very readily. 
 
 Although the living shells are seldom found, 
 the hermit crabs often bring up the dead ones, 
 and you might imagine by the motion that the 
 real owner was present. 
 
 Out in the water live other mollusks related to 
 the Turbans; but their shells are too delicate to 
 be trusted near the rocks; so they cling to the 
 great seaweeds, and come up to the surface in fine 
 weather only. Their shells are thin and very 
 beautifully colored. They are called Top-shells, 
 and a picture of one of the prettiest is given in 
 Figure 53. 
 
 Figure 54 shows a little Red Turban, which is 
 not so big as a pea; while the great Wavy Top- 
 shell shown in Figure 55 sometimes grows 
 in southern waters as large as a quart 
 Fig. 54. measure. 
 
A WALK ALONG THE SHORE. 
 
 101 
 
 Figure 55. 
 
 Figure 56 is 
 
 the Smooth 
 
 Turban. This, 
 
 also, is found in 
 
 the south, and 
 
 the picture rep- 
 resents a rather 
 
 large specimen. 
 
 It is of a rich 
 
 brown color, 
 
 with a curious 
 
 green spot in 
 
 the center of the whorls; it has a singular opercu- 
 
 lum, made up of rough rings. 
 
 There are other Turbans and Tops, some of 
 
 which you may pick up as you walk along the 
 
 beach from Cypress Point to Pacific Grove; but 
 
 whether you 
 find these or 
 not, you will 
 surely see cer- 
 tain other mol- 
 lusks, which 
 i we will con- 
 ' sider in the 
 next chapter. 
 
 Figure 56. ^"*"" '*^ 
 
102 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 interesting (m'ter-Sst-mg), promontory (pr5m'6n-to- 
 ry), Monterey (mdn-ta-ra/), descendants (de-send'ants), 
 reverend (rev'er-end), buffetings (btif'fet-mgs), in* 
 stinctively (in-stinct'iv-ly), Littorine (lit'to-rm), drought 
 (drout), opereuluin (o-per'ku-hlin), singular (sing'gu-ler). 
 
A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS. 
 
 our last walk we noticed some 
 of the mollusks which are found 
 living upon the rocks. In many 
 places the seaweeds live there 
 too, and when the tide is out you 
 can see great patches of olive- 
 green vegetation almost entirely 
 covering the hard, gray rocks. 
 The name of the most common of these plants 
 is Fucus, and of this there are several species. 
 Most of them contain little air-sacks near their 
 tips, which act as floats, and assist in keeping them 
 erect when the water is over them. But when the 
 tide is low, you find them lying flat on the sur- 
 face of the rock, or hanging limp from its sides. 
 
 These seaweeds are very 
 ancient plants, and were 
 growing in the ocean long 
 before there were any trees 
 upon the land. They do a 
 vast amount of good, puri- 
 fying the water and giving 
 
 103 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Plants -without flowers. 
 "Sea-cradles." 
 Purple dye. 
 What Is varnish 
 Uses of borers. 
 Our advantages. 
 
104 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Figure 57. 
 
 food to numberless ani- 
 mals. Some of them are 
 even eaten by men, and 
 valuable chemicals are 
 ( obtained from their 
 ' ashes. 
 
 If you turn back some 
 of these limp plants, you 
 will probably find sev- 
 eral interesting forms of 
 life nestling beneath them, and among 
 these forms will probably be a number 
 of mollusks. 
 
 The first are the 
 Chitons (ki'tons), 
 some of which are 
 shown in the il- 
 lustrations. Queer 
 creatures are these 
 Chitons, very slow in their move- 
 ments, shy in their habits, and, 
 withal, perfectly harmless. They 
 are generally found clinging 
 firmly to the surface of a rock, 
 and often they select cracks and 
 crevices for greater safety. 
 If you pry one of them off with 
 
 Figure 58. 
 
 Figure 59. 
 
A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS. 
 
 105 
 
 the point of a knife, you will 
 see that his body resembles 
 that of a limpet, though the 
 organs are more simple. 
 There is a mouth at one end, 
 a creeping and holding disk, 
 and a muscular mantle. The 
 poor fellow will probably curl 
 himself 
 
 up in a 
 ball, if 
 
 yOU Figure 60. 
 
 do not put him back into 
 the water, and he may 
 strain so hard that he will 
 break some of his shells. 
 I say some of his shells, 
 for he has 
 eight of 
 them, al- 
 ways eight, 
 arranged 
 like the 
 shingles on 
 Among the 
 
 Figure 61. 
 
 the roof of a house. 
 
 pebbles on the beach, you can often 
 
 find single shells which came from 
 
 Figure 62. 
 
106 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 the body of some dead Chiton. They 
 look somewhat like a pair of wings, and 
 the large white ones, like Figure 57, are 
 often called Butterfly-shells. 
 
 The Red-lined Chiton (Figure 58) is 
 a small creature with very beautiful 
 shells, while the Gray Chiton (Figure 
 
 Figure 63. 59^ wll j ch J g much l arger? has little 
 
 beauty, being of a dull, ashy color. It often lives 
 
 under stones. Figure 60 shows the 
 
 Mossy Chiton, which is so named 
 
 from the great number of stiff hairs 
 
 on the border of its mantle; while 
 
 Figure 61 shows a large species with 
 
 very regular shells. 
 
 Besides the Chitons, you will prob- 
 ably find specimens of the Purples. 
 
 There are several of these, also; a 
 
 picture of one of the common ones 
 being shown in Figure 62, and an- 
 other in Figure 63. 
 
 Both of these pictures are some- 
 what too large for the common spe- 
 cimens, but they show very well the 
 shape and appearance of the shells. 
 The Purples are rather active crea- 
 tures, though at low tide you will 
 Figure 65. probably find them at rest. 
 
 Figure 64. 
 
A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS. 
 
 107 
 
 They feed on animal matter 
 instead of vegetable. You no- 
 tice in both the pictures a little 
 canal, or open tube, at the 
 bottom of the shell. You can 
 see the same plainly in Figure* 
 64, which is the picture of an- 
 other Purple. All the shells 
 that have this canal belong to 
 animals that are carnivorous, 
 while those that have round 
 openings, like Figure 56, be- Figure 66. 
 
 long mostly to herb-eat- 
 ing mollusks. 
 
 Purples are so called 
 because a rich dye used 
 to be obtained from sim- 
 ilar mollusks that lived 
 in the Mediterranean 
 Sea. Perhaps you have 
 all read of this famous 
 dye, which was known 
 as "Tyrian Purple." 
 
 The finest Purples of 
 our coast live in the 
 northern waters, where 
 Figure 67. some of them are very 
 
108 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 large arid beautiful. Figure 65 shows 
 one of their shells. There are many 
 shells quite similar to the Purples, some 
 of which you may be fortunate enough 
 to find. 
 
 One is the great Frog-shell (Figure 
 66). Another is Belcher's Chorus (Fig- 
 ure 67); and then there are many little ones, like 
 Figures 68, 69, and 70. All of these have names 
 and descriptions, which you can find in the 
 books. 
 
 If you now leave the rocks and go out on 
 the sands, you may pick up a great Heart- 
 shell (Figure 71). I used to find broken F1 s- 69 - 
 ones abundantly, which had been washed up by 
 the waves, out by the Cliff House, in San Fran- 
 cisco. 
 
 There were also many pieces of the Flat Razor- 
 shell (Figure 72). This is a thin shell with a 
 glossy brown covering looking like a coating of 
 varnish. They grow abundantly on the coast of 
 Oregon, and are the most highly esteemed 
 of all of our clams for a delicious chowder. 
 Captain Dixon wrote in 1789 as follows: 
 " At the mouth of Cook's River, lat. 59 
 61', are many species of shell-fish. For a 
 Fig. TO. repast, our men preferred a large species 
 
A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS. 
 
 109 
 
 of the Solen 
 genus, which 
 they got in 
 quantity, 
 and were 
 easily dis- 
 covered by 
 
 their SpOUt- Figure 72. 
 
 ing up water as the men walked over the sands 
 which they inhabited. " 
 
 He gives a good picture of the shell in his book, 
 
 which was printed 
 more than a century 
 ago; and so it hap- 
 pens that this is the 
 first shell of our 
 coast that was ever 
 Figure 73. described and fig- 
 
 ured by the original collector. Find 
 the place on your maps where Cap- 
 tain Dixoii's men dug these fine Razor- 
 clams out of the sands of the Alaskan 
 shore. 
 
 The last shells of niollusks that we 
 will consider in this book are those 
 of the Piddocks. They are bivalves, 
 and have a habit of boring holes into Figure 74. 
 
110 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 almost everything. A little one 
 called the Teredo bores into 
 pieces of submerged wood, like 
 the bottoms of ships and the 
 piles on which wharves and 
 bridges are built. They are 
 very destructive, and to protect 
 the wood it is sometimes poi- 
 soned or covered with sheets of 
 copper. 
 
 But the common piddocks are 
 larger than the teredo, though 
 they do not bore quite so deep 
 Figure 75. holeg Those that look like Fig- 
 
 ure 73 bore holes into the stiffest blue clay, from 
 which they can be dug out by the use of a pickax. 
 Others, like the shells shown in Figures 74 and 
 75, attack harder substances, and even make their 
 burrows in solid rock. Sometimes a reef gets so 
 full of holes that great pieces are broken off by 
 the waves during a storm, and rolled up on the 
 beach. You can find such pieces at old Monte- 
 rey, with the dead shells still remaining in the 
 burrows. 
 
 When the creatures begin to bore they are 
 very small, and as they go on, the diameter of the 
 burrow must increase, to allow for their growth. 
 
A FEW MORE MOLLUSKS. Ill 
 
 And so it happens that a piddock that has once 
 made his house becomes a prisoner for life. 
 
 But what does he care! He is safe and quiet, 
 and he can always pump in water with its food 
 and air for his daily use, and with that he is con- 
 tent. But his sphere of knowledge and activity 
 is very, very small. Are you not thankful that 
 yours is so much larger? 
 
 BLACKBOARD WOKDS. 
 
 Fucus (fu'ktig), vegetation (vej-e-ta'shtin), ancient (an'- 
 shent), chemicals ( kem'i-klz), Chiton ( ki'tdn), withal 
 (with-aT), carnivorous (kar-niv'o-rtis), Tyrian (tir'i-an), 
 chorus (ko'rtts), original (o-rij'i-nal), diameter (di-am'e- 
 ter), piddock (pid'ddk). 
 
 Figure 71 
 
OTHER CREATURES WHICH LIVE IN THE 
 
 SEA. 
 
 ESIDES the mollusks, there are a great 
 number of other creatures in 
 the sea which claim our atten- 
 tion. As we go down to the 
 beach on a bright morning, 
 perhaps the first living things which we notice 
 are the birds. Sea-birds have a look of their own, 
 and you would hardly mistake them for land-birds, 
 if you were to meet them many miles inland. 
 
 While our land-birds are mostly fitted for short 
 flights, as from tree to tree, the sea-birds go wing- 
 ing along over miles of waves, and perhaps alight 
 at last on some bare rock, in the midst of a flock of 
 their companions. Land- 
 birds sing, at least many of 
 them do, but sea-birds are 
 silent, or utter a few harsh 
 cries. Besides this, they are 
 all fitted for swimming or 
 wading, and many of them 
 for diving as well. 
 
 112 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Why men cannot fly. 
 The beaks of birds. 
 Methods of fishing. 
 Difference between gills 
 
 and lungs. 
 California whales and 
 
 whale-fisheries. 
 
OTHER CREATURES WHICH LIVE IN THE SEA. 113 
 
 The most common sea-birds about San Fran- 
 cisco are the Gulls. They are quite large birds, 
 of a white or gray color, and they have quite long, 
 naked legs and a strong beak. Nobody is allowed 
 to shoot them near the water-front, and in conse- 
 quence they have become quite tame, perching 
 freely upon the sheds around the wharves, and 
 following the ferry-boats between the city and the 
 Oakland mole. 
 
 Very often some passenger will toss them bits 
 of bread as they fly beside or over the boat. In- 
 stantly there is a rush of wings, and the mouth- 
 ful is usually caught by some keen-eyed bird 
 before it has had time to reach the water. Their 
 intelligent looks and graceful motions are much 
 appreciated by the throngs of passengers on the 
 ferry-boats, and the birds seem to understand 
 their advantage. 
 
 Other sea-birds are seen in the bay, too, but 
 none of them are so tame as the gulls. In winter 
 there are many flocks of Ducks, and frequently a 
 Diver is seen thrusting his long, snaky head out 
 of the water, glancing quickly around, and then 
 disappearing in an instant. He seems more like 
 a fish than a bird, for you seldom see him either 
 swimming or flying. 
 
 Sometimes you see the Pelicans, great birds 
 
 W.S.K. VOL. 88 
 
A NESTING COLONY OF CORMORANTS. 
 
