pink running into rich reds, purples and grayish pinks, making the fair,
sweet mother-o'-pearl.

Some were cup-shaped, having deep hollows. Should you hold your ear
fairly shut into one of these, it is said you would hear always as often
as you so held it, the roaring of the ocean. And a roaring sound you
would hear, in very truth. Yet, let me tell you! Take a common china
cup, shut your ear into it, and the same roaring will be heard.

Is that old ocean? No, it is simply the sound of your own blood coursing
through your veins.

A wide-awake Frenchman once wrote that, could you look within your own
body and see the engines pumping, the valves opening and shutting, the
pipes working, and the whole machinery in action, it would surprise and
perhaps scare you into the bargain.

We have got a little off the track, but it is well to know the facts
about these things. Now we will return to the shells.

Look at that splendid one shaped like a bowl, but with pink lips rolled
back, through which can be seen changing tints of pink and white. Here
is one that is oblong, lined with rose enamel, but having strange horns
pointing out at one side.

See that beauty, wide open and shaped like a saucer. Dear me, hold it a
little toward the light, and there gleams every color of the rainbow on
the polished surface. Here is another, striped with hair-like lines in
red, yellow, blue, and brown. There is a fan, wide open, beautifully
polished; it has no handle, but its coloring is in nearly all tints, and
changeable in the light. What a lovely thing is this heart-shaped shell,
with a line along the centre, and beautifully blending colors on either
side. There are many of these scattered around.

Now, how can I describe these singular yet perfect shapes banked up
against rocks that are completely hidden on the inside of the cave?

Over there is a funny, snarly head, with fine shreds of hair laced over
a smooth shell. Ah, what gleams of colored light shoot through the hair!
Here is a bird's nest on a bar, lying side of a wide fan, shaped like a
palm leaf; in the plaitings are curled all colors, pink, blue, yellow,
and green.

This shell is like a foot with eighteen or twenty toes, smooth, shining,
and of flesh-like tints. This is like a bat's wing, with lines and webs
finely tinted. Look at that enamelled jug with a pipe at the top. Near
by is a perfect leaf on a small branch.

Do see this worm, ringed around with dark purple stri