Note 859 — Chapter V · (continued 3)

‘Hunter discovered that the molluscous inhabitant of a shell had the power of absorbing part of its dwelling.’ Owen's Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, London, 1855, p. 544. ‘Every shell-fish has the power of removing a part of its shell, so as to adapt the new and the old together, which is not done by any mechanical power, but by absorption.’ Anatomical Remarks on a New Marine Animal, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 469, edit. Palmer. In a note to this passage, it is said, that ‘the doctrine of the absorption of shell has been lately’ (i.e. in 1833) ‘adduced as a new discovery.’