OTHER CREATURES WHICH LIVE IN THE SEA. 115 
 
 with exceedingly long bills, under which are hung 
 bags to hold the fish which they catch. You 
 would hardly expect so clumsy a bird to be an 
 expert fisher, but if you watch his motions you 
 will see that they are far more rapid and skillful 
 than you would suppose. 
 
 Along the rocky sea-coast one often sees a small 
 flock of Shags flying very swiftly in a line, just 
 above the surface of the waves. [The shag is 
 really a species of Cormorant.; Its plumage is so 
 dark in color that at a distance it appears black, 
 though a close examination shows a touch of 
 green. These birds have slender bodies, strong 
 wings, and long, sharp bills. They are expert 
 fishers. In China, young cormorants are trained 
 to dive for fish, and to bring them to the boat 
 of their master. 
 
 On the salt marshes one sometimes sees a lonely 
 Crane standing, at least a yard high. He is a 
 great creature, with naked legs so long that when 
 he flies they stretch out behind like two poles. 
 On the marshes and the beaches you also see other 
 wading birds smaller than the cranes. To these 
 belong the Curlews and the little gray Sand-pipers. 
 
 Farther out at sea, around the rocky islands 
 which lie along the coast, are vast numbers of 
 other birds, one of which, the Murre, lays the 
 
116 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 great green eggs which are sometimes collected 
 on the Farallone Islands, and sold in the city 
 markets, like the eggs of common fowls. Alto- 
 gether, the sea-birds help very much to enliven 
 the view and to render the sea-coast attractive)!^ 
 
 Whenever you go to the sea-shore, you know 
 that you are going where fishes abound, and yet 
 you may see but very few, as most of them keep 
 well off the shore when the tide is low. But if 
 you are near a fishing-village, you will greatly 
 enjoy seeing the boats come in and the catch 
 brought on shore. 
 
 There will be Rock-cod and Flounder, and 
 Salmon and Mackerel, besides many strange forms, 
 all of them interesting, and many of them very 
 bright and shining as they come out of their 
 native element. 
 
 There are many creatures which swim in the 
 ocean that are not fishes at all. There are the 
 Whales, for instance. Here on the west coast we 
 often have a chance to see whales, for they pass 
 up and down the coast as the seasons change. In 
 Monterey Bay I have seen many of these huge 
 creatures swimming rapidly, and occasionally 
 coining up to breathe. 
 
 A fish does not need to come up to breathe, for 
 he has gills, over which the water passes, and in 
 
OTHER CREATURES WHICH LIVE IN THE SEA. 117 
 
 which his blood is purified; but the whale has 
 lungs, and if he did not come up for air, he would 
 drown as surely as you would. The difference is 
 that he can naturally hold his breath a good deal 
 longer than you can, and he has been trained to 
 do it ever since he was born. 
 
 There are smaller animals than the whale, 
 which behave in nearly the same manner. Near 
 the shore and in the bays is the black Porpoise, 
 which grows to a length of from three to six feet. 
 You often see them swimming in pairs, and fre- 
 quently bobbing up to the surface for a breath of 
 air. 
 
 I once watched a pair of porpoises from the deck 
 of a ferry-boat. They would come up to breathe, 
 and immediately sink a few feet, swimming with 
 all their might, and fairly keeping up with the 
 boat. I suppose they expected that something 
 good would be thrown overboard from the cook's 
 galley, for them to pick up. I hope they were not 
 disappointed. 
 
 Sometimes from the shore you can see a huge 
 Grampus, or perhaps a whole school of them 
 swimming in a row. Their habits are like those 
 of the whale and the porpoise, and they are mid- 
 way between them in size. All of these animals 
 have smooth skins and a fish-like form; but the 
 
118 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 seals, which somewhat resemble them in shape, 
 have plenty of hair. 
 
 All of these creatures are large. In another 
 chapter we will consider some smaller creatures 
 that are just as interesting as the fishes and the 
 whales. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 intelligent (m-tel'li-jent), appreciated (ap-pre'shi-at-ed), 
 pelican (pl'i-kan), cormorant (kor'mo-rant), murre (mur;, 
 porpoise (pdr'ptts). 
 
SOME CREEPING THINGS. 
 
 |OME, John and Augustus, and Mary and 
 Pauline, get your hats, and a 
 dipper and a pail, and some 
 big fruit-jars. The tide is low 
 .this morning, and we will see 
 what is alive down on the 
 wet rocks. Scatter yourselves 
 around, and let each one find something. Then 
 bring them all here, and we will sit down and ex- 
 amine them. 
 
 Well done, John; you are 
 the first to return, and you 
 brought what I expected 
 would come first, a Star- 
 fish. \Mary comes next, 
 with a Ska-urchin; Augus- 
 tus has a Sea-anemone at- 
 tached to a small stone; 
 and little Pauline has her 
 hand full of something 
 which I cannot just make 
 out. But put them all 
 
 119 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 It would be well for the 
 teacher to have as many 
 specimens as possible to il- 
 lustrate these lessons. If the 
 real creatures cannot be ob- 
 tained, books of natural his- 
 tory would be desirable. 
 
 Start a small school cabi- 
 net, if it has not been done 
 already. 
 
 Various kinds of teeth. 
 What is a land-urchin? 
 What is a land-anemone? 
 Other radiates. 
 
120 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 into jars of cool salt water and we will watch them 
 move.) 
 
 And now we will talk of the starfish. In the 
 first place, he is not a fish at all, but he surely 
 looks like a star; and men used to call almost 
 everything that lives in the water a fish. It is not 
 
 ^ . -^_ ^pf 5 , easy to change old 
 
 %lll lltMllt names, and star- 
 
 i f !A 7*1! 1 Al^HHl 1 . r i j 
 
 nsn is a word easy 
 
 to pronounce. 
 
 How many 
 points are there 
 to his star? 
 Five. 
 
 Correct; but do 
 all starfishes have 
 five points? 
 
 Don't know? Well, if you will watch, you will 
 find some little ones with six points; and you 
 may get a big, soft red one, called a sun-star, 
 which has twenty or more. But five is the com- 
 mon number. 
 
 Now, what are these five points for? 
 They are legs, sir. 
 
 Are you sure of that? Can a starfish step off on 
 these legs? or can he swim with them? Watch 
 this one in the great jar of salt water. If they 
 are legs, they must be very lame ones. 
 
SOME CREEPING THINGS. 121 
 
 No; they are not legs, but from the under side 
 of each of these points there are coming out a 
 great number of little tubes. These tubes, or 
 water-feet, act like suckers, and hold on very 
 firmly; but when the creature wishes, he can 
 withdraw them. And by reaching out new tubes 
 in front and drawing in those behind, he is able 
 to creep slowly, but very surely, up the side of 
 the jar. In the ocean, he can creep over rocks 
 or go where he pleases. 
 
 But what are the five points for, since they are 
 not legs? 
 
 I will tell you. Do you see the creature's 
 mouth in the center of his body, on the under 
 side? 
 
 Yet he has no teeth, and so he cannot crush 
 his food. But he can do one very curious thing. 
 He can throw his stomach out of his mouth, and 
 digest his food outside of his body, and then draw 
 the stomach back again. I once saw a starfish 
 eating a clam in that singular manner. 
 
 But what kept the clam from slipping away? 
 -for the starfish has no hands to hold him? 
 
 Precisely; but he does have five points to his 
 star, and he bends these points around the clarn 
 and seizes the shell with the little suckers, and 
 then with his mouth he can do what he pleases. 
 
SOME CREEPING THINGS. 123 
 
 But what if the clam will not open his shell? 
 
 Ah, I cannot tell you that. I only know that 
 the stomach seems to have the power to make the 
 shells open; how, I do not know. It is the same 
 way with oysters as with clams; and so the 
 oyster-men hate the starfishes, and kill them if 
 they catch them around their oyster-beds. 
 
 Well, we have learned some things; but there 
 are others which we do not understand. V 
 
 True; but is it not often so, when we study the 
 wonderful objects of nature? Some time we will 
 dissect a starfish, harving first killed it by putting 
 it in fresh water, and then you will see very curi- 
 ous organs inside. 
 
 We will take this one home, kill it, and wash 
 off all the salt, and then dry it for a few days in 
 the sunshine. If we do not wash off the salt, it 
 will gather moisture in damp weather, next win- 
 ter, and may spoil. And to-morrow, see if you 
 cannot find several other kinds to add to your 
 collection. 
 
 Now, Mary, let us see your sea-urchin. 
 
 Why, it is climbing, too, almost like the star- 
 fish, only its suckers are very long, and it has so 
 many long thorns sticking out all over its body. 
 
 Very true. It is classed with the starfish on 
 that account, and they resemble each other in 
 
124 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 other ways also. The mouths of both are in the 
 center, and the parts of the body reach out like 
 the spokes of a wheel. For this reason they are 
 sometimes called Radiates. 
 
 But notice; how does the urchin differ from 
 the starfish? 
 
 He has long thorns on his skin. 
 
 Right. They are called spines, and very curi- 
 ous organs they are, too. They protect the 
 animal like a fence of bayonets, and they help 
 him in moving, also. What else? 
 
 He has a hard shell. 
 
 That is true; while the starfish has a leathery 
 skin with many stony points set in it. But find 
 an old sea-urchin shell that is broken, and notice 
 the many pieces of which the shell is made up. 
 And as the creature grows, each of these pieces 
 must be increased in size. What else? 
 
 The sea-urchin seems to have a set of teeth. 
 
 Good; and are they set in two jaws, like yours? 
 
 No; there are only five teeth, and they all come 
 together in a point. Is n't it strange? 
 
 Yes; it is very strange; and when you dissect 
 a sea-urchin you will be more and more surprised 
 to see what a wonderful mouth he has. For he 
 really has five jaws, with one tooth in each jaw, 
 and as the teeth wear off, they grow down from 
 
" OF 1 HE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 SOME CREEPING THINTfrPT-r g 8 ^ 125 
 
 above, through the jaw, so as to always keep them 
 just the right length. There is very much more 
 about the sea-urchin which is of interest, but we 
 cannot learn it now. 
 
 But where do sea-urchins live? 
 
 Mostly in shallow water, and especially around 
 rocks. 
 
 And are there many kinds? 
 
 Yes; there are large ones and small ones, round 
 ones and flat ones, and a number of species of 
 each kind. Some have spines as thick as a pen- 
 cil, while in others they are as fine as hairs. 
 
 One thing more: what do they eat? 
 
 Chiefly seaweed, but sometimes dead fishes or 
 other animal matter. 
 
 Now we must turn to Augustus and his sea- 
 aiiemone. It has opened in the jar of water, but 
 there are plenty of closed ones on the rocks 
 around us. Does it resemble the starfish? 
 
 Not much, only it has a mouth in the center. 
 
 But has it tube-feet to cling and walk with? 
 
 I cannot see any. 
 
 True, it has none; and it is a much simpler ani- 
 mal than the last two. But what has it around 
 its mouth? 
 
 It has a row of soft tubes, looking like the pet- 
 als of a flower. 
 
126 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 stomach. 
 
 Right again; and from these it gets its name. 
 Now put your finger down to its mouth and hold 
 it still; it will not hurt you. 
 
 Why, the creature is closing all its rays round 
 my finger, and pulling itself together into a little 
 bunch. 
 
 Yes; and if your finger had been a limpet or a 
 little crab, it would have been pulled inside, 
 through the creature's mouth, down into its 
 And it would never have come out 
 alive, either; though after 
 a time the creature would 
 have thrown out the 
 empty shell. 
 
 But can the anemone 
 change its place? 
 
 Slightly; but it gener- 
 ally chooses its home on 
 a rock, and stays there 
 all its life. You will find 
 beds of small gray ones on some rocks, so close 
 together that they touch one another. Again, in 
 deeper water, you will see great green ones living 
 apart, and, when open, each one looks like a 
 beautiful flower six or eight inches across. Their 
 tentacles, or rays, are very sensitive, and quickly 
 catch any unlucky creature that comes in their 
 way. 
 
 Figure 77. 
 
SOME CREEPING THINGS. 127 
 
 Can we keep this creature when it is dead? 
 
 Only by putting it in some preserving fluid, 
 like alcohol, for all of its parts are soft, and it has 
 no shell. If you wish to preserve the sea-urchin's 
 shell, you can either take out the mouth parts 
 and thoroughly clean the inside, and then dry 
 the shell with the spines on, or you can boil the 
 whole shell in water and rub off the spines with 
 an old brush. But what has Pauline? 
 
 It is a little starfish with five arms; but how 
 fast they move. 
 
 No; it is not a starfish, but a Brittle-star, 
 though the two are quite nearly related. See; it 
 has a hard, round body, like a button, with a little 
 mouth in the center; and these five arms are not 
 parts of the body, as in the starfish, but are more 
 like little whips, by which it gathers in its food. 
 If you disturb it, some of these little arms are 
 very apt to break off, and so the creature is called 
 a brittle-star. 
 
