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On The Seashore-R. Cadwallader Smith · Black Beauty

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter one of On the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: by Adrian Maskell. On the Seashore by Catwallader Smith, Chapter one,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: less than one five fingered jack. What fun it is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: down by the sea at low tide, scrambling among the
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  Speaker 1: slippery rocks. We quickly fill a bucket with curious things.
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  Speaker 1: Some are dead, others very much alive. But all have
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  Speaker 1: a story to tell us, the story of the life
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  Speaker 1: they lead on the bed of the sea, or among
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  Speaker 1: the sands and rocks of the shore. Look, here is
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  Speaker 1: a starfish. It is lying on the sand, left high
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  Speaker 1: and dry by the waves. For now the tide is low.
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  Speaker 1: The starfish looks limp and lifeless. Its five reddish colored
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  Speaker 1: arms are quite still. We know it is an animal
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  Speaker 1: that lives in the sea and dies when washed ashore.
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  Speaker 1: But what does it do in the sea? How does
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  Speaker 1: it move without legs or fins? How can it live
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  Speaker 1: without a head? Has it a mouth? What does it eat?
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  Speaker 1: And how does it find its food? Like so many
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  Speaker 1: other sea animals, the starfish is a puzzle. Some of
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  Speaker 1: its little tricks puzzled clever people until quite lately, But
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  Speaker 1: we know most of its secrets. Now pass your finger
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  Speaker 1: down one of its arms or rays. It feels rough,
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  Speaker 1: being covered with knobs and prickles. Now turn the starfish
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  Speaker 1: over and look carefully at its underside. In the center,
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  Speaker 1: where the five arms meet is the animal's mouth, a
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  Speaker 1: harmless sort of mouth you think, too small to be
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  Speaker 1: of any much use. Really it is a terrible mouth,
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  Speaker 1: the mouth of an ogre. We notice a groove down
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  Speaker 1: the center of each ray. But what are those little
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  Speaker 1: moving things which bend this way and that, as if
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  Speaker 1: feeling for something. Now, that is exactly what they are doing.
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  Speaker 1: They are the feet of the starfish. Each tiny foot
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  Speaker 1: is really a hollow tube which can be pushed out
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  Speaker 1: or drawn in. At the tip of each is a
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  Speaker 1: powerful sucker, which acts rather like those leather suckers boys
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  Speaker 1: sometimes play with. Suppose this starfish wishes to take a
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  Speaker 1: walk along the bed of the sea. First it pushes
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  Speaker 1: out its tube feet. Each sucker fixes itself to a
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  Speaker 1: stone or other object, and then the animal can draw
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  Speaker 1: its body along. You will see presently that the suckers
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  Speaker 1: can do other work too. Our starfish will die, however,
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  Speaker 1: unless we carry it to a pool. Before doing so,
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  Speaker 1: we must look at the tip of each ray for
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  Speaker 1: a small reddish spot that is the starfish's eye. Are
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  Speaker 1: those little eyes of much use in helping the creature
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  Speaker 1: to find its dinner? I think not. Most likely the
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  Speaker 1: starfish smells its way. If we put the animal on
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  Speaker 1: its back in a rock pool, we shall see the
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  Speaker 1: tube feet at work. Once in the water, our starfish
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  Speaker 1: revives and makes efforts to right itself. Can it turn
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  Speaker 1: over and crawl away? The little tube feet come out
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  Speaker 1: of their holes and begin to bend about. Now those
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  Speaker 1: near the edge of one arm feel the ground. Each
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  Speaker 1: tiny sucker at once takes hold. More and more of
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  Speaker 1: them touch the ground as the ray is turned right
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  Speaker 1: side up, And at last the starfish turns over and
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  Speaker 1: slowly but surely glides away. Stones, shells, or rocks do
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  Speaker 1: not stop it. The rays slide up and over them.
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  Speaker 1: If we had feet like those of the starfish, a
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  Speaker 1: journey up the wall of a house, over the roof,
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  Speaker 1: and down again would be nothing to us. Nature gives
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  Speaker 1: all creatures the kind of foot which suits the life
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  Speaker 1: they lead, and it is hard to imagine feet more
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  Speaker 1: useful to the starfish than those wonderful sucker feet. Ask
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  Speaker 1: any fisherman what he thinks of the harmless starfish, and
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  Speaker 1: he will call it a pest and a nuisance. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: it gets into the crab traps, he says, and eats
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  Speaker 1: all the bait. And when we are lime fishing, it
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  Speaker 1: sucks the bait off our hooks and sometimes swallows hook
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  Speaker 1: and all small wonder that five fingers or five finger jacket,
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  Speaker 1: as it is called, has no friend among fisherfolk. On
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  Speaker 1: pulling up a useless starfish instead of a real fish,
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  Speaker 1: the fisherman tears the offender in half and throws the
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  Speaker 1: halves back into the waves. By doing this, he harms
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  Speaker 1: himself more than the starfish. Each half grows into a
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  Speaker 1: perfect starfish with five rays complete. We can say that
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  Speaker 1: each part of this animal has a separate life, for
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  Speaker 1: each part can grow when torn away. If you are
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  Speaker 1: asked to open an oyster, you would need tools, would
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  Speaker 1: you not? Even with an oyster knife, It is not
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  Speaker 1: always an easy job. The oyster, tight in his shelly fortress,
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  Speaker 1: seems safe from the attack of a weak starfish. Yet
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  Speaker 1: the starfish opens and eats oysters as part of its
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  Speaker 1: everyday life. Finding a nice, fat oyster, it sets to work.
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  Speaker 1: The starfish folds its rays over its victim, with its
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  Speaker 1: mouth against the edge where the shells meet. The tug
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  Speaker 1: of war begins. The starfish's tube feet try to pull
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  Speaker 1: the shells apart. The oyster, with all its strength, tries
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  Speaker 1: to keep them shut. It is stronger than its enemy,
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  Speaker 1: and yet the steady pull of hundreds of suckers is
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  Speaker 1: more than it can stand, and the shells, after a time,
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  Speaker 1: begin to gape a little. Now, a strange thing happens.
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  Speaker 1: The mouth of the starfish opens into a kind of
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  Speaker 1: bag which slips between the oyster shells. The starfish, as
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  Speaker 1: it were, turns itself inside out. It then eats the
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  Speaker 1: oyster and leaves the clean shell. Mussels are smaller, so
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  Speaker 1: they are eaten in a different way. The starfish merely
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  Speaker 1: presses the mussel into its mouth, cleans out the shells,
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  Speaker 1: and throws them away. Were we not right to call
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  Speaker 1: this wonderful mouth the mouth of an ogre? Oysters, as
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  Speaker 1: you know, are so valuable that we rear them in
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  Speaker 1: special beds. Along comes the hunger starfish, with thousands of
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  Speaker 1: its relations. Finding the fat oysters very good eating, they
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  Speaker 1: do great damage in our oyster fisheries, and it is
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  Speaker 1: one long battle between them and the keepers of the
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  Speaker 1: beds supporting The tough skin of five finger jack is
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  Speaker 1: a wonderful skeleton. It is like a network of fine
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  Speaker 1: plates and rods made of lime. Perhaps you have seen
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  Speaker 1: one in a museum. Five fingers has a great number
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  Speaker 1: of cousins, some of them common enough along our shores.
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  Speaker 1: One of the strangest is the brittle star. On first
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  Speaker 1: seeing one of these animals, I tried to capture it
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  Speaker 1: by holding its long wiggling arms. At once, the arms
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  Speaker 1: broke off. Then I tried to scoop the creature out
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  Speaker 1: of its watery home, but it began to break its
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  Speaker 1: rays off, as if they were no value whatever. To
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  Speaker 1: my surprise, the broken rays broke again while wriggling on
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  Speaker 1: the ground. This is a strange habit, is it not.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the brittle star has found this dodge useful in
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  Speaker 1: escaping from enemies. Anyway, the loss of an arm or
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  Speaker 1: two matters little, for others grow in their place. Another
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  Speaker 1: cousin of the starfish is the sea urchin, a round
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  Speaker 1: prickly creature, rather like the burr of the sweet chestnut tree.
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  Speaker 1: This mass of prickles is not a vegetable. He is
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  Speaker 1: very much alive. Nature has given many plants and animals
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  Speaker 1: these prickles, like fixed bayonets, for a defense against their enemies.
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  Speaker 1: You will at once think of the gorse and the hedgehog,
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  Speaker 1: or urchin, as some people call it. Our little sea
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  Speaker 1: urchin has prickles like the hedgehog, but he is really
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  Speaker 1: unlike any other living creature, except perhaps the starfish. If
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  Speaker 1: you were to roll up a starfish into a ball,
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  Speaker 1: and then stick about three thousand spines on the ball
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  Speaker 1: thus made, you would have a creature looking rather like
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  Speaker 1: a sea urchin. Beneath the mass of spines there is
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  Speaker 1: a hard test or shell, made of plates joined closely together.
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  Speaker 1: This is the skeleton of the sea urchin. Sometimes you
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  Speaker 1: find the strange shell on the sea shore, rather dirty
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  Speaker 1: and not always sweet smelling. You might also find sea
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  Speaker 1: urchins half dead, washed into the rock pools. The shells
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  Speaker 1: are wonderful objects, so you should clean them in fresh water.
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  Speaker 1: They are well worth the trouble of taking home. All
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  Speaker 1: over the shell you will see little rounded knobs These
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  Speaker 1: show where the spines were fixed on. Each spine fits
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  Speaker 1: into a hole in the shell, but so loosely that
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  Speaker 1: it is able to move about. The sea urchin can
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  Speaker 1: walk by moving its spines, tilting its body along from
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  Speaker 1: one place to another in the bed of the sea.
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  Speaker 1: It can do much more than that. Like its cousin,
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  Speaker 1: the starfish, it has numerous tube feet, so you would
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  Speaker 1: not be surprised to see this prickly ball walk up
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  Speaker 1: the face of a rock. The tube feet, or sucker feet,
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  Speaker 1: are fixed to the shell in much the same way
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  Speaker 1: as the spine. They can be bent this way or that.
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  Speaker 1: If the urchin is on a rock, he clings tightly
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  Speaker 1: with those sucker feet. Then if he wishes to move away,
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  Speaker 1: you will see the long, thin tubes stretch out and
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  Speaker 1: bend about. They fix themselves to the rock, and the
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  Speaker 1: animal is drawn along. Besides these spines and suckers, the
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  Speaker 1: sea urchin owns another set of tools. Scattered over it.
