Family Gastrochenidae

Genus ASPERGILLUM, Lam.

SHELL small, both valves cemented to the walls of a trumpet-shaped tube, which bears several ruffles toward the large end; base of the tube is perforated and ornamented with minute tubes containing filamentous mantle processes. Animal elongated; foot finger-like; siphons two, long, contractile, united; mantle margin thickened, ruffled, reaching to end of tube. Twenty-one species. Gregarious burrowers in sand or mud. Red Sea to Australia.

The Watering-pot Shell (A. vaginiferum, Lam.) is a small affair always, but the long trumpet its mantle secretes reaches seven inches in length. The beaks of the two insignificant valves are visible near the base of the tube, where they are imbedded. A strange beast is this which outgrows its bivalve shell, and builds greater after a plan quite distinct from the bivalve pattern; all the organs of the body are changed to suit life in the new abode. The mollusks occur in numbers in sand and mud near low water mark; disturbed they retire within their stony citadels whence they are with difficulty extricated.

Habitat.-Red Sea.