 The brittle-stars which live around the beach 
 do not grow very large, but there are many very 
 strange and large ones which live on the bottom 
 of the ocean, in very deep water. You can often 
 find small ones by turning up stones when the 
 tide is low; for they do not live on the tops and 
 sides of rocks, like the true starfishes. There is 
 
128 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 another kind, in which the arms are very much 
 divided, like the twigs of a tree. When these 
 arms are curled up, the creature is called a Basket- 
 fish. 
 
 But now we will take our treasures home and 
 come again some other day. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 radiate (ra'di-at), bayonets (ba'o-nets), anemone (a-n6m'- 
 o-ne), resemble (re-zem'bl), moisture (mois'tur), alcohol 
 (ai'ko-hol). 
 
ANOTHER SEASIDE TALK. 
 
 ELL, my young people, we are 
 here again, and you have brought 
 a new lot of creatures for us to 
 examine together. I sup- 
 pose you found them this 
 morning at the very low 
 tide; is it not so? 
 Yes; we have all been out on the rocks, lifting 
 up seaweeds, and turning over such stones as we 
 were able to move. We 
 carried a trowel and a big 
 iron spoon with us, and we 
 dug with them, wherever 
 the gravel was soft enough 
 for us to do so. 
 
 And did you find more 
 of the creatures which we 
 were studying yesterday? 
 
 Oyes; there were dozens 
 of starfishes lying on the 
 seaweeds and the patches 
 of eel-grass. Some of them 
 
 W.S.E. VOL. 89 129 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 There are interesting ob- 
 jects all around us. 
 
 Advantage of many legs 
 to the crab. 
 
 Difference b e t w e e n 
 crabs and insects. 
 
 The crab's eyes. 
 
 Formalin, or formalde- 
 hyde. 
 
 Sallee is a port of Mo- 
 rocco. 
 
 Pirates of North Africa. 
 
 (jiivat cuttle-fishes. 
 
 Strange sea - creatures 
 that are eaten by men. 
 
130 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 were yellow and some purple, and there were 
 small red ones that had no long arms, but only 
 five corners. And we found white brittle-stars 
 under the stones, and a good many sea-urchins, 
 and whole beds of sea-anemones. 
 
 And one of us looked off from a rock into deeper 
 water, and saw the bottom almost covered with 
 big purple urchins lying with their mouths all 
 downward. O, it is such fun to know what 
 things are when you see them. 
 
 Yes; and you are far more likely to see them if 
 you are acquainted with them, first, for you know 
 where to look and what to expect. It is so on the 
 land, as well as by the sea. If you know the 
 flowers and the trees, and even the stones, you 
 will always have company, even if you are taking 
 a solitary walk. 
 
 But let us see the new treasures you got this 
 morning. Pauline, we will look at yours first, to- 
 day, as you were last yesterday. What have you 
 in your jar? 
 
 I have two little Crabs, that I found eating a 
 dead limpet. It was so funny to see them walk 
 up shyly and get large mouthfuls with their big 
 claws. And it was not easy to catch them, either, 
 for they can run like spiders. 
 
 True; and they resemble spiders in several 
 
ANOTHER SEASIDE TALK. 131 
 
 ways. What the spiders and insects are to the 
 land, the crabs and their neighbors are to the sea. 
 Very few crabs live on the land, and scarcely an 
 insect lives in the ocean. How many legs has a 
 crab? 
 
 Let me see; there are four small ones and one 
 big one on each side; so there are ten in all. 
 
 Yes; and how many joints in each leg? 
 
 I can't tell, for he will not let me count them; 
 but there are a good many, at least five or six. 
 
 Very well; some time when you have a dead 
 crab you can count them carefully. And notice 
 then in which way the joints move, forward and 
 back, or up and down. But does each leg end in 
 a spur? 
 
 There are spurs on all but the front pair, and 
 they have big pincers. 
 
 Yes; and the crab uses them for all sorts of 
 purposes. They are his hands, his tools, and his 
 weapons, all in one. But can you find his eyes? 
 
 Are they not those little shining knobs on two 
 stalks? 
 
 Yes; and the crab guards them very carefully. 
 He has no eyelids, so when he is in danger he 
 pulls his eyes under the edge of his shell, stalks 
 and all. He also has a lively pair of feelers, close 
 beside his eyes. His mouth is very funny, for he 
 
132 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 has quite a variety of lips and jaws. He breathes 
 by means of gills, which are hidden under his 
 shell. Has he any tail? 
 I am sure I do not see any. 
 
 No; for he carries it as a frightened dog carries 
 his. But turn him over, and you will see his 
 "^=5r jointed tail, nicely fit- 
 ting into a little space 
 just the right size for it. 
 I hope you will get 
 acquainted with the 
 crabs of our coast; there 
 ^ ^ are so many of them, 
 and they are so curious. 
 There are the green 
 rock-crabs, the reddish- 
 brown kelp-crabs that 
 live among the sea- 
 weeds, and a dozen oth- 
 ers of various shapes, most of them of small size, 
 which you can catch in various places along the 
 beach. 
 
 Besides these, there are the mud-crabs, the crabs 
 of the markets, and some very curious ones which 
 live in deep water, and are occasionally caught by 
 the fishermen. 
 
 How shall we preserve small crabs? for we 
 
ANOTHER SEASIDE TALK. 133 
 
 cannot boil them as we do shells, and take the 
 meats out. 
 
 No; but you can kill them in fresh water, and 
 then cure them in dilute " Formalin," which you 
 can get at the druggist's. Use one part of for- 
 malin to ten parts of water. You can then either 
 leave them in this liquid, or after a time take them 
 out and dry them. Now, what has Augustus to 
 show us? 
 
 I have a Jelly-fish that had been left on the 
 
 Figure 79. 
 
 sands when the tide went down. I thought that 
 it was dead, but it seems to be moving in the jar 
 of sea-water. 
 
 Look at it carefully and tell me what you see. 
 
 It is almost as clear as ice, and it is as soft as 
 jelly. It is shaped like a bowl turned upside 
 down. From the bottom of the bowl hang down 
 four pieces, which may be lips. When it swims, 
 it quickly makes the bowl smaller, as one might 
 shut an umbrella, and the motion of the water 
 
134 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 makes the bowl rise or go forward. I can find no 
 shell, no teeth, nor anything solid about it; but 
 there are some faint purple spots and lines inside. 
 
 Very well; you are observing finely. The jellies 
 are very strange creatures, and their bodies are 
 composed of but little besides water. And yet 
 they are very much alive, have excellent appe- 
 tites, and some of them are very beautiful crea- 
 tures. There are many kinds, some of them 
 growing to a great size. Others are hardly larger 
 than peas. They have a very curious life history, 
 for the eggs of jelly-fishes are apt to hatch out into 
 something very different from their parents. You 
 will learn of these changes when you study zoology. 
 
 One of the near neighbors of the jelly-fish is 
 the little Sailfish, or Salleeman. Sometimes thou- 
 sands of them are blown in from the sea and 
 perish on the beach. When dry, the sailfish 
 looks like a little oval piece of white tissue-paper, 
 about two inches long, while standing up from 
 this is another clear piece, which runs across 
 cornerwise, like a little sail. When found fresh, 
 there are short, blue fringes hanging from the 
 oval piece, and these are like the fringes that you 
 find on some of the jelly-fishes. 
 
 Well, John, what have you brought to-day? 
 
 I have brought the queerest starfish that I ever 
 
ANOTHER SEASIDE TALK. 
 
 135 
 
 saw; it is not at all like the starfish that I brought 
 yesterday, except that it has a star with a mouth 
 in the center. It has eight arms instead of five, 
 and there is a big round knob in the center, and 
 what looks like a pair of eyes. And it is so lively. 
 Can it be a kind of starfish? 
 
 Not at all; though I do not 
 wonder at your mistake. It is a 
 Cuttle-fish, or Octopus. It is 
 really a mollusk, but very dif- 
 ferent from a snail or a clam. 
 The eight arms have suckers, 
 under them, and these arms are 
 to seize and hold the food, much 
 like the points of a starfish. But 
 the cuttle has a beak, and does 
 not have to turn himself inside 
 out when he eats. Your cuttle Fi e ure 80 - 
 
 is a very little one, but they have been found many 
 feet in length, so large, in fact, that a man would 
 not like to meet one of them. 
 
 A near relative of the cuttle is the Squid, which 
 has a long, slender body with a fin at the end. 
 The head has a ring of tentacles around it, like 
 the cuttle-fish, arid the creature has two staring 
 eyes. Great numbers of small squid are caught 
 at night by Chinese fishermen. They go out on 
 
136 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 still nights with great, blazing torches. When the 
 mollusks come up to see the light, they are dipped 
 up in scoop-nets and emptied into the boats. 
 
 The next day the Chinese lay them out on 
 frames to dry, or even spread them on the ground 
 and turn them with a rake. When they are quite 
 dry, they are packed in great bags and shipped 
 to China for food. Now, Mary, you are the last; 
 what have you to show us? 
 
 0, I have so many things. There are worms 
 and sponges, and so many things of which I do 
 not know the names. 
 
 Well, well. But there goes the bell for the lec- 
 ture. We will take Mary's jar with us, and this 
 afternoon we will sit down and see what she has 
 collected. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 formalin (for'ma-lin), zoology (zo-61'o-gy), salleemaii 
 (sal'le-man), octopus (6k'to-pus, or ok-to'ptis). 
 
 Figure 81. 
 
SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS. AND OTHER 
 SEA-THINGS. 
 
 ERE we are, all together once more. 
 And now, Mary, we will look at 
 your wonderful jar. It may prove 
 to be a vase full of real treasures. 
 And first, tell me why you put 
 pieces of seaweed in the water. 
 I have heard that sea-plants help to purify the 
 
 water for the animals that live in it. 
 You are right, though a 
 
 little piece in a jar cannot 
 
 do very much good. But 
 
 in an aquarium, where you 
 
 keep living animals, it is 
 
 necessary to have a good 
 
 number of growing plants 
 
 to supply oxygen. Please 
 
 show me what plants you 
 
 have in your jar. 
 
 Thank you. This smooth 
 
 green one looking some- 
 what like a fresh leaf of 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 How to make an aqua- 
 rium. 
 
 Seaweed as food. 
 
 Why are worms so much 
 despised ? They do not 
 deserve such treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Habits of earthworms. 
 
 Life history of a barna- 
 cle. 
 
 Don't be a Peltogaster ! 
 
 What does ' ' herm it ' ' 
 mean? 
 
 An open eye is better 
 than an open mouth. 
 
 137 
 
138 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 lettuce is the Ulva, or Green Laver. Some people, 
 indeed, call it Sea-lettuce, but its true name is 
 Ulva. It is very bright and cheery, and in the 
 cool water it grows freely. Very often pieces get 
 torn off by the waves, and then it floats or is 
 washed ashore, but it usually grows attached to a 
 rock. 
 
 When you gather it, chip off a little piece of 
 the stone on which it is growing, and then it will 
 have an anchor. Then put it in a jar of sea- 
 water and set it in the sunshine; perhaps you 
 will be able to see little bubbles of oxygen gather 
 on its surface. 
 
 Here is another plant, looking somewhat like 
 the Ulva; but it is of a different color. 
 
 Yes, and it is called Porphyra, or Purple Laver. 
 In Ireland it is called sloke, and to some extent 
 it is gathered for food. It can be dried and after- 
 wards boiled. It is best when gathered in winter 
 or early spring. It is not the only seaweed that 
 is eaten by men, by any means, and there are 
 many things in the sea that we could eat if we 
 were very hungry. 
 
 But now let us see the animals. Here is a sea- 
 worm. Where did you find him, Mary? 
 
 I found him in the sand, down between two 
 rocks. There seemed to be some hairs growing 
 
SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS, AND OTHER SEA-THINGS. 139 
 
 on the sand, but when I touched them they dis- 
 appeared. I was frightened at first, but I dug 
 with my spoon and soon came to this worm. 
 He seems to be almost covered with these hairs; 
 but they are alive, and not like common hairs. 
 
 You are quite right; only the creature is per- 
 fectly harmless, and there is nothing about him 
 to be afraid of. His true name is Cirratulus, but 
 if you do not wish for so long a word, we may call 
 him the Hairy Seaworm, for that means about 
 
 Figure 82. 
 
 the same. He is a burrowing worm, and much 
 resembles his near relative, the common earth- 
 worm of our gardens. Though they seem so 
 lowly, their internal structure is very interesting. 
 
 But why does the seaworm have long hairs, 
 while the earthworm is smooth? 
 
 What you call hairs are not hairs at all, but 
 little living tubes, full of blood. In fact, they are 
 his gills, and in these his blood is purified. The 
 earthworm does not need them, for his blood 
 takes oxygen directly from the air, through his 
 soft skin. 
 
140 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Do the seaworms swim? 
 