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  Speaker 1: Among the spines are many tiny rods tipped with little
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  Speaker 1: teeth or pincers. You will not be able to see
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  Speaker 1: them except under magnifying glass. Of What use are these
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  Speaker 1: strange little pincers or rods? It is thought that the
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  Speaker 1: urchin uses them in several ways. They may help in
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  Speaker 1: capturing small prey, or they may be used when the
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  Speaker 1: creature has to fight a larger enemy. They are also
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  Speaker 1: certainly of use as cleansing tools. That is to say,
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  Speaker 1: they can pick off tiny scraps of weed or dirt
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  Speaker 1: which settle on the animal's body. Some starfishes also own
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  Speaker 1: pincers of this sort, but they are not so perfect
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  Speaker 1: as those of the funny little urchin. We must not
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  Speaker 1: forget that all these spines, tube feet, and pins are
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  Speaker 1: worked by a set of muscles. In the center of
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  Speaker 1: the urchin's shell is its mouth. The starfish we found
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  Speaker 1: had a terrible mouth, but that of the sea urchin
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  Speaker 1: is worse still. Not only is it of great size,
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  Speaker 1: but it is fitted with strong jaws and five long,
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  Speaker 1: sharp teeth. You may see them poking out from the
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  Speaker 1: mouth of the animal, and feel for yourself how hard
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  Speaker 1: they are. There is a great deal more to know
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  Speaker 1: about five fingers, and the sea urchin still has his secrets,
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  Speaker 1: which no one can explain. We have but glanced at
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  Speaker 1: their story in this lesson. But you can see that
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  Speaker 1: the starfish lying limp on the sands is not so
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  Speaker 1: dull as it looks. Exercises Number one where is the
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  Speaker 1: mouth of the starfish placed? Number two? Describe how the
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  Speaker 1: starfish moves? Number three? How does the starfish feed on
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  Speaker 1: the oyster? Number four? Why is the brittle star given
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  Speaker 1: that name? And finally number five, how do the starfish
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  Speaker 1: and sea urchin keep themselves clean? End of chapter one?
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Recording by Adrian.
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  Speaker 2: Maskell Lessen tw of on the Seashore. This is a
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Recording by Kirby Bonds. On the Seashore by Cadwalader Smith
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  Speaker 2: Lessen to a stroll by the sea, the sea and
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  Speaker 2: the land are always at war. When you are at
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  Speaker 2: the seaside with spade and bucket to make castles and
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  Speaker 2: pies of the sand, you can see and hear the battle.
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  Speaker 2: A wave comes rolling smoothly on toward the shore. It
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  Speaker 2: reaches the land and can go no further, And then
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  Speaker 2: with a roar and a crash and a splash of
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  Speaker 2: sparkling foam, it breaks. It spreads into a sheet of
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  Speaker 2: foaming water, and after rushing as far as it can
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  Speaker 2: up the beach, it seethes back as the next wave
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  Speaker 2: takes up the battle. What a grinding and tearing as
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  Speaker 2: wave after wave is hurtled at the land. That is
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  Speaker 2: the battle cry of the land of the sea. Most
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  Speaker 2: of the pebbles and the sand on the beach have
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  Speaker 2: been won from the land in the great fight. We
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  Speaker 2: might call them the spoils of war. Once they formed
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  Speaker 2: part of the solid land the rock cliff. Now they
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  Speaker 2: are loose fragments spread for mile after mile round our coast.
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  Speaker 2: Every wave takes them up and has fine fun with them.
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  Speaker 2: Pebbles and sand are picked up, swirled along, and thrown
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  Speaker 2: at the shore. They are sucked back as the wave
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  Speaker 2: is broken by the land, and then the following wave
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  Speaker 2: takes them, grinds them, and scrubs them together. Thus they
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  Speaker 2: are jostled hither and thither up and down the coast,
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  Speaker 2: and as a result of the long, long fight, rocks
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  Speaker 2: and cliffs become pebbles, sand or mud. Now, if you
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  Speaker 2: look at the pebbles on the shore, you see that
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  Speaker 2: many of them are smooth and round. Some are as
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  Speaker 2: round as the marbles you play with. No wonder, for
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  Speaker 2: the mighty sea has scoured them with sand and rolled
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  Speaker 2: them for miles. As you know, the sea is not
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  Speaker 2: always the same height. It falls and rises twice in
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  Speaker 2: every day. It ebbs and flows. We call this movement
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: of the sea the tides. At low tide, we can
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  Speaker 2: explore the very bed of the ocean. We can visit
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  Speaker 2: the homes of the living, breathing animals, which at high
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  Speaker 2: tide are hidden far under water. Between the high water
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  Speaker 2: mark and low water mark is our hunting place. There
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  Speaker 2: we shall find the playground and feeding ground of many
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  Speaker 2: a strange creature. Here is a stretch of sand with
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  Speaker 2: little channels of water. There is a patch of shingle
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  Speaker 2: mixed with numbers of tiny shells. The ebbing tide leaves
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  Speaker 2: shallow pools in every hollow of the beach, and these
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  Speaker 2: pools are often full of life. Shrimps dart away and
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  Speaker 2: disappear in the sand as if by magic. Small Fish
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  Speaker 2: and crabs hide from you as best they can. Helpless
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  Speaker 2: jellyfish and starfish sprawl on the wet sand. What are
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  Speaker 2: those thin ropes of sand coiled up into little mounds?
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  Speaker 2: They remind us of worm casts. They are thrown up
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  Speaker 2: by a sand worm called lug worm by the fisherman.
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  Speaker 2: He brings a spade and digs wherever he sees sandy
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  Speaker 2: ropes of the lug for this worm makes good fishing bait.
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  Speaker 2: Seagulls love to explore the shallow pools. You may see
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  Speaker 2: them walking solemnly about picking up stray morsels. If you
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  Speaker 2: see a screaming group of them, you can be sure
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  Speaker 2: that one has found an extra large prize, and the
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  Speaker 2: others mean to share the feast. Let us walk down
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  Speaker 2: the beach toward the sea. Soon we find ourselves among rocks.
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  Speaker 2: Now these rocks are the bare bed of the shore,
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  Speaker 2: stripped of all covering. There is no mud, sand, or shingle.
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  Speaker 2: So here you see plainly the work done by the
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  Speaker 2: restless water. On every side you notice rocks worn to
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  Speaker 2: all shapes and sizes. Some jut out as large edges.
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  Speaker 2: Others are flat tables covered with a table cloth of
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  Speaker 2: sea plants. These clothe the rocks or hang over the
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  Speaker 2: ledges like wet, shining green curtains. Nearly every rock has
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  Speaker 2: its crust of barnacles and clumps of mussels. If we
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  Speaker 2: are not careful, we slip on the wet weeds and
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  Speaker 2: get a ducking in the pools which lie everywhere among
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  Speaker 2: the rocks. Here is the best place of all for
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  Speaker 2: sharp eyes to find the animals and plants we seek.
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  Speaker 2: Where the hard rock has been worn down into hollows,
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  Speaker 2: the falling tide leaves a pool of still clear water.
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  Speaker 2: These rock pools are the home of many a creature,
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  Speaker 2: So let us look for them until the rising tide
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  Speaker 2: sweeps over the rocks once more and drives us away.
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  Speaker 2: Sea an enemies and seaweeds breaden the pool with their
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  Speaker 2: various colors. Pretty shells gleam here and there, and on
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  Speaker 2: the face of the rock there are more limpets, barnacles,
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  Speaker 2: and mussels. Then we can count where are the other
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  Speaker 2: living animals which we came to find. You will not
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  Speaker 2: see them unless you hunt for them in the right way.
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  Speaker 2: It is a game of hide and seek. They are
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  Speaker 2: the hiders, and as their lives often depend on their
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  Speaker 2: skill in hiding, you cannot wonder that they know every
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  Speaker 2: trick in the game. There may be crabs, fish, shrimps,
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  Speaker 2: and others in the pool. If you look for a
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  Speaker 2: moment and then walk to the next pool, your hunting
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  Speaker 2: will not have much result. It is best to lie
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  Speaker 2: down and wait patiently, gazing into the clear water of
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  Speaker 2: the pool. The little inhabitants are hidden in the dark corners,
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  Speaker 2: under the rock ledges, or buried under stones and sand.
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  Speaker 2: Or they may be hiding in those thick clumps of mussels,
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  Speaker 2: a favorite lurking place, or else tucked away in the
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  Speaker 2: friendly shelter of the seaweed. Knowing their dodges, you will
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  Speaker 2: soon become clever at finding them. Some sea side dwellers,
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  Speaker 2: such as prawns, are almost transparent in the water. Others,
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  Speaker 2: like baby crabs, are green or brown like the weed
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  Speaker 2: in which they hide. Even the sharp eyes of the
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  Speaker 2: sea gulls must be deceived by this trick. What a
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  Speaker 2: strange life they lead, these creatures of the shore. At
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  Speaker 2: times they are deep under water, and they form part
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  Speaker 2: of a teeming life of the ocean floor. Then the
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  Speaker 2: tide falls and uncovers them. They are in full light
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  Speaker 2: of day again the sun shines on them. Most of
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  Speaker 2: them cannot escape to the sea, and so must face
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  Speaker 2: the enemies which prowl along the shore looking for prey.
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  Speaker 2: So from one tide to the next, the rock pool
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  Speaker 2: is like a prison containing prisoners of the strangest sort exercises.
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  Speaker 2: Number one how is the sand formed? Number two? Give
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  Speaker 2: the names of some of the animals to be found
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  Speaker 2: in the rock pools. Number three Where do these animals hide?
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  Speaker 2: Number four? Prawns and shore crabs are not easily seen?
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  Speaker 2: Why is this? End of lesson two?
