Page:Natural History, Mollusca.djvu/25

 length. The weight of the former is four pounds two ounces; that of the latter, four pounds nine ounces; yet the snail creeps under this load at apparent ease. Nor are you much surprised when you see it actually in motion, for the seeming disproportion between the contained animal and containing shell has disappeared. On issuing from its shell, like an Eastern Genii freed from his exorcism, the animal has grown visibly, — has assumed a portlier size and more pedestrious figure. The body has suddenly become tumid and elastic, the skin and exterior organs stretched and displayed, the foot has grown in length and in breadth, and, with additional firmness, it has acquired at the same time the capability of being directed, bent, and modified in shape, to a considerable degree, as the surface of the road traversed may require. Thus it is with nearly all the cephalous mollusca; and by a similar disposition of aqueducts, the foot of the Bivalves is equally adapted to every act subservient to their locomotion and more especially to the act of burrowing; for had the foot not been so framed as to permit of an enlargement superior to the size of the shell, it seems obvious that the furrow could not have been made large enough to contain the latter. The same, too, with many Gasteropods which burrow in the sand when in search of prey. The Buccina and most carnivorous mollusca have this ability, dependent on the system of aqueducts we have been describing; and you must observe, that from the manner in which the shell is attached to the body by the large retractor muscle, it so happens that this is drawn into the furrow always with the notch in the aperture uppermost, so that, when completely