 Most of them do not; but some of them swim 
 freely. You may find one that not only swims, 
 but that has a distinct head also. From its mouth 
 project two little black jaws, or teeth, working 
 sidewise, by which it can seize its prey. It is 
 rather flat, and swims with a wavy motion. It 
 has no long gills, which might hinder its motion. 
 Its name is Nereis, which is not a hard word to 
 remember. 
 
 There are very many worms in the sea. One 
 kind that you find under stones look like little 
 brown sacks. They seem very sluggish, but if 
 you put them in water, and are patient, they will 
 reward you very well. Some worms live in stony 
 tubes which they construct; when they show 
 themselves, some of them are very beautiful. You 
 can find these tubes on stones and shells, and 
 even on seaweeds. But that is enough about 
 worms for to-day. What else did you find? 
 
 Here is a strange shell that I found growing on 
 a rock. It is white, but there are red stripes on 
 it, and it is shaped somewhat like an acorn. 
 
 And it is called the Acorn-barnacle. When 
 barnacles are very young, they resemble little 
 shrimps, but they soon settle down on a rock, 
 build a shell, and never swim again. 
 
SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS, AND OTHER SEA-THINGS. 141 
 
 This shell consists of five side-pieces which 
 are grown together, and a pair of movable ones at 
 the top, resembling a duck's beak. When the 
 creature is under water, it opens this beak, and 
 throws out a scoop-net to gather food. It is very 
 interesting to watch this curious motion. 
 
 Another barnacle has no side-pieces, but its 
 beak is attached to a long fleshy stem, which it- 
 
 Figure 83. 
 
 self is attached at one end to a rock or a piece of 
 floating wood. Great numbers of them may be 
 seen clinging to the wharves, along with mussels 
 and seaworms. 
 
 Some barnacles seem anxious to get a free ride. 
 They will select the back of a crab or the bottom 
 of a ship, while one kind is very partial to the 
 skin of a whale. 
 
 The crab carries his barnacles about till he 
 
142 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 sheds his old shell; the ship sails around, and is 
 hindered by them, till it can be put into a dry- 
 dock, where its barnacles can be scraped off. If 
 there is a river near-by, it may be sailed up into 
 fresh water, where the barnacles will die of their 
 own accord, for they cannot live without salt. 
 
 But the poor whale cannot escape, and he 
 must carry his unpleasant passengers all over the 
 ocean. For, though he is big and strong, he is 
 very helpless in some respects. It is said that 
 whales select a lonely shore, at certain times of 
 the year, and rub themselves against the rocks, 
 to free their skins from the hated barnacles. I 
 suppose they dislike barnacles as much as smaller 
 creatures dislike fleas. 
 
 And are many creatures in the sea troubled in 
 the same way? 
 
 O yes; there seem to be many that are thus 
 troubled. There is a degraded kind of barnacle 
 that attaches itself to the body of a crab and gets 
 all its nourishment from the crab's blood. It is 
 a very mean way of living, but the barnacle pays 
 the penalty. 
 
 What is that, pray? 
 
 Why, he loses almost all his organs, and be- 
 comes a mere useless sack, without eyes or legs, 
 or even digestive organs. He does no good, so 
 
SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS, AND OTHER SEA-THINGS. 143 
 
 far as we know, but he helps to destroy a creature 
 that is better than himself. 
 
 I fear there are some people in this world that 
 are not willing to work for themselves, but prefer 
 to get their living from others. And if one were 
 to call such a person a Peltogaster (which is the 
 name of that ugly barnacle), he would think it 
 was a hard name; but I fear it would be a true 
 one. Whatever you do in life, don't be a Pelto- 
 gaster. But there is one thing more in the jar, is 
 there not, Mary? 
 
 Yes, it is a Black Turban-shell, and I thought 
 it was empty at first, but when I put it in water 
 there seemed to be something in it that was alive. 
 See, the creature has legs; so I know that it is 
 not a mollusk. 
 
 That is good reasoning, surely; but let us see 
 the shell. 
 
 Is it not a Black Turban? 
 
 Yes; but the mollusk that made the shell is 
 dead, and a stranger has taken his place. 
 
 What is the name of the stranger, please? 
 
 It is the Hermit Crab, so called because he lives 
 all alone in a little cell. The cell is anything he 
 can find which fits his body, but usually he se- 
 lects an empty shell. 
 
 This crab does not have hard plates all over 
 
144 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 his body, like the rock-crab, but only his front is 
 thus protected. The rest of his body is soft, and 
 must have some covering. So he finds an empty 
 shell and backs into it. Then he has a pair of 
 clasps, by which he can hold on very firmly. 
 
 When he is well settled in a shell, he feels very 
 much at home, and he will even let you pull him 
 in pieces before he will leave it. So it is of no 
 use to try to pull him out. 
 
 But he comes part way out, of his own accord. 
 
 Yes; he comes out far enough to use his legs, 
 and then he runs around, carrying his house 
 with him. But if you frighten him he will draw 
 back very quickly, and will close up the opening 
 of the shell with his big, hard claws. 
 
 But what if he should grow? Would not the 
 shell be too small for him to live in? 
 
 Yes; and then he would leave it, when he had 
 found a larger one to live in. Sometimes two 
 crabs will fight for the possession of an empty 
 shell, u tumbling over each other, and flinging 
 their legs and claws with singular energy." 
 
 Although the hermit crab is so unwilling to 
 leave his shell, it is said that he can be forced 
 to do so by dropping him on the open arms of a 
 sea-anemone. The poor fellow knows that it 
 would be sure death to remain, so he hastily leto 
 
SEAWORMS, SEAWEEDS, AND OTHER SEA-THINGS. 145 
 
 go of the shell, and scrambles away from the 
 dangerous place as rapidly as possible. 
 
 In the little tide-pools you can often find great 
 numbers of hermit crabs in their borrowed shells. 
 Some of them are very small, and live in shells 
 not more than half an inch long. It is very in- 
 teresting to throw them some bits of fresh meat 
 and see them scramble for it. 
 
 The hermit crabs are great shell-hunters, as 
 you might suppose, and by means of their aid you 
 are sometimes able to obtain the shells of mol- 
 lusks that usually live in deeper water. 
 
 Some people who see the crabs in their shells 
 think that they are the creatures which made the 
 shells; but we know better, don't we? 
 
 Always keep your eyes open, and think about 
 what you see. In this way you will gain the habit 
 of observing, which will be very useful to you 
 throughout your whole life. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 aquarium (a-qua'ri-um), Ulva (ul'va), Porpliyra (por'fi- 
 ra), Cirratulus (sir-rafu-ltis), barnacle (bar'na-kl), Pel- 
 togaster (pel-to-gas'ter). 
 W.S.R. VOL. 810 
 
THE CRABS' TEA-PARTY. 
 
 I. 
 
 A JOLLY old Crab said, one day, to his wife, 
 " My dear, I 'm afraid I am wasting my life ; 
 For, you see, I keep getting, 
 
 Without ever giving, 
 And a miserly life 
 
 Is not worth the living. 
 
 So, I pray you, advise me how I should behave ; 
 For I wish to impart, as well as to save." 
 
 II. 
 
 " Mr. Crab," said his wife, as she took a shy look, 
 " I suspect you 've been reading some new-fangled book 
 For 't is not the old custom, 
 
 In our part of the sea, 
 For a Crab to care much 
 
 Who his neighbors may be. 
 
 If they 're poor, he cares not, neither cares if they 're wealthy, 
 Unless he feels pleased in a way men call stealthy. 
 
 146 
 
THE CRABS' TEA-PARTY. 147 
 
 III. 
 
 " But, then, if you do really wish to be good, 
 Of course I '11 advise you, as any wife should. 
 Call your neighbors together, 
 
 And give them a tea ; 
 'T will make them as happy 
 
 As happy can be. 
 
 And then make a speech, and present to each guest 
 Such a gift as you think would please him the best." 
 
 IV. 
 
 " You are right," said the Crab ; " and I give you much praise 
 For your kindly advice as to mending my ways. 
 We will have it to-morrow, 
 
 A real five-o'clock tea. 
 Will you wait on the table, 
 
 Or would you be free? " 
 
 " O, I '11 wait," said his wife ; " but now hurry away, 
 For our invitations must go out to-day." 
 
 Then off ran the Crab, as fast as a sprinter, 
 And carried these words to Octopus, the printer : 
 " Mr. Crab and his Wife 
 Would most happy be 
 To receive you to-morrow. 
 
 Five. R. S.V. P." 
 
 " And, please, Mr. Printer, will they be done soon?" 
 " They '11 be ready," said he, " precisely at noon." 
 
148 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 All the afternoon long Crab went spreading the news, 
 And wondering if many would really refuse ; 
 
 11 For," thought he, " some may say 
 
 That my previous dealings 
 Do not quite agree 
 
 With such kindly feelings. 
 
 But, I 'm sure, when a crab really tries to do better, 
 That no one should send him a cold-hearted letter." 
 
 VII. 
 
 At seven, the next morning, by Pelican post, 
 They received of acceptances almost a host. 
 But some wrote regrets, 
 
 And said, " We must beg 
 __^ That you would excuse, 
 ^ For we have n't a leg." 
 
 " Then send them a carriage, poor things," said his wife. 
 11 1 '11 do it," cried Crab, " just to let them see life." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So he ordered his hackman, by name Mr. Shark, 
 To go round with his carriage (a red Noah's ark 
 Which a small boy had lost, 
 
 One day, on the beach), 
 A nd to bring all the creatures 
 
 That were within reach. 
 
 " And come back precisely ten minutes to five." 
 Mr. S. flapped his fins, meaning, '* Sure 's I 'm alive.' 
 
THE CRABS' TEA-PARTY. 149 
 
 At a quarter to five, 't would have done your heart good 
 To see Mistress Crab arranging the food. 
 There were halibut steaks, 
 
 And Irish moss pies, 
 And fresh-opened oysters, 
 And dainty squid's eyes. 
 
 With sea-lettuce for salad, and eel-grass for greens, 
 And toasted sea-biscuits, and salted sea-beans. 
 
 X. 
 
 The soup was of fish-fins well seasoned with kelp, 
 With slices of green sea-cucumber to help. 
 The maids laid the dishes 
 
 Of blue mussel-shell, 
 And the fair mistress smiled 
 
 And said, " All is well." 
 
 Then she hurried away to welcome the guests, 
 And to bid them be free to make their requests. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Then old Mr. Crab shook them each by the toe, 
 For that is polite in Crab country, you know, 
 And said he was pleased 
 
 In this simple way 
 To impart some of the pleasure 
 
 Which he felt that day. 
 
 Then he offered his arm to Miss Flat Razor-shell, 
 Who, of all the fair guests, was voted the belle. 
 
150 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thus they marched to the dining-room, which, by the way, 
 Was a lovely broad rock in a snug little bay ; 
 And they sat down by twos, 
 
 With old Crab at the head, 
 W T hile his wife, at the foot, 
 Was blushing quite red, 
 
 For her partner, young Lobster, was praising her beauty, 
 And saying he really was doing his duty. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 There were Limpet and Shrimp sitting snugly together, 
 While Flounder and Toadfish looked fine as a feather ; 
 And prickly Sea-urchin 
 
 And purple Starfish 
 Were lovingly eating 
 
 Out of one dish; 
 
 And a great Abalone was sharing his plate 
 With a delicate Jelly-fish, who was his mate. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Thus they chatted and feasted until it was time 
 For them all to depart : so I '11 finish my rhyme. 
 And when Mr. Crab said, 
 
 " Now, each choose a p resent, " 
 They cried with one voice, 
 
 " We have had such a pleasant 
 
 And sociable time, that our only request 
 Is, that you and our hostess may ever be 
 blest." 
 
SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 
 
 general term " seaweed " is made 
 to include a great number of 
 living things which differ 
 widely from one another. In 
 the first place, it seems hardly 
 proper to call any of them 
 weeds, for by a weed we com- 
 monly mean a troublesome plant which grows 
 
 where it should not. 
 
 The sea-plants are neither troublesome nor out 
 
 of place; so when we speak of them as weeds, we 
 
 use that word simply to 
 
 mean plant-life, without 
 
 any thought of slight or 
 
 reproach. 
 
 And yet some things 
 
 are classed among the 
 
 seaweeds which are not 
 
 plants at all, but are really 
 
 animals. We surely ought 
 
 to distinguish such as these 
 
 from true sea-mosses. 
 
 151 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 The microscope and its 
 uses. 
 
 Alternation of genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Corals and coral islands. 
 
 Precious coral. 
 
 Gathering and prepar- 
 ing of common sponges. 
 
 Why use ' ' new bottles' ' ? 
 
 Means of defense for the 
 various animals of the 
 
152 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 It is very interesting to notice how closely some 
 animal forms resemble the vegetable growths 
 which are found near them. We see it on the 
 land, sometimes, as in the case of the " walking- 
 sticks," which look so much like the twigs of the 
 trees on which they live. But more examples are 
 found in the sea. 
 
