THE WATERING-POT SHELLS AND CLUB SHELLS - FAMILY GASTROCHIENIDAE 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 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 pat tern; 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.