to increase rapidly in bulk and sturdiness; the shell becomes hard, and
as the exit widens it screws its way out of a very ragged cradle,
emerging sound and whole as a bee from its cell, all its organs equipped
to ply their respective offices.

With pardonable affectation of vanity it has finally fitted itself for
appearance in public by the assumption of three or four buff and brown
decorations upon its milk-white shell, which quickly blend into a pattern
varying in individuals, of blotches and clouds in brown, yellow, and
white. In maturity the mollusc weighs several pounds, its shell has a
capacity for as much as two gallons of water, and is coloured uniformly
buff, while in old age infantile milk-white reasserts itself.

It is not for such as I am in respect of the teachings of science to say
whether the development of the perfect animal from a few drops of
translucent jelly--as free from earthly leaven as a dewdrop--is to be more
distinctly traced, in the case of this huge mollusc than in other
elementary forms. All that it becomes an unversed student of life's
mysteries to suggest is that this example gives bold advertisement to the
marvellous process.

Many of the secrets of life are written in script so cryptic and obscure
that none but the wise and greatly skilled may decipher it, and they
only, when aided by the special equipment which science supplies. In this
case the firm but facile miracle is recorded in words that he that runs
may read. Independent of microscope the unskilled observer may trace
continuity in the transformation of jelly to life.

The sea-drop, lovely in its purity, knowing neither blemish nor flaw,
becomes an animal with form and features distinctive from all others,