 The most beautiful of our Pacific Hydroids 
 for that is the name of these animals that resem- 
 ble plants is the delicate Feather-moss, a picture 
 of which is shown in the engraving. It grows in 
 tufts attached to the rock, and pieces are often 
 torn off by storms and thrown up on the beach 
 with the sea-mosses. This feather-moss is often 
 dried and used with other mosses in making 
 wreaths and pretty sea-pictures. 
 
 But if you examine it carefully with a micro- 
 iscope, you will see that the feather is only a 
 framework, and that in its edges are hundreds of 
 tiny cups. Each of these cups once contained a 
 little animal, called a polyp, with arms and mouth 
 somewhat like those of a sea-anemone. 
 
 All of these little polyps are connected, and to- 
 gether they secrete the horny material which 
 takes the form of a feather. Old polyps may die 
 jnear the bottom and new ones grow near the tips. 
 
 If you watch carefully, you may find several 
 
SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 153 
 
 other forms of these plant-like hydroids. Some 
 you may find growing on old shells, looking like 
 little, stiff, brown grasses an inch or two in height. 
 Others are quite long and slender, like threads, 
 and they have numerous branches. 
 
 But the test for them all 
 is the microscope, which 
 need not be more than a 
 pocket-lens. All of the 
 true hydroids have little 
 cups on their sides, look- 
 ing sometimes like fine 
 saw-teeth. And if you get 
 a live specimen and put it 
 in a dish of sea-water, you 
 may be able to see the little 
 polyps unfold their pretty 
 arms, like the opening of a 
 flower. But they are very 
 shy, and at the least fright 
 they draw back into their 
 sheltering home. 
 
 There are very queer 
 stories told us about these 
 hydroids by men who have 
 carefully studied their life- 
 history. They seem to be Figure 84. 
 
154 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 closely related to the jelly-fishes, as if one came 
 from the other; but just which is the parent and 
 which is the child, I will not attempt to say. 
 
 There are plenty of things left in the sea yet, 
 which are waiting for more careful study. Per- 
 haps some of you will help read the puzzles. 
 
 Large Corals require warmer water than that 
 which bathes our coast, and so we have no reefs 
 and no coral islands such as those which are so 
 numerous off the coast of Florida and through- 
 out the tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 But we have true corals on our coast, most of 
 them no larger than a lady's thimble. There is 
 a very pretty red variety which you sometimes 
 find growing in a rock grotto when the tide is out. 
 
 It looks like a little lump of red jelly, but when 
 you touch it, the animal shrinks down , leaving a lit- 
 tle hard, red, stony case, no bigger, perhaps, than a 
 pea. This case is made up of many blades of 
 limestone set like the spokes of a wheel. 
 
 If you chip off a piece of the stone on which the 
 creature is growing, so as not to injure him, and 
 put him in water, you may be able to see him 
 come out of his stony home and open his arms, 
 like his near relative, the sea-anemone. 
 
 In the same places you will be still more likely 
 to find Sponges; though our sponges, like our 
 
SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 155 
 
 corals, never grow very large. The common 
 forms may be found in sheltered places, looking 
 like patches of velvet growing on the surface of 
 the rock. Sometimes this velvet is bright red, 
 and sometimes purple or yellow. 
 
 The patches will vary in size, some of them 
 being larger than your two hands. The velvet 
 is generally less than a quarter of an inch in 
 thickness, and there are numerous holes in its 
 surface, which are the breathing-pores for the 
 sponge animals. 
 
 Sometimes you will find larger pieces of dead 
 sponge washed up on the beach with the sea- 
 weeds. These are brown in color, or may be 
 bleached almost white, and are of a fibrous nature, 
 but not very tough. There are other forms of 
 sponge in the sea, waiting for you to examine 
 their wonderful structure. 
 
 In the rock grottoes, where we find the corals 
 and sponges, are many other strange forms of 
 life. One of the most common forms, as well as 
 one of the most difficult to understand, is that of 
 the Tunicates, or Ascidiaiis. 
 
 Both of these names are rather long, though 
 they each have their meaning; the first referring 
 to a tunic, and the second to a bag, or sack. In 
 the Bible we read that u new wine must be put 
 
156 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 into new bottles." The Greek word for bottle, 
 from which one name of these creatures is de- 
 rived, means a leather bag; for wine was not 
 kept in glass in Bible times, but in skins. So 
 we may call these creatures, Sea-bottles. 
 
 Some of the sea-bottles are single, and look like 
 a sack with two mouths, one for the water to go 
 in and the other for it to come out. But those 
 most common on our rocks are compound, great 
 numbers of them being attached together. They 
 form a firm, leathery coating, of a gray or yellow 
 color, which may be as thick as your hand. Its 
 edges are rounded, and you can see that it con- 
 tains many little spaces for water. 
 
 Others look like flattened tubes, an inch or two 
 long, and as large around as a pencil. They are 
 almost transparent, but within their bodies you 
 can see a bent pink thread, which gives them an 
 odd appearance. When the tide is out, they hang 
 from the rocks like living fringes. 
 
 And when the tide is low you may find Sea- 
 slugs in little pools or on the seaweeds. These 
 are real mollusks, which never have shells. Some 
 of them may be as large as your finger, while 
 others are no bigger than a steel pen. 
 
 They are very soft to the touch, and their 
 mantles are often beautifully colored, some being 
 
SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 157 
 
 lemon-yellow, others white with red spots, and 
 others a beautiful blue with brown trimmings. 
 When put into water they expand their gills and 
 ruffles, and show their beauty to great advantage. 
 
 Sometimes you can find them strangely creep- 
 ing on the surface of the water, with their bodies 
 hanging downward, so that they really are walk- 
 ing 011 air. 
 
 These are some of the most common creatures 
 that you will find in the sea. But you may ex- 
 pect also to find many others that are not men- 
 tioned in this book. Remember that each 
 creature must have its own means of getting food 
 and breath and of defending itself from its ene- 
 mies. In each case, try to find out what these 
 are. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Hyclroid (hi'droid), Tunicate (tu'm-kat), Ascidiaii (as- 
 sid'i-an), troublesome (trub'1-sum), polyp (p6l'ip), trans- 
 parent (trans-par'ent), leathery (leth'er-y) 6 
 
HOW SEA-BIEDS KEEP HOUSE. 
 
 f 
 
 [F you climb one of the hills about San Fran- 
 cisco or Oakland on a very clear 
 day, you can see the ocean stretch- 
 ing out into the far west. Perhaps 
 you will also see a ship just coming 
 in from China, or a steamer just 
 leaving for the Sandwich Islands. 
 How small the vessels look, like 
 little specks on the surface of the 
 great salt sea. 
 
 Probably there are plenty of birds flying around 
 the ships, but they are so far away that you can- 
 not possibly see them. But if you look closely 
 beyond the ships, and if there is no fog, you can 
 see two small islands which seem to rise up out 
 of the water, just where 
 the sea and sky come to- 
 gether. 
 
 These small islands are 
 called the Farallones, and 
 they are the home of a few 
 men and their families, 
 
 158 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Tlie horizon. 
 Ownership of islands. 
 What are rooks? 
 Lighthouses. 
 Xestiiig of other birds. 
 44 Home, sweet home/' 
 
u i 
 
 HOW SEA-BIRDS KEEPXJJ.OU.SE. 159 
 
 one mule, some wild rabbits, and thousands of 
 sea-birds. 
 
 The men tend the lamps of the lighthouse, 
 which stands on the top of the largest island, the 
 mule carries oil and provisions from the boats to 
 the houses, the rabbits eat a coarse weed which 
 grows among the rocks, and the birds keep house 
 and raise their young ones. 
 
 Their housekeeping is not just what we would 
 expect, for many of them do not take the trouble 
 even to build a nest. Others build very slightly, 
 of dry weeds and sea-mosses, which they must 
 carefully guard, lest they be stolen by other birds 
 who also wish to set up housekeeping. 
 
 The Murres are the most numerous birds on 
 the islands, and they are the ones which make 
 110 nest at all. The mother murre lays one very 
 large green-shelled egg on the bare rock, and at 
 
 SOUTH FARALLOXE ISLAND. 
 
160 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 once proceeds to sit upon it closely, lest it should 
 be stolen, instead of the nest. 
 
 A few years ago great numbers of murre's eggs 
 were gathered on these islands every summer, and 
 
 THE F. \RAI.I.OXR MULE. 
 
 sold in the markets at about the same price as hen's 
 eggs. But boiled eggs never hatch, and when it 
 was found that the number of birds was decreasing, 
 the gathering of eggs was stopped by government 
 officers, and now there are plenty of young murres. 
 
HOW SEA-BIRDS KEEP HOUSE. 
 
 161 
 
 But sea-gulls abound on the Farailones, as well 
 as murres, and the gulls refuse to obey the law 
 not to steal eggs. If the mother murre leaves her 
 egg even for a minute, a gull pounces down and 
 
 BABY GULL IN NEST. 
 
 seizes it in his beak. The gull knows how to 
 break an egg as well as you do; so he flies up a 
 little way and drops the egg on a stone. The 
 
 W.S.R. VOL. 811 
 
162 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 thick shell breaks, and at once Mr. Gull 
 
 swoops down and be- 
 gins to eat the rich 
 contents. 
 
 The murres crowd 
 together in their rook- 
 eries, as their house- 
 keeping grounds are 
 called, and should a 
 be fired, a great 
 cloud of birds will 
 rise up from the rock, 
 leaving their eggs 
 scarcely a foot apart 
 Figure 85. , upon its bare surface. 
 
 The gulls build a slight nest, in which they lay 
 several eggs, and so do the cormorants, those tall 
 sea-birds which are so swift of wing. Mr. Taylor, 
 who has studied the birds so much, tells us that 
 the young cormorants have neither feathers nor 
 down, but their skins look like black leather. 
 
 The Puffins also live on the islands. They are 
 queer-looking birds, and have been compared to 
 parrots. They have a sharp, hatchet-shaped 
 beak, and funny white eyes. They lay their eggs 
 in burrows, and defend them with much spirit. 
 And so the birds make their various homes on 
 
HOW SEA-BIRDS KEEP HOUSE. 163 
 
 these barren islands, and find them an excellent 
 place for summer housekeeping. They are too 
 far from the mainland to be often visited, and as 
 the United States government controls them, no 
 
 SUGAR-LOAF ROCK, FARALLONE ISLANDS. 
 
164 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS,, 
 
 HARRY R. TAYLOR, now a 
 newspaper-writer, lives in 
 the city of Alameda, Califor- 
 nia. He has studied birds 
 extensively, both those which 
 live near the sea aud those 
 which are always found on 
 land. He has traveled 
 through lonely valleys and 
 climbed rough mountains, 
 seeking for the nests of rare 
 birds, in order to properly 
 study the habits of their 
 builders, and has spent con- 
 siderable time on the Faral- 
 lones with the sea-birds. Mr. 
 Taylor has written exten- 
 sively on the subject of birds, 
 and has published a delight- 
 ful little book called The Story 
 of the Farallones. 
 
 one is allowed to land with- 
 out permission. We may 
 be very glad that they are 
 thus kept for the vast flocks 
 of sea-birds. 
 
 Other creatures, as sea- 
 lions, live in the water near 
 the rocks, and sometimes 
 creep up their sides, and 
 I once saw a number of 
 whales swimming close to 
 the island cliffs. 
 
 The Farallones are the 
 first land one sees when 
 coming in from a long voyage over the broad 
 Pacific, and though they are rocky and barren, 
 they then seem like the finest land in the world. 
 They tell you that you are almost home; and how 
 sweet that word sounds after you have sailed for 
 thousands of miles! 
 
 The bright beam from the lighthouse warns 
 ships in the night to keep away from the rocks, 
 and when the fog hangs over the ocean, great 
 steam-whistles are loudly blown. 
 
 So if you ever see the Farallones from some 
 hilltop, or pass them while sailing, remember 
 that they are the great home of the sea-birds. 
 
HOW SEA-BIRDS KEEP HOUSE. 165 
 
 And think that they are more than that; for they 
 are also a guide to the sailor, showing him by 
 night and by day just how to steer his vessel in 
 order to reach the home-land, the land which he 
 loves the best. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Farallones (far'al-lonz), inurre (mer), rookeries (ruk'er- 
 iz), cormorant (kor'mo-rant), puffin (ptif fin), decreasing 
 (de-kres'Ing). 
 
 BIRD ROCKS. 
 
THE SONG OF THE SEA-BIRD. 
 
 T 1 
 
 I. 
 
 JHE wind is awaking, 
 
 The tall trees are shaking, 
 The sand on the seashore is driven like snow ; 
 Arouse from your resting, 
 'T is time to be breasting 
 The gale that is now leaping up from below. 
 
 II. 
 
 Up, every bold feather ; 
 
 What care we for weather? 
 The sea-bird is happiest when storms round him play ; 
 
 To him the huge billows 
 
 Are like softest pillows, 
 And he screams with delight in the midst of the spray 
 
 III. 
 
