subject: Moanings Of The Ancient Seas [print this page] One of the most terrible sounds in the world is the sudden, unexpected grating of the keel of a boat upon hidden rocks, and some similar sound comes along the nerves of the limpet. Grind, grind, grind comes the new sound-we might liken it to an endless filing or scraping of sandpaper. By virtue of our capacity as onlooker, we shift attention from the intimate emotions of our limpet to his environment. A great snail, the moon-snail, with a rounded shell and a large amount of fleshy foot has climbed upon the tent-roof and is busy with some nefarious work. We perceive a whole kit of tools- burglars', or executioners', or what you will. A narrow band covered with thousands of minute sharp teeth, like an evermoving file, is moving swiftly upon a small section of the limpet's shell. Soon a small round well is bored through-the shell is perforated. Then a most horridly ingenious tool comes into play, a living pair of shears, on the end of a long mobile proboscis. This is pushed down upon the unfortunate limpet and actually begins to cut and hack it into small pieces. One by one these are sucked upward through the hole, and when the moon-snail packs up its outfit and moves away, it leaves a limpet shell, still ensconced in the rocky form, still a perfect shell except for the tiny round hole-but a shell without a limpet. The interior is thoroughly cleaned of every particle of the former owner. As we watch the moon-snail glide smoothly on its way we observe that the long tentacles are never still- they forever ply here and there in the path to come. And we look for eyes and suddenly realize that the moonsnail is blind. It feels its immediate way through life by touch, but its victims must be run down-I was going to say by sense of smell, but in its watery element it is more correct to call it sense of taste. My first memory of any snail is of long lines and curves of conch-shells along the walks and around the flower-beds belonging to my grandmother. In the days of the Great Queen that was considered the last word in landscape gardening. And it was a conch that led to my most cruel disillusionment-even worse than the passing of Santa Gaus. I used secretly to grub up one of the garden conchs, hold it to my ear and in spite of the downpour of soil, listen ecstatically to the sound of distant surf in the heart of the shell. The double joy of this was totally destroyed by some practical-minded servau or gardener who showed me that a teacup gave forth identical moanings of the ancient seas.