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Lessen three of on the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. On
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: the Seashore by Caldwalder Smith Lesson three. Birds of the Shore.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: On some parts of our coast, we find steep cliffs
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  Speaker 3: with the sea beating wildly at their feet. Elsewhere there
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: is a sloping beach of sand and shingle, with perhaps
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: dark rocks showing at low tide. We explored such a
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: beach as that in our last lesson. There are long,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: long stretches of sand and thin grass in other places,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: or else mile after mile of muddy, dreary salt marshes.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Birds are to be found on every kind of coast. Some,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: like the seagull, wander far and wide, Others keep to
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: the cliffs, and many find all they need in the
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: wide mud flats. Such an army is there of these
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: shore birds that we cannot even glance at them all
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: in this lesson. So we will take a few of them,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: only the black headed gull, the cormorant, the ringed plover,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the oyster catcher, and the red shank. Out of all
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: the many kinds of gulls, you know the black headed
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: one best. If you live in London you can see
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and hear him, for he and his cousin have swarmed
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: along the Thames of late years. They find food there,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: and kind people enjoy feeding the screaming birds as they
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: wheel in graceful flight over the bridges and embankment. The
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: country boy too sees this gull. He flies far inland,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: following the plow, and then he rids the land of
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: many harmful grub. Because of this habit, some people call
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: him the sea crow. At all seaside places you find him,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: and there he fights for his meals with the herring gull,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the common gull, the kiddiwake, and others. Really, we should
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: call this gull the brown headed, not the black headed gull,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: for the hood is more brown than black. And again,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: if you look for this bird during your summer holidays.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: You will see no dark hood on his head. You
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: might though know him then by the red legs and
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: bill and the white front edgings to his lovely pearly
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: gray wings. Look at him in January, however, and you
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: see dark feathers beginning to appear on his head. The
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: fact is this dark hood is the bird's wedding dress.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: It comes only when the nesting season draws near. Then
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: he leaves the fields, parks and rivers to fly away
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: to the nesting place. These gulls love the nesting colonies
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: that is near one another, among rushes and reeds and
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: rough grass growing in deep wet mud. They feel that
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: their nests are safe there. They lay three eggs. The
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: chicks almost as soon as they leave. The eggs can
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: run about. If there is no dry land near the nest,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: These youngsters tumble in the water and swim without bothering
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: about swimming lessons. In the summer, they are ready to
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: fly with their parents round the coast and to the
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: muddy mouths of large rivers where they feed. Flocks of
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: them are also seen out in the open sea, feeding
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: on shoals of small fish. They also follow steamers for
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the sake of any scraps thrown overboard, and they crowd
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: round the fishing boats when they are being unloaded. You see,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: they are scavengers, and so are found wherever there are
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: waste scraps of food. Perhaps you have noticed that gulls
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: float high in the sea like so many corks. They
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: can leave the water easily and take the flight, but
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: they cannot dive. The gull's dinner table is the whole coast.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: His eyes are keen enough, as you will know if
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: you have watched him swoop down on a piece of
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: bread in mid air and catch it neatly in his beak.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: The flight of this gull is beautiful, graceful, and easy.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Sometimes he wheels up and up into the blue sky,
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: almost without moving away. He can also glide for a
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: great while, balance seen his body against the wind and
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: turning his head from side to side on the lookout
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: for food. Those long pointed wings of his make him
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: one of nature's most perfect flying machines. His wild laughing
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: cry has given him the nickname of laughing gull. In
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: the fields and along the banks of our big rivers,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: you may see the common gull with numbers of his
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: black headed cousins. His beak and legs and webbed feet
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: are greenish yellow, and this is quite enough to distinguish
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: the two birds. Their habits are much the same. Both
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: skim over the sea or the coast looking for waste food.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: They are not very choice in their meals dead fish
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: or live fish, young crabs, worms, shell fish or grubs.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: They eat readily, as well as any oval thrown from
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: passing ships or the refuge of the fish market. One
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: of these scavenging birds was seen to be carrying a
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: long object like an eel in its mouth. The bird
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: was shot, and it was then discovered that the eel
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: was really a string of candles. The greedy gull had
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: half swallowed one, leaving the rest to hang down from
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: its bill. The common gull nests and colonies like the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: black headed gull. Its nest is made of seaweed, heather
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: and dried grass, in which it lays its three greenish
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: brown eggs. Another bird to be seen along all parts
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: of our coast summer and winter alike, is the cormorant,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: usually with a small party of his friends. They fly swiftly,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: one behind the other, and a long line of them
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: reminds one of the pictures of sea serpents, especially as
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: they fly quite near the surface of the sea, each
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: one with its long neck outstretched. The gull flies beautifully
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: as if he knew his power and love to show
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: how he can skim and dive through the air. The
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: comorant is not a flier, but a swimmer and diver.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: He cannot show off in the air, and only uses
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: his narrow wings to take him as quickly as may
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: be from one fishing place to another. Most of the
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: cormorant's time is spent in fishing, for he lives entirely
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: on fish and catches immense numbers of him. He spends
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: many hours, too, in drying his wings. I once saw
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: a number of these birds with their wings hung out
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: to dry. Each one was perched on a stump of
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: wood across the muddy mouth of a river, and each
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: sooty looking bird had his wings wide open in the sun.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: This habit seems to show that the cormorant uses his
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: wings as well as his feet in his frequent journeys
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: under water. The powerful webbed feet of the cormorant set
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: far back on the body. The darting head, long neck,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: and long curved beak tell you plainly how he earns
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: his meals. He is a clever fish hunter, and the fishermen,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: knowing the appetite of this keen rival of theirs, detest
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: him and destroy him. In some countries there is a
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: price on his head. That is, so much money is
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: given for every cormorant killed. Sometimes the cormorant swims slowly
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: along with his head under water, on the watch for
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: small fish. Seeing one below him, he dives like a
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: flash and can remain under water for some time. He
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: wastes very little time, however, in swallowing his victim head first.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: The great skill of this bird has been made use of,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: and tame cormorants are used in China to obtain fish
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: for their masters. They have been used in England too
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: for the same purpose. The strap is placed round the
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: bird's neck to prevent him from swallowing the catch. He
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: is then set to work. After catching five or six fish,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: he is recalled by his master and made to disgorge
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: his prey, which of course he has swallowed as far
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: as the strap will permit. The cormorant is famous for
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: his large appetite. He chases even big fish of a
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: size to choke him. You would think, like his relative
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the pelican, he owns a very elastic throat. I have
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: seen a pelican put a half grown duck in its
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: pouch without much trouble. The cormorant could not perform this feat,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: but his throat will stretch so as to allow the
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: passage of large fish small fish. He usually tosses up
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: in the air, catches them neatly head first, and swallows
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: them whole. Another bird of our coast is the oyster catcher,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: sometimes called the sea pie or mussel picker. These nameswed
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: it well, for it does not live on oysters, but
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: on mussels, limpets, and whelks. Of course, these are easily
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: caught at low tide, they are not easily eaten, so
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: the sea pie has to earn his dinner by hard work.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: In fact, his beak is often notched by the sharp,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: hard edges of the shells of these mollusks, and at
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: times he haunts the low banks of mud and ooze
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: near the sea, and there picks up worms and other
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: soft bodied animals. As his name sea pie shows, the
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: oyster catcher is a black and white bird, his underparts
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: being white and upper parts black. His legs and long
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: straight bill are red. Most birds of the water side
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: seem to find that black and white feathers make a
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: good disguise. Though they would show up plainly on a
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: green field, they are well hidden among the stones along
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: the edge of the water. The sea pie makes no nest,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: only a hole in the sand or shingle, lined with
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: small stones or shells. The eggs are colored and marked
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: so that they are hard to see among the stones
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: which surround them. The youngsters wear a fluffy suit of gray,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: marked with dark streaks and dots, and it takes very
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: sharp eyes, indeed, to pick them out from the shingle
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: where they crouch. The ring plover is another bird which
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: loves the sandy, pebbly margin of the sea. Have you
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: ever watched him there. He is not much larger than
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: a plum mark, and he runs quickly along the beach,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: stooping now and again to pick up the morsel of
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: food which is keen eye detects. But all the while
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: he is watching you with the other eye, for he
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: is a wary little bird, and not to be taken
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: by surprise. If you can get near him, you will
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: notice his rather long yellowish legs, gray brown back, and
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: more than all, the white collar round his neck, and
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: the black band showing on his white chest. Again we
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: see the black and white markings which are so useful
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: to the birds of the shore. Every One who knows
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: the ring plover loves to watch him. He is one
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: of the daintiest, most fairy like birds. When he is
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: picking up worms and sandhoppers on the wet sand, he
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: is easily observed. But wait, he flies off and settles
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: on the shingle not far away. You walk nearer to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: watch him. Alas he is gone, you know just where
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: he settled. Yet he is gone. He has often played
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: that trick on me. The secret lies in his gray,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: white and black markings. When our ships were in danger
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: from enemy submarines, our sailors painted them with queer stripes
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: and bars to make it hard for the enemy to
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: see them. Nature has marked the ring plover on the
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: same plan. The feathers are so colored, and the colors
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: are so arranged that once among the gray, yellow, black
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and white pebbles on the beach, the little bird is invisible.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: It is as if the earth had swallowed him up.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: The eggs, too, are just as hard to find. There
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: is no nest to give the game away, and the
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: eggs look just like the pebbles amongst which they are laid.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: The young ones are protected from their enemies in the
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: same way, and they crouch as still as death amid
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: the stones which they so much resemble. Now let us
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: leave the beach and look for the red shank on
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: the mud flats. Many birds would starve there, but the
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: red shank is quite happy, as nature has fitted him
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: for life in such a place. His long red legs,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: from which he gets his name, are for waiting in
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: the shallow, muddy creep He loves. Those wide spreading feet
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: keep him from seeking in the mud. The long beak
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: is for probing. As a rule, the red shank digs
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: for his dinner, though he also picks up any worms
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: or other food on the surface, but he is nearly
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: always seen probing the mud. Like all shore birds, red
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: shanks are very wary. They have no hedges or trees
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: for hiding places, and so must always be on the watch.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: No sooner does the red shank spy you than he
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: is up and with a shrill whistle of alarm flies
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: quickly away. The marshes are the home of many a
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: bird like the red shank. They are all waiters and diggers.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: They live much as he does, and so they have
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: the long beak and legs and the spreading feet to
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: fit them for that life. We now have looked at
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: a few sea birds, shore birds, and a marsh bird.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Many inland birds, too are fond of the shore. The
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: artful jack draw builds in the cliffs, and his cousin,
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: the crow, searches the shore for food. Even the gay
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: kingfisher has been seen diving in the seaside pools exercises
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: One How do you know which is the black headed
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: gull in the summer months? Two? Why is it difficult
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: to see the ring plover on the stones of the shore? Three?