 When the green waves come dashing, 
 
 With thunderous lashing, 
 Against the bold cliffs that defend the scared earth, 
 
 He wheels through the roaring, 
 
 Where foam-flakes are pouring, 
 And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth. 
 166 
 
THE SONG OF THE SEA-BIRD. 167 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then off o'er the ocean, 
 
 Where wildest commotion 
 Is changing its surface from plains into hills, 
 
 The sea-bird goes proudly, 
 
 And calls his mate loudly, 
 To follow him flying wherever he wills. 
 
 V. 
 
 To these comes another, 
 
 Who calls for his brother, 
 And soon a long line of swift sea-birds is seen, 
 
 Which falls, and then rises, 
 
 With many surprises, 
 Like the fabled sea-serpent, the broad waves between. 
 
 VI. 
 
 By darting and diving, 
 
 And artful contriving, 
 With the richest of sea-food the whole flock is fed ; 
 
 Then away to the nesting, 
 
 And back to the resting ; 
 For it 's well that brave fishers should homeward be led. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So free is our motion 
 
 O'er earth, air, and ocean, 
 That we range where we will, and feel never a fear. 
 
 Whate'er be the weather, 
 
 It can harm not a feather ; 
 So, my happy companions, I give you good cheer. 
 
H 
 
 6 
 
 fe 
 
 o 
 
SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 
 
 U! ou! ou! ou! What a strange cry, 
 something between the 
 _^ moo of a cow and the bark 
 of a hound. The sounds 
 *- are short and quick, each 
 J ~ r one occupying less than a 
 second of time, though they 
 can be heard for a considerable distance along the 
 rocky shore. 
 
 Besides these barkings you can also hear deep, 
 ugly growls, and from all 
 of these sounds you are 
 apt to reach the conclusion 
 that the creature which is 
 making all of this fuss is 
 in a very unhappy frame 
 of mind. Probably you 
 are mistaken in this 
 thought; but, then, it is 
 not easy to tell just when 
 a sea-lion is contented and 
 happy. 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Why are sea -lions so 
 called ? 
 
 Meaning of Point Lobos. 
 
 History of the "Cliff 
 House. " 
 
 Golden Gate Park. 
 
 Efforts to protect seals. 
 
 Read Dr. Jordan's "Mat- 
 ka." 
 
 Use of seal -fur. 
 
 Cost of fur garments. 
 
 Man's selfishness is de- 
 structive. 
 
 169 
 
170 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Most wild creatures are apparently happy when 
 they have enough to eat and a good place to sleep, 
 and are in no danger of being disturbed. How 
 contentedly a pussy-cat will blink and purr when 
 she feels that all of her immediate wants have 
 been supplied. On the whole, I believe that most 
 creatures have a pretty good time during the 
 greater portion of their lives. I certainly hope 
 that this is true, and I have no patience with any 
 one who seeks to worry or torment any living 
 creature. You should do to others as you would 
 be done by, even if the " others" are only dogs or 
 birds or horses. 
 
 The sea-lion may be barking for very joy; and 
 as for his growls, they are only his customary sal- 
 utations to his neighbors when they get in his 
 way. Sometimes he fights, to be sure; but in spite 
 of all his quarrels, he contrives to grow very big 
 and fat. It would take a large horse to weigh as 
 much as a large sea-lion. 
 
 Look at the picture, and you will get a good 
 idea of these creatures, even if you never saw 
 them alive on any of the " seal-rocks " that are 
 found here and there along the Pacific coast. 
 The rocks just west of San Francisco, near the 
 famous Cliff House, abound with sea-lions, and 
 they lie so near the shore that the movements of 
 
SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 171 
 
 the creatures are easily seen, while their cries are 
 heard continually. 
 
 In the picture you notice one fat fellow half-way 
 out of the water. His eye is bright and his mouth 
 is open. He is the one that is saying Ou! ou! ou! 
 The others hear him, but they are not disturbed, 
 though some of them will probably answer him 
 back with interest. 
 
 See the huge creature that has just worked his 
 way out of the water. He is so big and fat that he 
 looks like an enormous sack of meal, wrinkles and 
 all. Higher up the rocks are many others, some 
 lazily sleeping, while others are weaving about in 
 an uneasy manner. Soon they will begin to slip 
 down the rocks and plunge into the sea. 
 
 The principal food of the sea-lion is fish. He 
 is a very expert fisher, and it is to be feared that 
 he sometimes kills more fish than he cares to eat. 
 Many of the sea-lions along the coast have been 
 shot during the last few years, because they are 
 believed to impair the fishing for the men who go 
 out in boats. 
 
 There are several different animals that are com- 
 monly known as seals. The great sea-lion is one 
 of these; the fur-seal of the north, sometimes 
 known as the sea-bear, is another; while the true 
 hair-seal, that swims along our coast, is a third. 
 
172 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The hair-seal seldom touches land, though it 
 may often be seen near to the shore, swimming 
 freely, and occasionally throwing its round head 
 out of water and looking around with its big, 
 kindly eyes. Most of these seals are rather small, 
 perhaps three feet long. Their skins are covered 
 with short, coarse hair, and are of no use as fur, 
 though they are often tanned with the hair on 
 and used for covering trunks and making knap- 
 sacks. These seals have no external ears. 
 
 The sea-bears, or true fur-seals, differ much 
 from sea-lions and hair-seals. Beneath an outer 
 coat of coarse hair they have an under coat of the 
 softest and finest fur that you can imagine. When 
 the skins are prepared for market, all of the coarse 
 hairs are pulled out, and the soft fur is dyed a 
 rich dark brown. 
 
 Iii the summer-time the sea-bears of the north 
 come in from the ocean and gather on the shores 
 of a few small islands off the coast of Alaska. 
 
 How they can find their way through hundreds 
 of miles of waves and fogs to their old home is 
 something that we do not understand. They 
 surely must have powers that man does not pos- 
 sess. 
 
 Here they gather into families; each household 
 consisting of a big, surly male, who comes first, 
 
SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 173 
 
 and as many of the small, gentle females as he can 
 induce to live with him, as they come in from the 
 sea, together with all he can steal from his neigh- 
 boring lords. 
 
 Sometimes he will get thirty, and again only 
 one or two; while many males, especially the 
 younger ones, are obliged to keep bachelor's hall. 
 There is no end of growling and scolding and 
 fighting, and blood often flows freely. 
 
 For fear of thieves, the head of a family dares 
 not leave his home, even to get a mouthful of food, 
 and so he fasts all summer, and lives on his own 
 fat. Sometimes a thief comes up slyly and catches 
 up a female seal in his mouth and tries to carry 
 her off to his home. This act enrages her master, 
 and in the fight that follows between the two big 
 seals the poor thing is almost torn in pieces. 
 
 The young seals are born in these households, 
 and are cared for by their mothers until they 
 learn how to swim and can catch food for them- 
 selves. Then all the seals begin to slip off to sea, 
 and gradually the summer home is broken up. 
 The males leave last, and then the islands remain 
 lone and bare during the long winter. 
 
 While the seals are on the islands, some of the 
 males that have no families to care for are selected 
 by the men in charge of the station and are driven 
 
174 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 inland, where they are killed and skinned. The 
 natives preserve most of the flesh for food, while 
 the skins are shipped to London. There they are 
 tanned, plucked, and dyed, after which they are 
 sent to different cities and made into beautiful 
 capes, caps, and other garments. 
 
 Seals are also killed from boats and ships at sea, 
 sometimes many miles from the islands; but this 
 is unlawful and cruel, for most of those that are 
 thus caught are mother seals that are gathering 
 food to provide for their young. If the mothers 
 are killed, the pups, as they are called, will starve 
 to death on the islands, and so the herds of seals 
 that furnish so much beautiful fur will become 
 smaller and smaller as the years go by. 
 
 The United States and Great Britain are trying 
 to stop this wasteful catching of seals, but they 
 find it difficult to prevent it altogether. Let us 
 hope that they may be more successful in the 
 future, and that the seals on the islands may be 
 allowed to increase. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 salutations (sal-u-ta'shttnz), knapsack (nap'sak), im- 
 mediate (im-me'di-ate), weaving (wev'ing), enormous 
 (e-n6r'mtis), bachelor (bach'e-16r), enrages (en-raj'ez), 
 wasteful (wasfful). 
 
A WATER-TELESCOPE. 
 
 HAT is a water-telescope?" 
 
 I suppose this question 
 will be the first one to be 
 asked by every boy 
 
 _. or girl who begins to 
 
 read this chapter. It 
 is a proper question, 
 too, for it is always well to find out at the begin- 
 ning what we are to read about. 
 
 Well, then, I will reply that it is not a telescope 
 at all, if we use that word in its strict meaning. 
 A real telescope is an in- 
 strument which helps to 
 see distant objects by mak- 
 ing them seem nearer. The 
 largest telescopes are used 
 by astronomers, who wish 
 to study the moon or the 
 stars. 
 
 Many common telescopes 
 are called spy-glasses, and 
 are used in looking at dis- 
 
 175 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Structure of telescopes. 
 
 Great telescopes of the 
 world. 
 
 The increase of knowl- 
 edge by means of the 
 telescope. 
 
 The sea as a great aqua- 
 rium. 
 
 The abundance of sea- 
 life. 
 
 Pearl-oy stersand pearls . 
 
 The beauties of the sea. 
 
176 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 tant objects on the earth, like the trees on a moun- 
 tain side. Still smaller ones are-known as opera- 
 glasses. These are not very powerful, but are 
 convenient in a large hall, when one wishes to see 
 the features of the speaker or singer more dis- 
 tinctly. But all true telescopes are used in air, 
 and never in the water. 
 
 A water-telescope is an instrument which will 
 assist one to see objects that are underneath the 
 surface of water, particularly those that are at the 
 bottom of a lake or bay. 
 
 If you go out in a boat, you know how hard it 
 is to see the fishes that are swimming about in 
 the water beneath you. Almost all the time there 
 is a breeze, which makes ripples on the surface of 
 the lake, and you know you cannot see clearly 
 through ripples. 
 
 Even if there is no wind, the boat itself makes 
 little waves, and though the water is only ten feet 
 deep, it might just as well be a hundred, so far as 
 seeing the bottom is concerned. A water-tele- 
 scope destroys the ripples, and lets you look 
 through water as if it were clear glass. 
 
 It is nothing but a box with a water-tight glass 
 bottom. If you set this box on the water, and 
 press it down a little, you will find that when you 
 look into the top, you can see through the glass, 
 
A WATER-TELESCOPE. 177 
 
 right down into the clear water beneath, just as if 
 there were no rigples or waves at all. 
 
 Sometimes a water-telescope is made by taking 
 the bottom out of a wooden pail and putting a 
 circle of glass in its place. But it is generally 
 easier to fit a pane of glass into a strong box, and 
 then make all the cracks tight by the use of putty 
 and paint. 
 
 The best water-telescope that I ever looked 
 through was set in the bottom of a boat. In fact, 
 there were four of them, set end to end, so that 
 they ran almost from one end of the boat to the 
 other. The boat had been built on purpose for 
 them, and was wide and flat. In the center was 
 an open space, or well, which had no bottom at 
 all, though a strong curb ran around it, so that 
 the water could not come into the boat, even when 
 it was well loaded. 
 
 In this well were set the telescopes, which were 
 deep, narrow boxes, just fitting the curb. Their 
 bottoms were of clear plate glass, which was kept 
 very clean by frequent washings with a soft 
 sponge. There was a kind of canopy over the 
 boat to keep off the bright light from above, for 
 the things we wanted to see were all beneath us. 
 There were seats along the sides of the boat for 
 the passengers, and one cross-seat near the end 
 
 W.S.K. VOL. 812 
 
178 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 for the man who rowed us about. We each gave 
 him twenty-five cents and took pur places in the 
 boat. Then we all looked into the boxes, and 
 found, to our delight, that we could see the bottom 
 as clearly as if we had been fishes ourselves. 
 
 The place was a quiet spot in Monterey Bay, 
 where the bottom was partly rocky and partly 
 sandy, and the cool ocean water was as clear as 
 glass. Looking over the side of the boat, we 
 could see little but ripples, but when we bent over 
 the water-telescopes, it seemed as if we were right 
 at home with the creatures of the ocean. 
 
 The seaweeds first attracted our attention. They 
 were growing gracefully upon the rocks, some of 
 them being bright green, like leaves of lettuce, 
 while others were of an olive color, tall and 
 branched, and looking almost like trees. 
 
 Some of them are, indeed, called sea-oaks, and 
 they grow in water that is twenty feet deep, reach- 
 ing from the bottom almost to the surface. Then 
 there were fields of seagrass as green as that of 
 the freshest lawn on the land. 
 
