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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
48
But
for
colour
and
shape,
to
what
shall
we
compare
it?
To
polished
cornelian,
says
Mr.
Gosse.
I
say,
to
one
of
the
great
red
capsicums
which
hang
drying
in
every
Covent-garden
seedsman’s
window.
Yet
is
either
simile
better
than
the
guess
of
a
certain
lady,
who,
entering
a
room
wherein
a
couple
of
Cardium
tuberculatum
were
waltzing
about
a
plate,
exclaimed,
“Oh
dear!
I
always
heard
that
my
pretty
red
coral
came
out
of
a
fish,
and
here
it
is
all
alive!”
“C.
tuberculatum,”
says
Mr.
Gosse
(who
described
it
from
specimens
which
I
sent
him
in
1854),
“is
far
the
finest
species.
The
valves
are
more
globose
and
of
a
warmer
colour;
those
that
I
have
seen
are
even
more
spinous.”
Such
may
have
been
the
case
in
those
I
sent:
but
it
has
occurred
to
me
now
and
then
to
dredge
specimens
of
C.
aculeatum,
which
had
escaped
that
rolling
on
the
sand
fatal
in
old
age
to
its
delicate
spines,
and
which
equalled
in
colour,
size,
and
perfectness
the
noble
one
figured
in
poor
dear
old
Dr.
Turton’s
“British
Bivalves.”
Besides,
aculeatum
is
a
far
thinner
and
more
delicate
shell.
And
a
third
species,
C.
echinatum,
with
curves
more
graceful
and
continuous,
is
to
be
found
now
and
then
with
the
two
former.
In
it,
each
point,
instead
of
degenerating
into
a
knot,
as
in
tuberculatum,
or
developing
from
delicate
flat
briar-prickles
into
long
straight
thorns,
as
in
aculeatum,
is
close-set
to
its
fellow,
and
curved
at
the
point
transversely
to
the
shell,
the
whole
being
thus
horrid
with
hundreds
of
strong
tenterhooks,
making
his
castle
impregnable
to
the
raveners
of
the
deep.
For
we
can
hardly
doubt
that
these
prickles
are
meant
as
weapons
of
defence,
without
which
so
savoury
a
morsel
as
the
mollusc
within
(cooked
and
eaten
largely
on
some
parts
of
our
south
coast)
would
be
a
staple
article
of
food
for
sea-beasts
of
prey.
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