_Marine Shells._--If you would have one of the jolliest picnics in the world, don a suit of old clothes, equip yourself with a stout basket, a screw-driver with a long handle, and a case-knife with a thin blade,
"Hang up thy lute and hie thee to the sea."
Go before the tide is at its lowest ebb, and search in the vicinity of the largest bowlders, under ledges of rock, under loose stones, in shallow pools, in bunches of sea-weed, in fact everywhere along the shore. In these various places you will find cowries, ormers (_Haliotis_), chitons, limpets, and more others than I could name in an hour.
When wading in shallow water it is well to look out for the pestiferous sting-ray, and not step on one unawares, lest you find its caudal spine driven through your foot like a poisoned arrow. But, fortunately, they seldom trouble the collector. With the limpets, chitons, and other small shell-fish, you must work the point of your case-knife under them, and with it gradually detach them from the rock. Where such prey is plentiful, the collecting of it is grand fun, I assure you.
There are many bivalves which burrow or bury in the mud or sand, which must be dug out with a stick or trowel, while other species, still more enterprising, bore into wooden piles, and even into rocks! These, of course, can be collected only with the aid of a hatchet, or chisel, or stone-hammer, as the case may be. If you are on the Florida coast you will do well to search over the coral reefs and the mud flats at low tide. On the latter you will find conch-shells, pinnas, and numerous other species. I once made a very successful search for pinnas by wading around barefooted on a sandy flat on which the receding tide had left the water but little over a foot in depth. These shells were always found standing up in the sand, at bay, with their sharp edge up. By going barefooted as I did, you find the shells by stepping on them and cutting your feet, which is to be accomplished, however, without hurting the thin edge of the shell. A cut foot will heal up, but a broken shell never will.
CLEANING SHELLS.[7]--In gathering shells, particularly the marine species, many of them will be found covered with a thick, leathery, and persistent epidermis, and many others will be so buried under rough, limy accretions that their own fathers would scarcely recognize them. However beautiful such shells may be when cleaned, it is no child's play to clean them and get them ready for the cabinet. To anyone willing to learn, the processes are really very simple; and what manual labor under the sun could be more interesting to a lover of natural history?