Animal behavior; Animals -- Color; Plants -- Color
Of the Arthropoda, including the lobsters, crabs, shrimps, etc., little
can be said here, as we have not yet been able to study them with
anything like completeness. Still, we find the same laws to hold good.
The animals are segmented, and we find their system of colouration
segmental also. Thus, in the lobsters and crabs there is no dorsal line,
but the segments are separately and definitely decorated. The various
organs, such as the antennæ and eyes, are picked out in colour, as may
be beautifully seen in some prawns.
When we come to the Mollusca, we meet with two distinct types, so far as
our subject is concerned; the naked and the shelled. In the naked
molluscs, like the slugs, we have decoration applied regionally, as is
shown to perfection in the _Nudibranchs_, whose feathery gills are often
the seat of some of the most vivid hues in nature.
The shell-bearing mollusca are proverbial for their beauty, but it is
essential to bear in mind that the shell does not bear the same relation
to the mollusc that the "shell" of a lobster does to that animal. The
lobster's shell is part of its living body; it is a true exo-skeleton,
whereas the shell of a mollusc is a more extraneous structure--a house
built by the creature. We ought, on our view, to find no more relation
between the decoration of a shell and the structure of its occupant,
than we do in the decoration of a human dwelling-house to the tenant.
The shell consists of carbonate of lime, under one or both of the forms
known to mineralogists as calcite and aragonite. This mineral matter is
secreted by an organ called the mantle, and the edge, or lip, of the
mantle is the part applied to this purpose. The edge of the mantle is
the builder's hand, which lays the calcareous stones of the edifice.
The shell is built up from the edge, and the action is not continuous
but seasonal, hence arise the markings known as lines of growth. In some
cases the mantle is expanded at times into wing-like processes, which
are turned back over the shell, and deposit additional layers, thus
thickening the shell.
In all the forms of life hitherto considered the colouring matter is
deposited, or formed, in the substance of the organ, or epidermal
covering, but in the mollusca this is not the case. The colouring matter
is entirely upon the surface, and is, as it were, stencilled on to the
colourless shell. This is precisely analogous to the colouring of the
shells of birds' eggs. They, too, are calcareous envelopes, and the
colouring matter is applied to the outside, as anyone can see by rubbing
a coloured egg. In some eggs several layers of colouring matter are
superimposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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