 This grass was a yard high or more, and we 
 thought what a swath we could cut if we could 
 only go down into the sea with a scythe. On this 
 grass live many little animals, just as you see 
 flies, and bugs, and spiders on the grass of a hay- 
 field. 
 
A WATER-TELESCOPE. 179 
 
 But soon we passed on a little and saw still 
 more beautiful sights. The gray rocks beneath 
 us were almost covered with purple sea-urchins, 
 their straight spines standing out in every direc- 
 tion. Most of them were so large that you could 
 not put one in the crown of your hat until you 
 had taken off his spines, and they looked so happy 
 and comfortable that you would not want to do 
 that. With the spines on, many of them were as 
 large as tea-kettles, and in some places they were 
 packed on the rocks as thick as they could lie. 
 
 Again, there would be groups of little ones no 
 bigger than your fist, but, big or little, they were 
 all very interesting objects. And the best thing 
 about it was that they were all at home, living 
 just as they liked to live, in the clear, cool, and 
 deep water of the bay, and not shut up in a glass 
 aquarium, like a wild bird in a little cage. 
 
 Besides the sea-urchins, there were many other 
 living creatures, such as we sometimes see from 
 the shore, only larger and more perfect. There 
 were sea-anemones blossomed out like great 
 flowers; huge abalones resting on the rocks, their 
 great shells raised slightly to let the water circu- 
 late freely; starfishes of various colors, yellow, 
 red, and purple; and then true fishes, swimming 
 about so gracefully, and seeming to take no notice 
 
180 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 of the boat that was sailing right over their heads, 
 or, more properly, over their backs. 
 
 One of these fishes had rings of black running 
 around his light-colored body, making him look 
 like a prisoner in San Quentin. He is very prop- 
 erly called the " convict-fish." He grows to be 
 about eight or ten inches long, has a sharp nose 
 like a pig, and always seems to be near the bottom, 
 searching for food among the rocks. They say 
 he is seldom caught with a hook. 
 
 Sometimes quite a large fish would swim right 
 under our boat, and again we would see a whole 
 school of sea-minnows, or shiners, darting away in 
 various directions, and then coming together 
 again, like bees in a flying swarm. 
 
 Figure 86. 
 
A WATER-TELESCOPE. 181 
 
 We kept near the shore, as the life is more 
 abundant there, and besides, when the water is 
 too deep, it is hard to see what is going on be- 
 neath you. But when we saw the fishing-boats 
 come in with their loads of beautiful silver-sided 
 salmon, we wished that we might have had a 
 telescope that would have shown us the wonders 
 of the deeper sea. 
 
 When we stand on the beach and look out over 
 the waves, we can imagine some of the wonderful 
 things that are going on beneath them, but we 
 cannot really see the great fishes darting here and 
 there in pursuit of their prey, nor observe the 
 broad pearl-oysters resting on the bottom, nor 
 watch the hundreds of beautiful creatures that 
 have their home far away from man's sight. 
 
 And yet we know that they are there, for 
 sometimes the boats let down hooks and dredges 
 and bring us up a few specimens. And so we 
 
 Figure 87. 
 
182 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 picture to our minds the wonderful ocean home. 
 We think of all that we might see there, if our eyes 
 could only get the chance, and we try to imagine 
 what we never can hope to behold. 
 
 But with the wonderful water-telescope we can 
 really see a great many of the creatures that live 
 near the shore, and they seem so much more 
 beautiful than we had supposed, that we are ready 
 to believe that if we could only live there, we 
 should find the ocean as rich and interesting and 
 as full of life as the land or the air. 
 
 I hope that you may all have a chance some 
 time to go out in what is called the "glass- 
 bottomed boat," and if you do, I am sure you 
 will be surprised and pleased to observe what 
 wonderful plants and animals live beneath the 
 blue waves. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 telescope (tel'e-skop), astronomer (as-tr6n'o-mer), con- 
 venient (kon-ven'yent), concerned (k6n-sernd'), canopy 
 (kan'o-py), scythe (sith), shiners (shm'ers), aquarium 
 (a-qua'ri-tim). 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 
 
 fiROM the sea comes much merchan- 
 dise. Thousands of men earn their 
 Jiving by helping to gather it in. 
 Thousands more prepare it for mar- 
 ket, transport it to convenient sta- 
 tions, and then expose it for sale in 
 the stores and deliver it to buyers. 
 If the harvest of the sea should fail for a single 
 
 year, there would be great 
 distress in many homes, 
 and the business world 
 would be greatly dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 The harvest of the sea 
 may be divided into three 
 groups; namely, mineral, 
 vegetable, and animal pro- 
 ducts; and the last of these 
 three is of far more value 
 than both of the others. 
 We will take them up in 
 their proper order. 
 
 183 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 What are crystals? 
 
 Formation of salt crys- 
 tals. 
 
 Uses of chlorine. 
 
 Beware of swindlers. 
 
 Iodine. 
 
 Codfish industries. 
 
 What fish can you watch, 
 to find out its habits ? 
 
 The sea-otter, and its 
 fur. 
 
 Whalebone, and its uses. 
 
 Diving for pearls. 
 
 The sea as a great store- 
 house. 
 
184 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The mineral product consists chiefly of salt, 
 great quantities of which are obtained from sea- 
 water by evaporation. California has a fine cli- 
 mate for this work during a part of the year, for 
 there is no rain in summer, and the warm and 
 dry air rapidly takes up the moisture from the 
 salt-ponds. 
 
 Most of these ponds are located in Alameda 
 County, on the low lands adjoining San Francisco 
 Bay. The ponds are shallow basins that can be 
 easily filled from the bay with the salt water that 
 is to be evaporated by the heat of the sun. 
 
 When most of the water has evaporated and the 
 brine has become very strong, the salt settles in 
 crystals and is raked out and thrown up into 
 great white piles shaped like tents, which can 
 be seen across the marshes for a long distance. 
 During the year 1898, Alameda County produced 
 87,800 tons of salt, valued at $155,812. 
 
 Besides common salt, certain other chemical 
 salts are obtained from sea-water, but the amount 
 is not very great, since most of them are now 
 found in mines and springs. From common salt, 
 however, very valuable products are manufactured, 
 such as soda and chloride of lime. These are used 
 in the making of glass, soap, paper, and white 
 cloth. So everybody uses sea-products every day. 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 185 
 
 There is said to be a trace of gold in all sea- 
 water, and many efforts have been made to ex- 
 tract it profitably. A few years ago a speculator 
 put up works on the coast of Maine for taking 
 gold out of sea-water. He would sink his cans 
 beneath a wharf, and pass electricity through 
 them all night. 
 
 Ill the morning, when they were pulled up, 
 they were found to contain considerable gold, and 
 many people paid him large sums of money for a 
 share in the business. 
 
 He took their money and soon disappeared. 
 When he did not come back, they began to look 
 around, and at length it was found that he had 
 employed a diver to go down into the water, each 
 night, and put the gold into the cans. It is not prob- 
 able that the sea will be used as a gold mine 
 again, till people have forgotten this wicked cheat. 
 
 The vegetable products of the sea consist chiefly 
 of various kinds of mosses or seaweeds which are 
 used for food or are employed in the arts. Some 
 nations, as the Japanese, eat seaweeds very freely, 
 while Americans eat them but little, though they 
 make some use of them as medicines. 
 
 From sea-mosses we can extract much gum or 
 mucilage, which is used by clothmakers, and the 
 refuse can be made into a stiff pasteboard for 
 
186 WESTERN SERIES 'OP READERS. 
 
 book-covers. From the ashes of seaweeds several 
 valuable salts can be obtained, especially the salts 
 of iodine. 
 
 The salt grass of the seashore is carefully saved 
 in some countries of Europe. It is made into a 
 coarse hay, which is used instead of straw as a 
 packing material, especially in crates and boxes 
 containing glass or earthenware. Perhaps you 
 have seen it when such cases have been opened. 
 
 We now come to the animal products, and here 
 we find a great variety. Fish, doubtless, heads 
 the list, as by far the most valuable; and then 
 come the other kinds of food, as oysters, clams, 
 lobsters, and crabs, while oil, whalebone, sponge, 
 and pearl follow on, the yield of each one being 
 worth vast sums of money every year. 
 
 There are more kinds of fish taken from the 
 sea than you or I could count in a long time, but 
 a few of these are more valuable than all the rest 
 put together. Sharks are the largest fishes, but 
 few people care to eat their flesh, though the 
 Chinese esteem their fins a delicacy. 
 
 But almost everybody eats salmon and cod and 
 mackerel and herring. They are eaten fresh by 
 those who live near the shore, while for other 
 people they are preserved in various ways and 
 sent all over the world. 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 187 
 
 Salmon is canned, or salted, or smoked, and it 
 is good eating in any of these ways. Codfish is 
 preserved in brine, and then, when it is well 
 salted, it is spread out in the sunshine and thor- 
 oughly dried. The crisp fish are then either 
 packed in large bales, or pieces of the best parts 
 are made into white " bricks, " which go to the 
 kitchen and are " picked up " by the cook, fresh- 
 ened, and then made into delicious fishballs. 
 
 Mackerel are preserved in brine, and are often 
 sold in small kegs, called kits. Many people 
 consider mackerel the most delicious fish of the 
 sea. Large herrings are always salted. Some 
 are sold from the brine, while others are dried 
 and smoked, and then packed in wooden boxes. 
 
 Sardines are fishes resembling small herrings. 
 They are cleaned and cooked, and put up in flat 
 tin boxes with olive oil. Some of the larger ones 
 are preserved with mustard or tomato sauce. 
 
 If you live near the coast, you can get many 
 other kinds, like smelt and rockfish and flounders 
 and eels; and if your home is near a river or lake, 
 you may get trout or perch or sturgeon, but these 
 are seldom preserved by salting or canning, and 
 must be eaten while they are fresh. 
 
 Fishing may be hard work, but it is often 
 reckoned as sport. Here is what one man tells 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 189 
 
 about his fishing near San Diego. A number of 
 men had gone out in a boat and had no success 
 for a time, but at last the fish began to bite. 
 
 " Now the fun commenced in earnest; first one, 
 then two, four, five, are hooked at a time, and 
 rare sport it was to haul them in. For about five 
 minutes we had all we could handle, and then for 
 ten or fifteen minutes we would not see a sign of 
 one. Now we are into them again, hauling away 
 for dear life. 
 
 " Sometimes, when hauling in one or two, they 
 would become entangled with other lines, and 
 before we could get them in we would have one, 
 two, or three on the remaining lines, and then 
 there was a sad jumble of lines and struggling, 
 fish. 
 
 " Occasionally, in attempting to land the fish in 
 the box, we missed it, and they fell down into the 
 bottom of the boat, or our footing would be lost 
 and we were bunched in a slippery mass, fish and 
 all. The sloop was pitching heavily, as half a 
 gale of wind was blowing. Wet from the waist 
 down, we had what you might call a huge time. 
 Having all the fish we wanted, by two P.M., al- 
 though the biting was as furious as ever, we got 
 under way to save the wind home." 
 
 But fish do not include all of the food-products 
 
190 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 of the sea. Think of all the creatures that man 
 has captured for his use. Off the coast of Central 
 America the natives catch great turtles that come 
 up on the sandy beach to lay their eggs. In the 
 frozen Arctic the Esquimaux live almost wholly 
 on seals, while in the markets of our coast cities 
 are found numerous kinds of those creatures that 
 people call shell-fish. 
 
 In some countries sea-cucumbers are esteemed 
 as a great delicacy, while among certain islanders 
 of the Pacific a swimming seaworm is so highly 
 prized that when it arrives off their coasts they 
 drop all other employments, including fighting, 
 and, friends and enemies together, pull off in their 
 canoes to collect great quantities of the green 
 "Polulu." 
 
 Comparatively little clothing is obtained from 
 the sea, but that little is of the most expensive 
 kind. It does not take a very large sealskin cape 
 to be worth one hundred dollars, while a single sea- 
 otter's pelt will fetch three fourths of that sum. 
 Leather is made from the hides of hair-seals and 
 walruses, while shoestrings of the strongest kind 
 are cut from the tanned skin of the porpoise. 
 
 Oil was formerly obtained almost wholly from 
 the blubber of whales, but in these days of petro- 
 leum not so many ships go out to hunt these great 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 191 
 
 creatures. They have little rest, however, for 
 there is still a great demand for whalebone, which, 
 by the way, is not bone at all, but a kind of tough 
 fringe which grows around the whale's mouth to 
 assist him in catching his food. 
 
 A large whale's head may contain as much as 
 2,500 pounds of whalebone, and the price is some- 
 times as high as $3.50 a pound; so you see the 
 capture of a full-grown whale is quite an impor- 
 tant event. 
 
 While the whalers in the Arctic are taking off 
 the fat blubber, the natives are rushing in with 
 sharp knives to cut off as much of the lean meat 
 as possible before the carcass sinks. This lean 
 meat furnishes them a great supply of food, and 
 we surely do not grudge them their prize. 
 
