Page:Natural History, Mollusca.djvu/28

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MOLLUSCA.

attain, the external surface is thus exclusively composed of layers deposited in succession by the margin of the mantle, and, seeing that this is the case, nothing is more easy than to understand how the colours seen upon the exterior of the shell are deposited, and assume that definite arrangement characteristic of the species. We have already said that the border of the mantle contains, in its substance, coloured spots: these, when minutely examined, are found to be of a glandular character, and to owe their peculiar colours to a pigment secreted by themselves; the pigment so furnished being therefore mixed up with the calcareous matter at the time of its deposition, coloured lines are found upon the exterior of the shell wherever these glandular organs exist. If the deposition of colour from the glands be kept up without remission during the enlargement of the shell, the lines upon its surface are continuous and unbroken; but if the pigment be furnished only at intervals, spots or coloured patches of regular form, and gradually increasing in size with the growth of the mantle, recur in a longitudinal series wherever the paint secreting glands are met with. . . . .

"While the margin of the mantle is thus the sole agent in enlarging the circumference of the shell, its growth in thickness is accomplished by a secretion of a kind of calcareous varnish, derived from the external surface of the mantle generally; which, being deposited layer by layer over the whole interior of the previously existing shell, progressively adds to its weight and solidity. There is, moreover, a remarkable difference between the character of the material secreted by the marginal fringe, and that furnished by the general surface