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Where would you look for the eggs of the ring
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: plover and of the black headed gull? Four? Why have
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: marsh birds such long beaks? End of lesson three recording
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: by Richard Kilmer, Real, Medina, Texas.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: Lesson four of on this Shore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org recording
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: by Anne Boulet. On the Seashore by Cadwallader Smith lesson
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: four crabs. Little crabs are to be found everywhere along
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: the seashore, not the monsters of the fishmongers shop, but small,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: greenish brown crabs. They live in the weeds of the
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: rock pools and in the wet sand. These are the
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: shore crabs. The large edible crabs are a different kind
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: and live mostly in deep water. Shore crabs are quarrelsome
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: little creatures. The larger ones are always ready to gobble
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: up the small ones, or to snatch their food and
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: run away with it. If you put some dead mussels
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: or fish in a pool, you will be amused at
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: their antics, how they scramble and fight. Crabs do not
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: believe in take. It is their taste for waste scraps
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: of food that makes crabs of use in the sea.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: They are most useful scavengers. They clear the sea and
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: beach of dead matter which would poison the air and water.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: For many years, nobody knew how crabs grew up. It
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: was thought that a baby crab was like its mother,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: just like a baby spider. Is a tiny picture of
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: its parents. But no, the young crab is as much
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: like a crab as a caterpillar is like a butterfly.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: Let us begin at the beginning. The egg mother crab
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: carries her eggs with her under her tail, which itself
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: is always kept tucked up under her body. Out of
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: each egg there comes the queerest little creature. It is
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: just large enough to be seen as it wiggles in
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: the water. Then its skin splits, and there appears a
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: quaint thing with long feathery legs, a big head, a
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: spike on the back of its head, and another spike
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: like a nose. Who would suspect this strange atom would
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: turn into a crab, Well, nobody did. It was called
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: a zooea, but you can call it a crab, caterpillar,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: or larva. The maggot is the larva of a fly,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: and the zoea is the larva of the crab. With
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: crowds of its brothers and sisters, the zoea kicks about
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: on the surface of the sea. Fishes and even great
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: whales swallow these tiny things by the million. The crab
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: larva eats and grows again and again, its skin splits,
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: and a rather different zoea appears. This happens about once
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: a week until hey, presto, the spike Zoea is now
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: rather like a crab. The spikes are all gone, and
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: now it has tiny claws and two eyes at the
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: end of stalks, yet it still owns a tail. At last,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: this is tucked up under its body, and lo, our
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: little friend has changed into a very small crab. No
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: longer able to swim about, it comes to get a
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: living in the shallow pools of the shore. Luckily, this
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: helpless baby knows how to hide. He is helped by
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: his color, for it matches the green and brown of
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: the weeds and rocks. He knows how to dig himself
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: into the sand and work his shell well down. Now
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: only his funny eyes on stalks peer up at you.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: At this time of his life, he has to make
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: himself scarce and snatch his food when and where he can.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: We do not eat these little crabs, but other crabs do,
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: and so do anemones, gulls and other hungry creatures. And
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: they themselves hunt sand hoppers and eat anything they can
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: find or steal. So they grow bigger, and then, like
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: the boy who grows quickly, the crab finds his shelly suit,
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: a size too small for him. Now look at his suit.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: It is a hard coat, a complete suit of armor
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: to protect his soft body. Our picture shows the lobster,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: the crab's cousin. The shrimp and prawn and lobster are
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: relations of the crabs. These crustaceans, as they are called,
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: are all encased a hard crust which will not stretch
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: the slightest little bit. But the crab's body must grow.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: What is he to do? At first, he starves himself,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: and so his body shrinks inside its old shell. He
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: loosens himself as well as he can. Soon the shell
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: breaks across and the crab struggles to get free. At
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: last he backs out and leaves his old suit forever.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: It is a wonderful performance, for he has withdrawn even
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: from the legs, claws, feelers, bristles, eye, stalks and eyes.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: The old shell is left quite whole, a perfect crab,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: but with no crab inside. Now the crab in his
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: new suit hides away. He knows that he is a soft,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: flabby creature at this time, and that other animals, even
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: missus Crab, would be glad to meet him and eat him.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: While his covering is yet soft, he grows quickly. When
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: it is hard, he ventures out again, ready to quarrel
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: and fight. This change of happens often to young crabs.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: Older ones change only once a year. All the different
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: kinds of crabs begin life as larvae or zoeas and
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: cast their shells. As we have seen, crabs can see
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: and hear and smell, and they must also have a
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: fine sense of touch. I was once watching a big
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: crab eating his dinner under a rocky ledge in a
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: large glass tank. As he tore his food, some of
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: the bits, no larger than crumbs, fell and settled on
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: the rocks below. Then I saw that a smaller crab
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: with long pincers was hiding under a rock. As the
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: crumbs fell, he reached out his pincers and picked them
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: up one by one. Each bit was gravely carried to
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: his mouth and tucked in, and then he reached out
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: for another. Though I was very close to the crab,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: I could hardly see the tiny scraps which he was
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: able to pick up so easily. One of the strangest
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: crabs is the hermit. You would think that nature had
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: played a joke on him, for he has only half
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: suit of armor. His tail part is soft. He would
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: have a bad time in the sea, but for a
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: dodge he has learnt. The baby hermit takes the empty
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: home of a periwinkle. As he grows, he needs a
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: larger house and so leaves the tight shell and pops
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: his tail into a bigger one, generally a whelk shell.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: If it meets with another hermit, there is a battle,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: one trying to steal the other's shell. Our colored Picture,
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: page thirty five shows some hermits at war. Fighting. House
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: hunting and moving house seem to be the hermit's favorite pursuits.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: But whatever he does, his first care is to protect
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: that soft tail of his. His right claw is large
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: and strong, so he uses it to close the door
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: of his stolen home. Sometimes he has a lodger who
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: lives on the roof. This lodger, as you will notice
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: in our colored Picture, is the sea anemonee. The hermit
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: and his lodger seem to be good friends. At least
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: they seem to like each other's company. There is no
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: doubt that there is a good reason for this. We
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: shall have more to say about this strange pair in
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: our lesson on the c nm and e's. Another funny
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: crab is the spider crab. Its back is covered with
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: reddish bristles, so like hooks, these catch in the seaweed,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: and soon the spider crab is decorated with bits of weed.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: But that is not all. The artful crab tears off
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: other pieces of weed with its pincers and attaches them
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: to the hooks. It is another dodge, of course, to
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: escape from enemies. The lobster, whose picture you see, has
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: a life story much like that of the crab. He
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: also grows too big for his suit of armor and
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: casts it off in a wonderful manner, but only after
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: a great deal of trouble. In his new suit, he
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: is very weak and soft, and easy prey to the
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: first enemy to find him. He cannot defend himself. Then
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: he can only lie helplessly on his side, waiting for
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: his coat to harden. He is so weak that his
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: soft legs cannot bear the weight of his body. Needless
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: to say, the lobster always finds a secure retreat before
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: casting off his protecting coat of armor. A hole under
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: a rock suits him well at that time. Strange to say,
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: he seems to dislike his old clothes, and often crunches
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: them to pieces, or eats them up, or even pushes
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: them under the sand or stones. Then he marches out
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: like a proud warrior, knowing his strength and the power
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: of his great claws. Lobsters are fond of fighting, and
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: must be very disagreeable neighbors. They can swim along by
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: using the little swimmerets under their bodies or by rapidly
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: bending down their powerful tails. Lobsters are able to shoot
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: backwards through the water at a great pace. In our
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: next lesson, we shall find that prawns are also able
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: to paddle forwards or dart backwards in a similar manner. Lobsters,
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: living or dead, are often on sale in the fishmonger's shop.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: Like the crabs and prawns, they are usually caught in
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: traps or pots, baited with pieces of fish and left
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: among the rocks. The traps are of various sizes, some
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: being like bee hives, made of cane or wicker. Others
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: are made of netting stretched over hoops, and more like
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: a bird cage in shape. The lobster smells the bait
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: in the trap and hastens to get it by diving
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: through the only entrance. Having enjoyed his meal, he tries
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: to swim away, but there is no escape, and there
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: he must wait until the owner of the trap makes
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: his usual round in the morning. Of course, there is
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: a rope to every trap, and a cork to market's position.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Then the lobster finds himself taken carefully out of his prison.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: His claws are tied to prevent him from fighting, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: he goes to market with a lot of other lobsters.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: There are many lobster fisheries along the rocky parts of
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: our coast. You will often see lobsters with one very
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: large claw and one small. They are able to throw
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: off a limb or two whenever they are frightened. Also,
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: they often lose a claw in the terrible fights of
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: which they seem so fond. If one joint of a
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: claw becomes injured, the lobster has no further use for it.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: He is wise, for his very life depends on his armor,
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: so he throws it off, not at the wounded joint,
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: but at the joint above. After a time, a swelling
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: appears on the stump thus made. This gradually grows into
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: a new limb. It may be smaller than the one lost,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: but it is perfect in detail. What a useful gift
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: this must be to an animal like the lobster, whose
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: whole life is one terrible fight after another. The baby lobsters,
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: like the baby crabs, are quite unlike their parents. They
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: swim about at the surface of the sea, and already
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: they seize every chance of fighting and eating their small neighbors.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: When about one inch in length, they leave their infants
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: school and join another at the bottom of the sea.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: Here they eat, fight, grow and change their coats, just
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: as the young crabs do. They are now like their parents.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: Sometimes they grow to be huge and to weigh as
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: much as ten and a half pounds. The mother lobster
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: carries as many as thirty thousand eggs under her body.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Needless to say, a very very few of this enormous
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: family survive the dangers of the sea. The rule there
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: is eat and be eaten. Exercises One what is a
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: crab larva like? Two? Give the names of four crustaceans? Three?
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: Why does the crab have to change its shell? Four?
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: Why does it hide away at that time?
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Five?
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Of what use are shore crabs? Six? How are lobsters caught?
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: End of less than.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Four Lesson five of on the Seashore. This is a
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: On the Seashore by Cadwallader Smith Lesson five. Shrimps, prawns
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: and barnacles. In nearly every shore pool you may see
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: shrimps and prawns darting out of sight. And for every
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: one you see, there are many more hidden away. These delicate, transparent,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: lively creatures are not much like the boiled shrimps and
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: prawns of the fish shop. They are the prey of
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: so many fish, crabs and birds that they have learned
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: to make themselves scarce. Have you ever watched them in
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: a glass tank or aquarium? If so, you will know
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: that it is not easy to see them in the
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: shore pools. It is harder still. Some are swaying about
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: in the still clear water, moving their long feelers from
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: side the side. Others have burrowed into the sand. In
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: doing this they raise a sandy cloud which settles on
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: them and hides them. To catch some, you must use
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: a shrimp net, for they can dart across the pool
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: like arrows. Some are shrimps and some are prawns. How
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: can we tell the difference when they are boiled? The
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: answer is easy. All the shrimps turn brown and the
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: prawns red. The red shrimps are near relations of the prawn.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: To tell a live shrimp from a prawn, look at
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: the long pointed beak which juts out from the front
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: of the head. That of the prawn is toothed like
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: a little saw. If the beak is quite smooth, it's
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: wear is a shrimp. Until prawns are grown up up,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: they haunt the sandy shallows with their cousins, the shrimps.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: But the larger prawns live in deeper water. They are
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: generally caught in traps, as are their relatives, the crab
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: and lobster. Now look closely at a prawn and try
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: to find how it swims. Turn it upside down. It
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: has ten legs, and under each of the horny rings
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: of its body you can see a pair of little paddles.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: They are fringed with hairs. When the prawn or shrimp
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: is not in a hurry, he swims slowly but surely
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: with the little paddles or swimmerets. If any danger threatens,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: he uses his tail in this way. It is made
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: of five fringed plates, which, as you can see, spread
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: out or close up like a fan. As he doubles
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: up his body, the plates spread themselves out. They strike
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: the water with great force, and so send the prawn
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: or shrimp quickly backwards. As the body becomes straight again,
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: the fan closes, ready for another stroke. To move quickly,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: the shrimp or prawn merely bends his body and then
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: straightens it. The tail thus becomes a strong ore, driving
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: him backwards with rapid jerks. Look at the prawn's long
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: hair like feelers. There are two pairs. One pair are
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: the ears, a special kind of ear for hearing in water.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: You will notice that the shrimp's eyes are on the
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: end of short stalks. Each big eye is really a
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: cluster of little eyes, rather like the compound eyes of insects.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: If you lift up the horny shield behind the head,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: you see a row of what look like curly feathers.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: These are the breathing gills. Shrimps carry their eggs about them.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: No doubt, you have often found masses of eggs under
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: the shrimp's body. Each egg is fastened by a kind
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: of glue or else. The rapid jerking of the mother
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: shrimp would soon loosen the eggs and set them free.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: The hard shelly covering of the shrimp and prawn is
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: like the armor of the crab. It will not stretch
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: in the least. The body is easily bent owing to
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: the soft hinges between the hard rings, but the coat
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: itself will not stretch. Then how do these little creatures grow?
