The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . lso been introduced on the New Eng-land coast, measures two and a half inches in length,and contains about 600 rows of teeth. The actionof this ribbon may be well observed in the case ofsnails that creep up the glass walls of aquaria. An exception to the rule which defines round-mouthed snails to be vegetable feeders is the THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 27 Natica (PL 1, Figs. 1, 4), one of whose best repre-sentatives is the common globular shell, of aboutthe size of an apple, w
The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . lso been introduced on the New Eng-land coast, measures two and a half inches in length,and contains about 600 rows of teeth. The actionof this ribbon may be well observed in the case ofsnails that creep up the glass walls of aquaria. An exception to the rule which defines round-mouthed snails to be vegetable feeders is the THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 27 Natica (PL 1, Figs. 1, 4), one of whose best repre-sentatives is the common globular shell, of aboutthe size of an apple, which is found almost every-where along the beach. The natics, with strongcarnivore propensities, are markedly predaceous intheir habits, moving about rapidly in their sandyhomes in quest of food, which they usually find inthe shell-fish buried at some little depth beneaththe surface. The making of the larger round holeswhich appear in such perfection on the shells ofmany of the bivalves is commonly attributed to theINatica, but the exact amount of guilt attaching tothis creature has never yet been determined. The. Natica extended. Naticas have certain peculiarities of structure whichit will be well to notice. You will observe, if youhave succeeded in finding more than the emptyshell, that the animal is completely retractile, and,further, that it has cased itself in by means of ahorny lid or ^ operculum, which is attached to theunder surface of the creeping disk or foot. Thisfoot is greatly produced in front, where it is re-flected back in the form of a hood, covering the 28 THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. head and tentacles. It is a powerful excavatingimplement, and by it the animal is enabled to bur-row in the sand like a mole. The ISTatica is blind,being destitute of eyes. Of the three species of our coast the commonerforms are the two large species known as Naticaheros (PI. 1, Fig. 1) and Natica dupUeata (Fig. 4):
Size: 2317px × 1078px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectmarineanimals, bookye
