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Excerpt from The Book of Shells: Containing the Classes Mollusca, Conchifera, Cirrhipeda, Annulata, and Crustacea
Although, at the first glance, the inhabitants of shells appear to be beings of a very uninteresting nature, a due consideration of the valuable properties of many, and the usefulness of all, will enable us to perceive, that, regarding them merely in an interested point of View, they are worthy of the strictest attention of the natu ralist. In the first place, the whole of them afford food for the different species of fish, and other inhabitants of the deep. The Tyrian dye, the royal purple of the ancients, was produced by the inhabitant of a small univalve shell, of the genus Purpura. That beautiful ornament in dress, the oriental pearl, is the consequence of disease in a Species of mussel, and the inner por tion of the shell Of the same animal, is the well-known substance, mother-of-pearl A kind of silk is Obtained from the beard of the pinna, which, in some places, is made into gloves. AS an article of food we may men tion the well-known oyster, the mussel, scallop, &c., and some of the larger kinds form no small portion of the subsistence of the natives of the south-sea Islands, and the Negro population in the West Indies.
The Teredo navalz's, or ship-worm, has, by its de structive powers, ruined the noblest vessels, and rendered useless the timbers, on which many of the constructions in harbours mainly depend for security; on this account great attention has been bestowed on its natural history and habits. The barnacle, which attaches itself to the bottoms of ships, renders the planks so foul, as to inter fere materially with the rate of sailing of the vessel itself. These are only a few of the useful and noxious qualities of these inhabitants of the deep.
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