P. H. GOSSE, _del._ LEIGHTON, BROS.
SCALLOPS.
]
Some mystic connexion, some secret sympathy, was assumed to exist
between the scallop and St. James, the brother of the Lord, first
bishop of Jerusalem. What it was appears to be irrecoverably lost in
the darkness of those very dark ages, and is doubtless not worth the
hunting up. We may leave such puerilities, to consider the impress of
His divine hand which the All-wise God has made on the shell of the
mollusk that inhabits it.
These bivalves have been called the “butterflies of the sea,” as well
on account of the vivid and varied colours with which their broad
wing-like valves are painted, as of their agile fluttering and flying
movements. We frequently see them, especially for some time after
having been taken and put into an unfamiliar scene, as our aquariums,
shoot hither and thither through the water, with irregular zigzag
flights, accompanied with fitful openings and closings of the valves.
These leaps and flights seem to have no determinate object, except “the
letting off the steam” of their exuberant animal vivacity; but the
creatures have the power of directing their leap by a forcible ejection
of water from any given part of the compressed lips of the mantle.[11]