 From whales to sponges is a long step, but both 
 are a part of the ''harvest of the sea." Good 
 sponges grow in rather warm water, like that of 
 the West Indies and parts of the Mediterranean 
 Sea. They are also found in the Red Sea, but 
 none of any value grow in the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 When the sponge is torn from the rock on 
 which it is growing, and brought to the surface, 
 it is of a dark color, looking almost like a piece of 
 liver. After being out of the water for a short 
 time, the sponges die. They are then thrown into 
 
192 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 a tank of water, where they remain a few days, 
 till most of the flesh has decayed. 
 
 Then they are taken out, and so thoroughly 
 cleansed and washed that nothing but the skele- 
 ton remains. This yellow, horny skeleton is 
 what we call a sponge, but, as a matter of fact, it 
 is what is left of a sponge after the parts that 
 once had life have perished. 
 
 Pearls are perhaps the most precious products 
 of the sea, and we will close our account of the 
 harvest which man reaps from its waters by a few 
 words concerning pearls. A good pearl is round, 
 like a pea, and it shows mild rainbow colors upon 
 its surface as it is turned over and over. 
 
 Pearls are found inside the shells of the pearl- 
 oyster. They are made of the same substance as 
 the shells themselves, and get their color and 
 luster from the same sources. 
 
 Pearl-oysters have large, flat shells. They grow 
 in water about fifty feet deep. The best ones 
 come from off the coast of Ceylon, though they 
 are found in many other parts of the ocean. 
 
 Native divers go down to the bottom, gather 
 shells into a basket, and are drawn up again, all 
 in the course of a minute. Like the sponges, the 
 oysters are taken from the water and left to de- 
 cay, and then the pearls are carefully gathered. 
 
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 193 
 
 If no good pearls are found, at least the shells 
 are left, and many of these are sold for the manu- 
 facture of mother-of-pearl objects, such as fine 
 buttons and knife-handles. 
 
 In conclusion, let me ask you to carefully ob- 
 serve the objects about you for a single week. I 
 am sure you will be surprised to find how many 
 of them came wholly or in part from the great 
 ocean that covers three fourths of the surface of 
 the world in which you live. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 polulu (po-lu'lu), petroleum (pe-tro'le-tim), thoroughly 
 (thur'o-ly), skeleton (skel'i-ttin), chloride (klo'ridor klo'rid), 
 iodine (fo-dm), convenient (k6n-ven'yent), evaporated 
 (e-vap'o-rat-ed), whalebone (hwal'bon), precious (presh'tis). 
 
HOW TO COLLECT AND PRESERVE, 
 SPECIMENS. 
 
 is a good thing for young people to 
 have small cabinets, either of their own 
 or in connection with their 
 school-mates. Specimens 
 are to be collected for pur- 
 s poses of study , and in mem- 
 ory of interesting places to 
 which visits have been made. 
 
 It is always well to write good labels and to 
 keep a record-book, giving numbers, localities, 
 dates, and other items of interest. The speci- 
 mens themselves can be kept in either boxes or 
 bottles, and these can be stored in any convenient 
 room or cupboard. 
 
 Large shells and other dry objects may be 
 marked with a name or number, and laid on 
 shelves or in proper boxes. Very small shells, 
 seeds, etc., may be kept in little bottles, which 
 can be bought of the druggist for a small sum. 
 
 Objects which cannot be dried must be kept in 
 closed jars of preserving fluid. Alcohol is good, 
 
 194 
 
HOW TO COLLECT AND PRESERVE SPECIMENS. 195 
 
 but dilute formalin is much cheaper. About 
 ten parts of water to one of formalin is a good 
 mixture, though for some things it may be still 
 weaker. Instead of jars, well-corked bottles with 
 wide mouths may be used to contain the fluid for 
 the smaller objects. 
 
 Most mollusks may be killed by putting them 
 into fresh water for a time. They can then be 
 plunged into boiling water. In a little while the 
 flesh will be loosened, and can be taken out with 
 a pin. The shells should then be cleaned with a 
 brush, rinsed, and thoroughly dried. Bivalves, 
 after cleaning, should be closed and tied with a 
 string until they are dry, to prevent them from 
 gaping. 
 
 Directions for drying starfishes, etc., have al- 
 ready been given. A bath of formalin solution, 
 before drying, is an advantage for such objects. 
 Remember that both alcohol and formalin are 
 poisons, and use them accordingly. Get as many 
 books to help you as you can afford, or consult 
 them in the libraries. 
 
 Finally, wherever you live, try to get acquainted 
 with all the natural objects around you. They can 
 teach you many things; for they were all made and 
 are all governed by Infinite Wisdom. 
 
LIST OP FIGURES. 
 
 FIGURE. NAME. PAGE. 
 
 1. Acmsea spectrum, Nutt 19 
 
 2. Fissurella volcano, R\v 20 
 
 3. Glyphis aspera, Esch 20 
 
 ' 4. Lucapina crenulata, by 21 
 
 5. Fissurelidsea bimaculata, Ihill 21 
 
 6. Acmsea spectrum, Nutt 21 
 
 7. Acmsea patina, Esch 22 
 
 8. Acmsea pelta, Esch 22 
 
 9. Acmsea persona, Esch 22 
 
 10. Acmsea mitra, Esch 22 
 
 11. Lottia gigantea, Gray 23 
 
 12. Ostrea Virginiana, Lister 30 
 
 13. Mya arenaria, Linn 38 
 
 14. Mya arenaria, Linn 39 
 
 15. Ariolimax Columbianus, Old 45 
 
 16. Helix Dupetitliouarsii, Desh 46 
 
 17. Helix fidelis, Gray 47 
 
 18. Helix Tryoni, Newc 47 
 
 19. Glyptostoma Newberryanum, W. (\. I> 47 
 
 20. Haliotisfulgens, Phil 51 
 
 21. Haliotis Cracherodii, Leacli 55 
 
 22. Haliotis rufescens, Swains 60 
 
 23. Pecten latiauratus, Conr 64 
 
 24. Pecten hastatus, Sby 66 
 
 25. Pecten sequisulcatus, Cpr 67 
 
 20. Hinnites giganteus, Gray 69 
 
 27. Mytilus Calif ornianus, Conr 73 
 
 28. Modiola recta, Conr 74 
 
 197 
 
198 LIST OF FIGURES. 
 
 FIGURE. NAME. PAGE. 
 
 29. Septifer bifurcatus, Rve 75 
 
 30. Adulafalcata, Gld 75 
 
 31. Surcula Carpenteriana, Gabb 76 
 
 32. Goniobasis nigrina, Lea 79 
 
 33. Goniobasis plicifera, Lea 79 
 
 34. Physa heterostropha, Say 81 
 
 35. Helisoma trivolvis, Say , 81 
 
 36. Limnophysa palustris, Mull 82 
 
 37. Limnxa stagnalis, Linn 82 
 
 38. Anodonta Calif orniensis, Lea ; 83 
 
 39. Anodonta angulata, Lea 85 
 
 40. Olivella biplicata, Sby 87 
 
 41. Psammobia rubro-radiata, Nutt 88 
 
 42. Macoma secta, Conr 89 
 
 43. Tapes staminea, Conr 90 
 
 44. Saxidomus Nuttalli, Conr , 90 
 
 45. Donax Californic-us, Conr 91 
 
 46. Glycimeris generosa, Gld 92 
 
 47. Lunatia Lewisii, Gld 93 
 
 48. Littorina planaxis, Nutt 98 
 
 49. Littorina scutulata, Gld 98 
 
 50. Chlorostomafunebrale, A. Ad 98 
 
 51. Chlorostoma brunneum, Phil. ... 99 
 
 52. Calliostoma costatuiii. Mart. . 99 
 
 53. Calliostoma, anmilatum, Mart 99 
 
 54. Leptonyx sanguineus, Linn . 100 
 
 55. Pomaulax undosus, Wood 101 
 
 56. Trochiscus Norrisii, Sby ...?.; 101 
 
 57. Cryptochiton Stelleri, Midd 104 
 
 58. Tonicella lineata, Wood 104 
 
 59. Stenoradsia Magdalenensix, lids 104 
 
 60. Mopalia ciliata, Sby 105 
 
 61. Mopalia lignosa, Gld 105 
 
 62. Purpura saxicola, Val 105 
 
LIST OF FIGURES. 199 
 
 FIGURE. NAME. PAGE. 
 
 63. Monoceros engonatum, Conr 106 
 
 64. Purpura lima, Mart 106 
 
 65. Purpuru crispata, Chem 106 
 
 66. Eanella Calif ornica, Hds 107 
 
 67. Chorus Belcheri, Hds 107 
 
 68. Nassa perpinguis, Hds 108 
 
 69. Amphissa versicolor, Ball 108 
 
 70. Ocinebra lurida, Midd , 108 
 
 71. Cardium corbis, Mart Ill 
 
 72. Siliqua patula, Dixon 109 
 
 73. Zirphcea crispata, Linn 109 
 
 74. Pholadidea penita, Conr. 109 
 
 75. Parapholas Calif ornica, Conr 110 
 
 76. Asterias, Starfish 120 
 
 77. Actinia, Sea-anemone 126 
 
 78. Medusa, Jellyfish 132 
 
 79. Velella, Salleeman . 133 
 
 80. Ommatostrephes, Common squid. 135 
 
 81. Ommatostrephes, Purple squid 136 
 
 82. Nereis, Seaworm 139 
 
 83. Balanus, Acorn barnacle 141 
 
 84. Aglaophenia struthionides, Feather-moss 153 
 
 85. Lunda cirrhata, Sea-parrot, or Puffin 162 
 
 86. Sebastichthys, Rockfish 180 
 
 87. Pollachius, Pollock-fish, . . . , 181 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abalone 50 
 
 Barnacle 141 
 
 Brittle-star 128 
 
 Chiton 104 
 
 Clam 37 
 
 Coral 154 
 
 Crab 130 
 
 Cuttle-fish 135 
 
 Fish 186 
 
 Fresh- water clam 84 
 
 Fresh-water snail 82 
 
 Giant clam 92 
 
 Grampus 117 
 
 Hermit crab 143 
 
 Hydroid 152 
 
 Jelly-fish 132 
 
 Land-slug 45 
 
 Land-snail 43 
 
 Limpet 16 
 
 Littorine 98 
 
 Moon-shell 93 
 
 Mussel . . , 71 
 
 Octopus 135 
 
 Olive-shell , . 87 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Oyster , 27 
 
 Pearl 192 
 
 Pecten 62 
 
 Piddock 109 
 
 Porpoise 117 
 
 Purple 106 
 
 Salleeman 133 
 
 Salt 184 
 
 Sand-clam 88 
 
 Sea-anemone 126 
 
 Sea-birds ; 113, 158 
 
 Sea-bottle 156 
 
 Sea-lion 169 
 
 Sea-slug 156 
 
 Seaweed , 138 
 
 Seaworm 139 
 
 Sea-urchin 123 
 
 Seal 169 
 
 Sponge 155 
 
 Squid 135 
 
 Starfish 120 
 
 Top-shell 100 
 
 Turban-shell , . 98 
 
 Whale . , .190 
 
The Western Series of Readers 
 
 EDITED BY HARR WAGNER 
 
 Designed Especially for Supplementary Work in 
 
 HISTORY AND NATURE STUDY 
 
 In Our Public Schools 
 
 All Fully and Beautifully Illustrated. Each Volume Contains from 
 Eighteen to Twenty-Six Full-Page Pictures. 
 
 EXTENSIVELY ADOPTED AND USED IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
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 PACIFIC HISTORY STORIES 
 
 By HARR WAGNER 
 
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 During the short time that this book has been on the market its 
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 educators, to be excellently adapted to the work for which it was 
 intended a supplementary reader in history study in the Fourth 
 and Fifth Grades. Fully two thirds of the counties in California 
 have this book ou their supplementary and library list. 
 
 VOL. 
 
 PACIFIC NATURE STORIES 
 
 By HARR WAGNER and DAVID S. JORDAN and others 
 
 For Fourth and Fifth Grades 
 
 A companion volume to the above. It contains some eighteen most 
 interesting and instructive sketches of our Western animal and 
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 the greatest educators of the West. As a reading book in nature 
 study it cannot be excelled. 
 
 VOL. 
 
 NATURE STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST 
 
 By HERBERT BASHFORD 
 
 State librarian of Washington 
 
 For Sixth and Seventh Grades 
 
 This book covers a more extended field than Volume II, and is not 
 strictly confined to the Northwest Among the interesting storks 
 will b~ found those of The Black Bear, The Kingfisher, The Clam, 
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 pupil in the West. The illustrations are works of art and true to 
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 TALES OF DISCOVERY ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 
 By MARGARET GRAHAM HOOD 
 
 For Third and Fourth Grades 
 
 The Tale of History could not be more charmingly told than it is in 
 this volume, which is intended for the lower grades. A Third or 
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 Written by R. VAN BERGEN 
 
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