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: We see small shrimps in large ones, so grow they must.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: In some way. They are of the same family the
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: crustacea has the crab, and they grow in much the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: same way. The hard covering gets too tight for the
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: body inside it, then it splits across the back. After
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: much wriggling, the shrimp appears in a new soft skin.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: While the skin is still soft, the shrimp grows very quickly.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Crustaceans have a funny way of growing, have they not.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Instead of growing evenly little by little, they grow by
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: fits and starts, a great deal in a few hours,
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: and then not at all. Besides being good food for
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: us and for fish, shrimps and prawns have another use.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: They are scavengers. They pick the pieces and eat the
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: vegetable and animal stuff which floats in the sea before
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: it can decay and become poisonous. These useful creatures use
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: it up as food. Great numbers of shrimps and prawns
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: are caught for our markets. Some are caught by men
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: who push a small net over the sand near shore,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: but most are caught by the shrimp trawl, a large
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: net cast from a small sailing vessel. The rocks in
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: the wooden piles of the pier are often covered with
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: the hard shells known as barnacles or egghorn shells. If
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: you slip on them with bare feet, their sharp edges
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: cut you. Each egghorn shell is a little house. Have
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: you ever caught a glimpse of the animal living inside?
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: If you will look very carefully, you will see that
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: the acorn shell is made of three sided pieces closely joined.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: There is a little door at the top, kept tightly
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: closed until the tide comes up and covers the rocks.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: Then watch and you will see a bunch of tiny
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: feathers appear through a slit in the door. This means
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: that the animal is hungry and has put its twelve
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: legs out of doors to catch a dinner. This is
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: strange but true. The barnacle is always upside down in
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: its home, and its twelve feathery legs are thrust out
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: of the door. At the top. They make a fine
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: net in which minute animals are caught and brought into
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: the mouth below. This funny creature actually kicks its food
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: into its mouth. If you own a magnifying glass, you
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: can see this for yourself. At the seaside. You will
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: not be able to see the mouth, however, which is
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: inside the shell. It is fitted with moving parts and
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: feelers like the mouth of a crab. Also, the barnacle
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: has a good set of teeth to grind its food.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: It has no real eyes, having no use for them.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Of what use our eyes to an animal standing on
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: its head in a small dark shell. Now and then
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: it casts its coat. Like the crab and shrimp. The
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: old coat is rolled up and thrown away outside the door.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: Now comes the strangest thing of all, has a baby.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: The barnacle is a free swimming creature. It has three
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: pair of legs, a tail, a useful mouth, and one eye.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: After kicking about in the sea for some time and
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: changing its skin, it changes its shape entirely. It now
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: looks more like a tiny muscle. It has two little shells,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: two eyes, legs, and feelers. Now its swimming days are
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: nearly over, and it must settle down. It gives up
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: eating and rows about, looking and feeling for a place
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: to settle. On finding a suitable spot, the little animal
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: stands on its head. Then a kind of gluis formed
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: which fixes it for life to that place. Head down.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: The two shells and the two eyes are now thrown off.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: The barnacle quickly builds up a shelley house, and after
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: a life of adventure and change, becomes a fixed barnacle
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: for the rest of its days. For many years people
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: knew little of this strange animal. All its wonderful changes,
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and the way its body is made tells us plainly
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: that the barnacle is actually first cousin to the crab, lobster, shrimp,
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: and prawn. It belongs to the class known as to Crustacea,
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: But for some reason or other, it has chosen to
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: live its grown up life thick to a rock. Exercises
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: One how does the shrimp swim? Two? Of what use
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: are shrimps and prawns in the sea? Three? How can
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: you tell a live shrimp from a live prawn?
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Four?
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: How does the barnacle obtain its food? Five? Give the
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: names of five crustaceans? End of Lesson five. Recording by
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Richard Kilmer, Real Medena, Texas.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Lesson six of On the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: by Adrian Maskil. On the Seashore by Rcadwalader Smith, lesson six.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Plants of the shore. To pick a bunch of gay flowers,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you would look in the fields and hedgerows, and not
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: by the sea. Flowers, as you know, love moist soil
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: and not dry sand. And like us, they prefer one
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: food to another. Sand they do not like, and salt
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: is a poison to them. Both of these are enemies
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: to plant life. Also, flowers choose sheltered spots. They do
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: not like rough winds, and the glare of the sun
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: shrivels them up. Yet there are plants with pretty flowers
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: to be found by the sea, and many others with small,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: dull flowers. These seaside plants have to fight for their lives.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: The dry, shifting sand and the salt spray are enough
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to kill them. You would think they have no shelter
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: from the strong sea wind, nor from the fierce glare
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of the summer sun. The puzzle is how do they
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: live among so many enemies. For you know that the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: flowers of the field would at once die if you
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: planted them in salt and sand. They would starve to death.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Even the strongest east side plants shun that part of
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: the beach washed by the waves. They leave that to
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the seaweeds. Let us look first at some plants which
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: have their home on the sand hills. Here's a fine
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: one like a thistle, with stiff, prickly leaves and a
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: stiff blue stem. In August, it has blue gray flowers.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: This plant is called sea holly, its leaves being like
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: those of the holly. It has an unpleasant smell. Yet
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: its roots are used for making some kinds of sweets.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Now try to pull up a plant of sea holly.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: You find it no easy task. Then dig away the
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: sand and you see that its large roots have gone
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: deep and far. All these plants of sandy places grow
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: like that. Sand has no food or drink to give
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: to plants, so they send their roots out like plants
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: in a desert, until they find what they want. Besides
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: food and drink, they need a firm anchor in the
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: loose sand. The sea holly, with its roots deep down
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and far spreading, can hold its own, though the galed
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: hairs at it and throws its sandy bed. Here and
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: there we pass many small creeping plants. As we walk
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in the dry sand. There is a pretty sea convolvulus
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: with its stems deeply buried. It is a cousin of
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: the common bindweed. Then we see many plants of thyme
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: and a few ragged bushes of gorse. We notice that
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: several little plants grow near the gorse, as if they
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: had crept there for shelter. The sea breeze has blown
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: the sand into heaps, and even on these dry, thirsty
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: hillocks we see many tufts of grass. These couch grasses
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and dune grasses, as they are often called, are coarse
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: and hard. Cattle pass them by in disgust. Yet they
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: are the most useful plants on the shore. They can
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: live and spread where other plants die. They have very
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: long underground stems which go through and through the dry,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: loose sand. The wind does its best to bury them
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: in sand, but they send up hard, sharp buds and
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: go on living and spreading. Bit by bit. The sand
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: is held together by the matted stems of these grasses,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: it becomes firm instead of loose. The wind can no
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: longer blow it about. Then other plants can grow in
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that place. You know how men go out into the
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: wild parts of the earth, and by hard work make
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: those places ready for others to settle there. Well, the
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: sand grass works like that. It prepares the way for
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: useful plants to grow in places where they could not
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: grow before. Quite near to the sea, we shall find
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: a very strange little plant. It has no leaves, only fleshy,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: jointed stems. It is known as the glass wort, being
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: full of a substance useful in making glass. It belongs
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: to a family which seems to delight in deserts and
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: salty soil. They have all sorts of dodges to help
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: them live in such places. For instance, their leaves are fleshy.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Squeeze them, and they are like wet, juicy fruit. The
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: sea beet is also a member of this family. The
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: red beet as well as the mongol wurtzel. We owe
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: to this humble seaside plant. Most of our sugar comes
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: from the sugar beet. Another useful plant is the sea cabbage,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: which grows on some parts of our sea coast. It
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: is rather a ragged, tough kind of cabbage, and perhaps
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: you would not choose it for your dinner table. We
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: have more tempting sorts in our gardens, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: But long long ago, the wild seaside cabbage was the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: only one growing. Men found it to be eatable and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: began to plant it near their huts and caves. From
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: that small beginning, all our garden cabbages have come. Walking
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: a little further from the sea, we leave the sand
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: and come to stones, rocks and cliffs. We pass a
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: pretty plant, the sea lavender, and another the sea stalk.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: They love best the sandy, muddy parts of the shore.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Their lilac flowers look bright and pretty. Coming to the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: rocky places, we find tufts of the flower known as
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: sea pink or thrift. Its leaves are like grass, and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: its flowers form a round pink bundle. At the top
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: of a bare stalk. There are many tufts of thrift
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: growing among the rocks, and each tuft has a number
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: of pink flowers. In some places you could step from
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: one tuft to another for several miles. Bare and ugly
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: stretches of coast are made into a gay garden by
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: this lovely flower. Here and there on the rocks is
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: a plant with large yellow blossoms, the yellow horned poppy.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: It is a handsome plant, and you are surprised to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: see such fine flowers among dry shingle, sand or rock.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: But the horned poppy is well able to stand the
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: salt spray and storms of its favorite home. When the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: petals have dropped, a green seed pod is left. It
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: is very long, nearly twice as long as this page,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: and looks much more like a stem than a seed pod.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Sometimes this seaside poppy is seen growing high up the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: face of the cliff, where only the jackdaw and sea
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: birds can find a footing, and many another plant may
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: be seen there too. The cliffs are full of cracks,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: some tiny and some wide. In these places there is
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: always a certain amount of dirt and grit. You could
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: hardly call it soil, and most plants would starve if
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: you planted them in such a place. These plants of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: the rock and cliff are not so proud. They have
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: very long and very thin roots, admirably suited to pierce
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: the grit and explore the cracks in the rock to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: find the moisture they need. Besides this, they have fleshy
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: leaves which help them to keep alive. The stone crop
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and the pennywort are well known plants of this kind.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: They grow where you would least expect to find a
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: living plant. Neither heat nor thirst seems to kill them.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Mother Nature has found many a wonderful way of helping
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: her children to live. Exercises Number one, why do plants
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: which grow in sand have such long roots? Number two?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: In what way are the grasses growing on the sand
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: so useful? Number three? Give the names of four flowering
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: plants of the shore. Number four where would you look
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: for the stone crop and pennywort? And finally number five,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: why do these two plants have such thin roots? End
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of Lesson six recording by Adrian Maskil.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: Lesson seven of on the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: Chessi Joy On the Seashore by Cadwallader Smith lesson seven
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: flower like Animals. The prettiest of the creatures of the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: shore is the sea anemone. No one can see it
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: without being reminded of a flower, an aster or daisy,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: with a thick stalk and many colored petals. But knowing
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: how it is made and how it lives, we place
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: it in the animal kingdom, though among the lowest members
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: of that kingdom. It is a cousin of that strange creature,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: the jellyfish, which we shall look at in another lesson.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: When the tide falls, you can walk among the rocks
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: and pools of the sea and find anemones in plenty.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: They are fixed to the rocks. Some are under the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: ledges out of sight, others are low down, half buried
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: in the wet sand, and others are on the sides
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: of the rocks, looking like blobs of green, brown or red.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: Jelly feel one of them. It is slimy and rather firm,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: not so soft and yielding as the jellyfish. You cannot
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: easily pull it from the rocks without harming it. But
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: you will find other anemonies on stones and shells, and
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: these you can put in a jar of sea water
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: with some weed and carry home to examine later on.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: When covered with sea water, the ugly blobs of jelly
