chamber for the gills is made by the joining of the mantle flaps below, along the ventral line. The mantle edges are separated at two places, leaving openings called exhalent and inhalent siphons.
Fresh water with its oxygen, propelled by cilia at the opening and on the gills, enters through the lower or inhalent siphon, passes between the gills, and goes to an upper passage, leaving the gill chamber by a slit which separates the gills from the foot. For this passage, see arrow (Fig. 194). The movement of the water is opposite to the way the arrow points. After going upward and backward, the water emerges by the exhalent siphon. The gills originally consisted of a great number of filaments. These are now united, but not completely so, and the gills still have a perforated or lattice structure. Thus they present a large surface for absorbing oxygen from the water.
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|First course in biology (IA firstcourseinbio00bailrich).pdf/337}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
Fig. 194.—Mussel.
A, left shell and mantle flap removed.
B, section through body.
Question: Guided by other figures, identify the parts to which lines are drawn.
The mouth is in front of the foot, between it and the anterior adductor muscle (Fig. 194). On each side of the mouth are the labial palps, which are lateral lips (Fig. 195). They have cilia which convey the food to the mouth after the inhalent siphon has sent food beyond the gill chamber and near to the mouth. Thus both food and oxygen enter at the inhalent siphon. The foot is in the position of a lower lip, and if regarded as a greatly extended lower lip, the animal may be said to have what is to us the absurd habit of using its lower lip as a foot. The foot is some-