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: open up like beautiful flowers. In some places along our coast,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: the floor of the sea is like a flower garden,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: gay with thousands of colored anemonies. Those little petals are
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: really tentacles used for catching and holding food. We will
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: use a shorter word and call them feelers. They are
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: set in circles round the top of the anemone, and
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: there are many of them. The daisy anemone, for instance,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: has over seven hundred feelers. Each feeler can be moved
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: from side to side, and also can be tucked away
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: out of sight and out of danger. But when hungry,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: the animal spreads them widely, for as we shall see,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: they are the net in which it catches its dinner.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: The whole body of the anemone is like two bags,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: one hanging inside the other. The space between the two
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: bags is filled with water. The feelers are hollow tubes
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: which open out of this space, so they too are
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: filled with water. The anemone can press the water into
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: them and so force them to open out, in rather
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: the same way you can expand the fingers of a
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: glove by forcing your breath into them. The anemone you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: see can open or close just as it pleases. What
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: does it eat and how does it find food? Perhaps
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: you have watched and open anemone in a pool or
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: in a glass tank, and seen it at its meals.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: A small creature swims near and touches one of the feelers.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: Instead of darting away, it appears to be held still,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: and then other feelers bend towards it and hold the victim.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: Then they are all drawn into the center of the anemone,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: carrying their prey with them, and the feelers prey and
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: all are tucked out of sight. That is the way
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: the anemone obtains its food. As soon as the feelers
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: get hold of a small animal, they carry it to
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: the opening of a tube in the center. This is
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: the mouth leading to the stomach. Very often the feelers
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: with their victim are tucked away into the stomach, and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: the feelers do not appear again for some time. Is
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: this not a strange way of eating? Much stranger still
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: is the way in which the food is held and
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: made so helpless that it cannot escape. On the skin
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: of the anemone, there are many thousands of very tiny
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: pockets or cells. Each cell contains a fine thread with
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: a poisoned barb at the tip. The thread is packed
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: away in the cell, coiled up like the spring of
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: a watch. As soon as anything presses against the cells,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: they shoot out their threads. Thus, the tips of many
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: poisoned threads enter the skin of any soft animal which
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: is unlucky enough to touch at anemone. If your own
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: skin is tender, these little stinging hairs will irritate it,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: but not enough to hurt you. It is different, however,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: with the small creatures of the sea. They are made
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: quite helpless when caught by hundreds of these strange threads.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: We shall find similar poisoned threads in the jellyfish, and these,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: in some cases can cause us serious illness. You cannot
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: see them without the aid of a microscope. All those
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: parts of its food which the anenemy cannot digest it
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: throws out again. If you feed an anemone on raw meat,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: it tucks the pieces into its mouth, and some days
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: after throws out the hard part of the meat, having
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: taken all the goodness from it. No doubt, the enemies
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: themselves are eaten by other animals in the sea, but
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: many kinds of fish will not touch them. You may
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: remember that we notice an anemone which lived on the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: stolen home of the hermit crab. The crab lives in
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: the whelk shell, and the anemone lives on the roof.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: As it were, in nearly every ocean all over the world,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: these two partners are found using the same shell. It
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: is thought that the anemy lives there for two good reasons. First,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: the hermit moves from place to place. You can see
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: that this would give the anemone a better chance of
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: obtaining food. Also, bits of food float to the anemone
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: when the crab is picking his dinner to pieces. The
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: crab seems to like having his strange partner with him.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: No doubt the anemone is of some use to him,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: or he would at once pull it off. It is
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: thought that the anemone protects him from his enemies, the fish.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: Some of them would swallow the whelk shell, crab and all,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: but they would not eat one on which an anemony
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: was fixed. We are not sure that these reasons are
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: the right ones. All we know for certain is that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: a crab and an anemone have, for some good reasons,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: gone into partnership. Anemies have large families. Sometimes they have
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: numbers of eggs. At other times their little ones come
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: straight into the world as very tiny anemonies. A boy
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: who kept a large anemony in a tank of sea
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: water was astonished to find that in a short time
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: he had not one, but hundreds of the creatures. The
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: tiny anemonies were fixed to the glass and rock, all
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: fishing for food with their little outspread tentacles. Sometimes the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: anemone will calmly divide itself into two, each half becoming
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: a perfect anemone. Anemonies are of many shapes, sizes, and colors.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: The loveliest of our British ones is the Plumbo's anemone.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: It is like a carnation and may grow to be
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: six inches high, that is nearly as long as this page.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: It is known by its shape, not by its color.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: It may be any of these colors brown, deep green,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: pale orange, flesh color, cream, bright red, brick color, lemon,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: or pure white. There are many other creatures in the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: sea which resemble plant and are often mistaken for them.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: The sea lily is one of the flower like animals.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: It is a relative of the starfish living in deep water.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: The sea mat is often found on the shore. It
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: seems like a horny kind of weed, but is really
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: a colony of tiny animals, each having its own little
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: cell to live in exercises, How does the anemone expand
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: its feelers? In what way does the anemone catch the
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: small animals on which it feeds? Where is the mouth
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: of the anemone? In what way might the anemone be
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: of use to its partner? The hermit crab? End of
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: less than seven.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: Lesson eight of on the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: All LibriVox recordings or in the public domain. For more
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario, January two thousand and thirteen.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: On the Seashore by cadwalad Or Smith lesson eight seaweeds
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: and sea grass. We think of weeds as useless plants,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: which insist on growing just where they are not wanted,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: so it is a pity that seaweeds are so named,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 6: for the part they play in the sea is a
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: useful one, and they are often beautiful. Though they do
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: not bear flowers, like so many plants of the land.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: You see draggled heaps of them lying on the shore
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: where the waves have thrown them. They are best seen
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: in their proper home, buoyed up by the water and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: spreading out their broad colored fronds or long waving threads.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: There are in many places meadows of sea grass and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: forests of seaweed. Mother Earth still has her carpet of green,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: even when covered by the salt water. The plants are
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 6: very unlike those of the land, but as you will see,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: they are of great use. We will suppose you put
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: on a diving dress. Then you can walk out under
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: the water and explore the forests of the sea, down
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: by the line of low tide. Before you have waded
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: up to your knees, you find plants clinging to the rocks.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: They cover them with a slippery coat of green. When
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: you turn these sea weeds over you find periwinkles and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: other animals feeding or hiding. Seaweed makes good cover for
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: the creatures of the rock pools who have many enemies
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: to fear. You notice that most of these shore weeds
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: are green, sometimes as green as young grass. Pull up
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: a bunch of the weed and you find that it
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 6: clings to the rocks and stones, but has no real roots.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 6: Seaweeds belong to a humble family in the world of plants,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: having no real roots, no flowers, and no real seeds.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: They can attach themselves to the stones or rocks. Along
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: comes a great wave, and perhaps they are torn up.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: But this does not harm them, for they still live
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 6: as they wash to and fro in the water until
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: they cling to another rock, or they are thrown onto
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: the shore to die, or else be washed back to
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: sea by the next tide. The sea lettuce or green
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: laver is a common seaweed near the shore. Its broad,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: crinkled and bright green leaves are rather like those of
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: a lettuce. Sometimes it is boiled to a jelly and
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: used for food. Many other seaweeds are good to eat,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 6: and on some coasts there is a regular seaweed harvest.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 6: Now weighed into rather deeper water, and you find a
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 6: great mass of bladder rack. Most school boys know it
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: for the little bladders of air in the leaves explode
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: to the pop if you squeeze them. Blotter rack and
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: others of the same kind are torn up by the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: fierce waves of a storm and tossed on the beach
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: in heaps. They are gathered by the farmer who knows
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: how to value a cheap manure for his field. Some
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: kinds are also of use in packing lobsters, so they
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: come to the market nice and fresh. When you have
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 6: walked in your diving dress to deep water, you find
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: yourselves among a tangle of olive green weeds. They are
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: below the line of low tide. All around you is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: a forest of dark green ribbons with wavy edges. The
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: ribbons are tough and very long, and cling tightly to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: the rocks. These ribbon weeds and others of the same
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: kind are known as tangles round some parts of our coast.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 6: They make wide, thick beds in the sea. Though the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: ribbons may be six feet long, they are not so
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 6: wide as the palm of your hand. Another sea plant,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 6: which grows in tufts in rather deep water, is called
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 6: irish moss. It is green, brown, or purple in color.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 6: I do not know why it should be called irish moss.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: For it is not a moss, and it grows all
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 6: around the English as well as the Irish Sea coast.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 6: But seaweeds have strange names. Indeed, many of them have
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 6: no everyday names at all. Irish moss is used for
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 6: food after being boiled to a jelly. It can also
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 6: be made into a gum or glue and has often
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: been so used. Now, if you were to walk still
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 6: further on the bed of the sea into deeper water,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 6: you would find the prettiest of all the sea plants.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: These are the pink and red seaweeds. You also find
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: them on the beach, but only after they have been
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: torn from their home in the deep water. They grow
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: on the rocks in pretty colored tufts. If you dive
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: still farther into the dark of the sea, you find
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: beds of ooze and slime, and rocks and weird fishes,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 6: but no plants. Why is this Like the land plants,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: these sea plants must have light. They cannot grow in
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 6: the blackness of very deep water. Can you guess why
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: some seaweeds are green and others red. Those growing in
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: the shallow water of the shore are green like land
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: plants because the sunlight reaches them only part of the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 6: light can pass through deep water, and so in these
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: shady places the seaweed is reddish in color. We see
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: then that one green seaweed grows by the shore, two
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 6: brownish green seaweed like steeper water, three red seaweed grows
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 6: in deep water, and four in very deep water. There
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 6: is no weed at all. We must not forget the
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 6: grass of the sea. It grows in narrow blades, often
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: a yard in length and as wide as your thumb.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: It is not a seaweed, but a real flowering plant, which,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: for some reason or other loves to grow underwater. It
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 6: creeps in the sand and mud, with green leaves growing
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: up as thick as corn in a cornfield. All these
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: waving green leaves make large meadows in the sea, and
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: sea snails, fishes, and crabs hide in it, just as
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 6: all manner of living things hide in the grass of
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: our meadows. The proper name for this strange plant is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 6: sea wrack. When dried, it is useful for packing up
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: china and covering flasks of oil. Now we come to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: the real use of sea plants. They are food for
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: all the hosts of small animals of the sea. These
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: eat it as it grows, or else like the mussel
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: and oyster swallow the tiny scraps of it which float
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 6: everywhere like so much dust. The seashell and other animals
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: which feed on sea plants are themselves eaten by other
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: sea creatures, and these in turn are eaten by crabs, lobsters,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 6: and fish, which are eaten by us. It reminds you
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: of a chain. The first link in the chain is
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: the sea plant. The last links are the fish and ourselves.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 6: So you see the weeds and grass of the ocean
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: are of very great value. Indeed exercises one give the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 6: names of three common seaweeds. Two what is the color
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 6: of the weed found in deep water?
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: Three?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 6: Why cannot seaweed grow in very deep water? Four? In
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 6: what way are sea plants most useful? End of lesson
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: eight seaweeds and sea grass.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Lesson nine of Palms seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: by Adrian Maskill on the Seashore by a Cadwalader Smith
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: less than nine The jellyfish of all the queer children
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: of nature which live in the sea. The jellyfish is
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: one of the queerest. You often find it on the shore,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: especially after a severe storm. There it lies a mass
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: of helpless jelly which slips and breaks through your fingers
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: if you try to lift it. It cannot move back
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: to its watery home, and in a short time the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: sun's warmth will have dried it up, leaving but a
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: mark on the sand and a few scraps of animal matter.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: For these strange creatures are little else but water. A jellyfish,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: which weighed two pounds when alive, would leave less than
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: the tenth part of one ounce when dried. There is
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: a story of a farmer who, on seeing thousands and
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: thousands of jellyfish along the shore, thought he would make
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: use of them. He decided that they would serve as
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: manure for his fields, and so save him much money.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: He went home and sent men with wagons to be
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: loaded with the jellyfish. This was done, and the jellyfish
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: was spread over the soil. On looking at his fields
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: the next morning, the farmer was astonished to find that
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: every scrap of his new manure had vanished, as if
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: by magic, in the sea. The jellyfish looks like an
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: umbrella of bluish white jelly from which hang tassels and threads.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: Look over the side of a boat or from the pier,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: and you often see them drifting by, hundreds of them,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: like so many ghosts. Each one is moving along with
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: its edges, partly opening and shutting. It is plain that
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: this waving motion causes the creatures to move through the water. Also,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: they can rise to the surface or fall to the depths,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: and do not collide with one another, so the jellyfish
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: is not at all helpless. At night, jellyfishes sometimes look
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: very beautiful. Each one shines in the water with a
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: soft yet strong light, like fairy lamps afloat in the sea.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: They are of all sizes. Some you could put in
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: a small wineglass. Others measure nearly two feet across. Evidently,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: the jellyfish grows, and in order to live and grow,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: it must eat. But what does it eat and how
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: does it obtain its food? Before noticing the wonderful way
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: in which this animal finds its dinner, let us look
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: at its body. In any large jellyfish, you can see
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: marks which run from the center of the body and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: another mark around the edge of the umbrella. These are
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: really tubes. They all join with a hollow space inside
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: the body, which is the creature's stomach. The mouth tube
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: opens under the body, as can be seen by turning
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: the jellyfish on its back and moving the lobes of
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: jelly aside. All the food goes up this tube mouth
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: and so into the stomach of the animal. The whole
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: creature is little more than so many cells of sea water,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: the walls of the cells being a very thin, transparent
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: kind of skin. Perhaps the strangest thing about it is
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: the way in which it catches prey. Jellyfish feed on
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: all kinds of tiny sea animals, such as baby fish
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: and the young of crabs, shrimps, and prawns. These small
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: creatures form part of the usual dinner of many a
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: hungry dweller in the sea, and the jellyfish takes a
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: share of them. From the edge of the umbrella there
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: hangs a fringe of long, delicate hairs, rather like spider's threads.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: These are fishing lines, yet much more deadly. They trail
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: through the water, stretching far from the main part of
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: the jellyfish, and any small creature unlucky enough to touch them,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: is doomed down each one of these threads, there are
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: minute cells, hundreds and hundreds to every thread, and in
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: each cell there is a dart coiled up like the
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: spring of a watch. The tip of the dart is
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: barbed like a fish hook. Now, the cells are so
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: made that they fly open when touched. The dart then
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: leaps out and buries itself in the skin of the
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: animal which touch the thread. And not only that, but
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: the darts are poisoned and soon kill the small creatures
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: which they pierce. You see now how this innocent looking
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: jelly fish gets its food. As it swims along the
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: threads touch the tiny living things in the sea, that
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: darts pierce them and poison them. Of course, these stinging
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: darts are very very small, much too small for our
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: eyes to see. Sometimes there are numbers of large, brownish
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: jelly fish in the sea or washed up on the shore.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: If you are paddling or swimming, keep well away from them.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Their poisoned darts are able to pierce through thin skin
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: and may cause you illness and great pain. Remember that
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: the threads are very long. After you have passed the
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: main body of the animal, you may still be in
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: danger from the trailing threads. We noticed these same poisoned
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: darts when we were dealing with the flower like animals,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: the anemones, Only in that case they were so fine,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: so small, that they had no power to harm us,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: even though they entered our skin. You may remember that
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: we called the anemone a cousin of the jellyfish, for
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: they both belonged to the same lowly division of the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: animal kingdom. Animals have queer ways of getting a living.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: Who would expect to find millions of poisoned darts and
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: a jellyfish? Who would guess that these weapons are coiled
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: up ready to spring out at their prey. Men have
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: made many weapons for killing, from the bow and arrow
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: to the torpedo, but none of them is more wonderful
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: than the weapon of the jellyfish. Exercises Number one where
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: is the mouth of the jellyfish placed? Number two? How
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: does the jellyfish move through the water? Number three what
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: is the food of the jellyfish? And number four how
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: does it obtain its food? End of Lesson nine. Recording
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: by Adrian Maskil.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 7: Lesson ten of on the Seashore. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 7: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 7: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 7: by Pamela Krantz. On the Seashore by Cadwalader Smith lesson
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 7: Ten Shells and their Builders, Part one, the periwinkle, whelk,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 7: and limpet. Most of the shells which you find scattered
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 7: over the shore are empty. The little animals which built
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 7: them are gone, and their empty houses of wonderful shapes
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 7: and colors are all that you find. Let us look
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 7: at the builders of these pretty homes. The shell builders
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 7: have soft, juicy bodies, and they are put in one
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 7: big division of the animal kingdom, the mollusca, which only
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 7: means soft bodied. Some of these mollusks do not build shells,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 7: but most of them build a shelly house for themselves.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 7: They do this to defend their soft bodies from the
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 7: attacks of a host of enemies. Some build two shells,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 7: the oyster and mussel do. As you know, these are
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 7: called bi valves, that is, two valves or shells, and others,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 7: like the garden snail, the limpet and periwinkle have one
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 7: shell only, and so are called univalves. The crab and
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 7: other crustaceans also have a hard covering to their soft bodies,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 7: but it is not at all like the shell of
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 7: a snail or other mollusk. The snail shell is like
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 7: the little boy's suit, which is altered and made bigger
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 7: as the boy grows. The crab's covering is a suit
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 7: which cannot be altered. It must be thrown away and
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 7: replaced by a larger one. The body of the shell
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 7: builder is wrapped in a soft covering, a kind of
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 7: outer coat, which is called the mantle. Now, this mantle
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 7: is one of nature's cleverest inventions. It is able to
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 7: take the substance called lime from the food of the
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 7: animal and to use it as building stuff. The shell
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 7: is built to fit the soft body. When a periwinkle
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 7: is hatched from the egg, it is as big as
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 7: a pin's head. It eats and grows, and the shell
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 7: must therefore be made larger. So the mantle is stretched out,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 7: and it puts a film of lime to the edge
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 7: of the shell. Bit by bit. The shell is thus
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 7: added to by the wonderful mantle. Look at a snail's
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 7: shell and notice the lines which show how many times
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 7: the little house has been made larger. Each kind of
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 7: shell builder has its own style of building. If you
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 7: go to a museum and examine the shells gathered from
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 7: all over the world, you are surprised at their wonderful shapes, markings,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 7: and colors. Another surprising thing is their size. Some are enormous,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 7: so large that they make good washing basins. Others are
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 7: so small that you can hardly see them. Each one
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 7: was made by the folds of the mantle of the
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 7: animal that lived in it. In our colored pictures you
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 7: see many different kinds of shells, some of them built
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 7: by univalve molluscs and some by bi valve mollusks. Wherever
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 7: there are weeds along the shore, you can find whole
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 7: armies of the periwinkle. The winkle we all know so well.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 7: It browses there among the weeds, just as its cousin,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 7: the land snail, browses on your cabbages. You must have
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 7: seen the little door with which the periwinkle closes the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 7: entrance to his house. The land snail does not own
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 7: a door, but he makes one when he goes to
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 7: sleep for the winter. The periwinkle crawls on a broad
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 7: slimy foot, which is put out from the shell. It
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 7: is stretched on this side or that, and so draws
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 7: him and his home in any direction. There are two
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 7: sensitive feelers in front of his head, and behind these
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 7: are two short stalks, on each of which is a
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 7: tiny eye. If alarmed, the periwinkle can shorten his body
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 7: and pull it back into its shell, closing the entrance
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 7: with the horny door. But the strangest part of him
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 7: is the tongue. It is not for tasting, but for rasping.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 7: It is like a long, narrow ribbon, on which are
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 7: hundreds of tiny points, all sloping backwards. They are arranged
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 7: three in a row. The periwinkle rasps the seaweed with
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 7: his tongue, and so scrapes off his dinner. Of course,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 7: the teeth wear away, but only part of the toothed
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 7: ribbon is used at a time, so there are plenty
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 7: of teeth behind the worn ones, ready to take their place.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 7: The shell, as we have seen, is made of limestone,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 7: but the teeth are made of flint. This is a
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 7: hard substance, so hard that it is used for striking sparks.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 7: Now we will look at a shell builder, the whelk,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 7: who uses his flinty tongue in quite another fashion. The
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 7: whelk does not care for a vegetable dinner. He prefers
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 7: to eat other molluscs. He is carnivorous, a flesh eater.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 7: But these other mollusks do not wait to be eaten.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 7: As the enemy draws near, they retire into their shells
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 7: and shut themselves up as tight as they can. The welk, however,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 7: is a clever burglar. He knows how to make a
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 7: way into the hardest of shelley houses. His front part,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 7: we might call it a nose, will stretch out to
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 7: a fine point, and it contains a rasping tongue even
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 7: harder than that of the periwinkle. He sets to work,
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 7: moving the rasp up and down, he drills a neat,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 7: round hole in the shell of the animal he is attacking.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 7: No shell is safe from him, and no tool could
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 7: make a neater hole. When you next gather shells on
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 7: the beach, look at them closely. In some you will
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 7: see where mister welk, the burglar, has been at work.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 7: He needs but a small entrance to enable him to
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 7: suck out his helpless prey at his ease is it
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 7: not strange that this creature, with a body as soft
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 7: as your tongue, should earn its living by breaking into
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 7: houses made of hard shell. There are other mollusks which
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 7: find their meals in this strange manner, and many others which,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 7: like the periwinkle, feed more easily on seaweed. One of these,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 7: the limpet, You can always be sure of finding it
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 7: low tide. Indeed, there are so many limpets on the
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 7: rocks that it would be hard not to see them.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 7: You will know if you have tried to force a
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 7: limpet from its hold on the rock, how very tightly
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 7: it clings. It is as if the shell were glued
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 7: or cemented by its edges. Yet there is no glue
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 7: or cement used, but only a simple dodge. The limpet
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 7: has a broad foot which almost fills up the opening
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 7: of its shell, like the foot of the snail. It
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 7: is used when the animal wishes to take a walk,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 7: but it serves another purpose too. It can be used
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 7: as a sucker, and it is this which enables the
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 7: limpet to cling so firmly to its rock. When the
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 7: tide is out, the limpet clings to the rock, its
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 7: soft body tucked safely away in the shell. Its feeding
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 7: time comes when the water covers the rocks once more.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 7: Then the limpet's shell may be seen to tilt up,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 7: and a foot and a head with feelers and eyes
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 7: come out. The limpet crawls to the seaweed and begins
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 7: to browse, using a rasp like that of the periwinkle.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 7: It then crawls back to its own place on the rock.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 7: In time, this resting place becomes hollowed out, and the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 7: limpet's shell fits into the groove. Thus made. Limpets are
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 7: useful as bait for fish. The welk and periwinkle are
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 7: gathered in immense numbers and are used by us for food.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 7: Perhaps you have seen the egg bundle of the whelk.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 7: It contains many eggs. When first laid in the sea,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 7: Each egg is as big as a pin's head. They
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 7: swell in the water until the yellowish bundle is three
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 7: times as large as the whelk that laid it. You
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 7: often see the empty bundle blown by the wind along
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 7: the shore. Exercises one, give the names of two bi
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 7: valve mollusks. Two what is the periwinkle's shell made of? Three?
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 7: Describe how the periwinkle eats seaweed? Four how does the
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 7: whelk obtain its food? Five? Give the names of three
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 7: one shelled mollusks. End of less than ten recording by
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 7: Pamela Crantz Lessen, eleven of on the Seashore. This is
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 7: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 7: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 7: Recording by Pamelacrants on the Seashore by Cadwalader Smith Lessen eleven.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 7: Shells and their Builders, Part two. The mussel and oyster.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 7: As every one knows, the mussel and the oyster live
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 7: between two hinged shells. In the last lesson we called
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 7: them bi valve molluscs, which is only another way of
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 7: saying soft bodied animals with two shells. Have you ever
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 7: opened an oyster? It is a tug of war your
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 7: skill and strength against the muscles of the animal inside
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 7: the tight shells. Like the periwinkle and other shell builders,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 7: these creatures owe their strong houses to a wonderful mantle,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 7: but in this case the mantle is in two pieces
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 7: instead of one. You can imagine the periwinkle's mantle as
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 7: a tube enclosing the animal's body. The mantle of the
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 7: mussel or the oyster is in two pieces, and each
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 7: half forms its own shell. The snail and other one
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 7: shelled molluscs poke their heads out of the shell when
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 7: feeding or moving. Oysters and their two shelled cousins cannot
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 7: do this for the simple reason that they have no heads.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 7: In some places you see that the rocks at low
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 7: tide are covered with mussels in dense black masses. They
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 7: cling to the rocks, and though heavy waves bang them
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 7: like so many hammers, they stick tight. Little mussels and
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 7: big ones. They form a mass so thick that baby
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 7: crabs and other creatures use them as a hiding place.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 7: On the piers and groins in the woodwork of the harbor,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 7: you can see other clusters of mussels. They are placed
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 7: where the high tide covers them. Have you noticed how
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 7: the mussel anchors himself. He uses a bunch of threads,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 7: like so many cables or tiny ropes. It is interesting
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 7: to know how these threads are made. The mussel is,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 7: as a rule, a stay at home, but he can
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 7: move from place to place if he likes. He has
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 7: a long, slender foot, which can be pushed out of
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 7: the shells now. The threads are fixed by the foot,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 7: just where the mussel wishes to anchor himself. They are
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 7: made from a liquid which forms in the body of
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 7: the creature. This liquid hardens in the water so that
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 7: it can be pulled out into long, fine threads. Our
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 7: ordinary muscles do not make very long threads, but those
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 7: of some kinds are so long that they can be
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 7: woven into silky purses stockings. The mussel which makes such
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 7: long anchor threads might be called the silkworm of the sea.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 7: If the mussel is such a stay at home, how
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 7: does he find his food? The answer is that the
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 7: food comes to him, brought by the ever moving water.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 7: There are countless specks floating in the sea, mostly specks
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 7: of vegetable stuff. These settle on the floor of the sea,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 7: just as dust settles on our house floors, and the
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 7: waves wash this sea dust hither and thither. The mussel
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 7: or oyster, with shells gaping wide open, is bound to
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 7: get some of this food with the water which enters
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 7: the shells. The oyster has no foot and is fixed
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 7: in one place nearly all its life. It is an
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 7: interesting animal and one of such value as food that
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 7: hundreds of thousands of oysters are reared in special beds
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 7: and sent to the market of the proper season. Our
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 7: British oysters were famous even in the time of the Romans.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 7: They were carefully packed and sent to Rome, and at
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 7: the Roman feasts, surprising quantities of them were eaten. Many
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 7: sea animals have wonderfully large families, but the oyster, with
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 7: its millions and millions of eggs, beats most of them.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 7: Strangely enough, its eggs are not sent into the sea
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 7: at once, but are kept between the oyster shells until
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 7: they hatch. Needless to say, these babies are very small, indeed,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 7: else their nursery could not contain them all. Though so
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 7: small that thousands of them together look more like a
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 7: pinch of dust than anything else. Yet each one has
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 7: two thin shells, so that if you eat the parent oyster,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 7: they grate on your teeth like sand. Oysters at this
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 7: time are out of season, that is unfit for food.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 7: At the right moment, the oyster gets rid of its
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 7: numerous family, it opens its shells, then shuts them rapidly,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 7: and each time this happens, a cloud of young oysters
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 7: is puffed out like smoke. Now these mites must fend
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 7: for themselves in a sea full of foes. They have
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 7: no defense, and countless numbers of them are gobbled up
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 7: by crabs, anemones, and others. If this did not happen,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 7: the sea would soon be paved with oysters. For a time.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 7: The baby oysters, which are known as spat are able
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 7: to swim here and there. In rough weather, they are
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 7: driven far into the deeps of the ocean and lost.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 7: The rest of them before they have been free for
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 7: two days, settle on the bed of the sea, sometimes
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 7: on their own parents, and there they remain for life.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 7: Only a very few, out of ease each million, become
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 7: grown ups. The rest are eaten by enemies or smothered
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 7: in mud or sand. In a year or so they
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 7: are as big as half a crown. In five years
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 7: they are fine, fat grown up oysters. That is to say,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 7: if they have not been dredged up from their bed
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 7: and sent to market. Their shells open and shut like
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 7: a trap. You may have seen a picture of an
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 7: inquisitive mouse trapped by an oyster, thinking to have a
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 7: nice taste of oyster. The mouse had poked its head
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 7: into the open shells, but they were snapped together and
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 7: the mouse was firmly held in the trap. Between the
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 7: hinge of the two shells there is a pad which
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 7: acts like an elastic spring and forces the shells open.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 7: The oyster can close them by means of a strong mussel.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 7: They are its only defense, so it closes them at
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 7: the least hint of danger. Even these thick walls are
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 7: sometimes of no avail, as we saw in our talk
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 7: on five fingered jack. We saw how the starfish forces
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 7: the shells open with the help of its strong tube feet.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 7: The whelk and its cousins know how to bore a
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 7: hole in the shell and suck out the helpless oyster.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 7: Then there are certain sponges with the strange habit of
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 7: making holes in shells, in living in and on them.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 7: Sometimes the oysters are stifled in their beds by other
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 7: oysters settling and growing over them. Thick masses of mussels
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 7: may cling to them and suffocate them, and grains of
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 7: sand sometimes get in the hinges of their shells, so
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 7: that they cannot close up the house when they wish.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 7: Like the other animals which are useful as food, oysters
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 7: have been carefully studied and cultivated by man for many,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 7: many years. The story of the oyster beds is a
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 7: long and interesting one. Oysters feed in rather a strange way.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 7: You may have looked inside the shells and seen two delicate,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 7: dark edged fringes known as the beard. This fringe is
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 7: the oyster's gills or breathing arrangement. Trace the beard as
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 7: far as the hinge of the shells, and you see
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 7: the mouth with its white lips. If you could watch
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 7: the creature having its dinner, you would see a constant
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 7: stream of water flowing over the gills and towards the mouth.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 7: What makes the water move in that way? The gills
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 7: are covered with very tiny lashes, like little hairs. There
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 7: are so many of them that, as they keep moving,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 7: they force the water along over the gills and towards
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 7: the mouth. In this way, the oyster breathes the air
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 7: which is in the water. But not only that, as
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 7: we have already noticed, there is a kind of vegetable
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 7: dust in the sea. This is driven to the oyster's
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 7: mouth and swallowed. The oyster, fixed in its bed, unable
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 7: to hunt for food, thus makes its dinner come to it.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 7: What a strange use for a beard. It not only
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 7: serves as lungs, but also helps the animal to catch
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 7: its daily bread. Another mollusk used as food is the cockle,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 7: and its shell is one of the commonest found along
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 7: the shore, especially near sandy places. It lives in sand
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 7: and can bury itself so quickly that you would have
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 7: to use your spade with all your might in order
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 7: to keep pace with this little shell fish. Where cockles
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 7: have buried themselves, you will see spurts of water and
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 7: sand showing where they are busy down below in the
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 7: wet sand. Besides being so skillful at digging, the cockle
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 7: is a first rate jumper. If left on the beach,
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 7: it jumps over the sand and towards the sea in
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 7: the funniest way. It is strange to see a quiet
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 7: looking shell suddenly take to hopping and jumping like an acrobat.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 7: To perform this astonishing feat, the cockle makes use of
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 7: its foot, which is worked by very strong muscles. It
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 7: is large and pointed and bent. If the cockle wishes
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 7: to move quickly, it stretches out its foot from between
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 7: the shells as far as it will go. Then, by
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 7: using all its power, it leaps backwards or forwards in
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 7: a surprising manner. There are many other interesting mollusks besides
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 7: those we have looked at. The piddock or pholus is
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 7: a smallish, rather delicate one with a soft foot. But
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 7: this foot is a most wonderful boring tool, fitted with
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 7: a hard file. Hard rocks and wood are perforated by
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 7: these little mollusks. Indeed, they are a positive danger, for
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 7: they pierce the wooden piles of piers and weaken them.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 7: They cannot pierce through iron, however, and so iron plates
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 7: or nails are used to protect the piles from their onslaughts.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 7: You will often see stones and rocks riddled by the pittock,
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 7: as if they were as soft as cheese, chalk, sandstone
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 7: or oak. It is all the same to the piddock,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 7: which rasps them away with its file. When the points
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 7: of this strange instrument are worn out with all this
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 7: hard wear, a new set takes their place. Exercises One
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 7: how does the mussel anchor itself?
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 4: Two?
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 7: Describe how the shells of the oyster are opened and closed? Three?
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 7: What is the food of the mussel? Four? Of what
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 7: use is the beard of the oyster? Five? Why is
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 7: the oyster called a bi valve?
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: Six?
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 7: Why is the oyster sometimes unfit for use as food?
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 7: End of Lesson eleven recording by Pamela Crantz. End of
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 7: On the Seashore by Cadwalader Smith