2023 Fall Issue

WORDS OF
A FEATHER
Seashells found on Venice Beach in Florida.
38
Story and photo by HEATHER SHIRLEY
On a recent morning, I took my dog to
the beach near my home in Florida. We
witnessed a scene of absolute unfettered joy
and abandon: a man and his dog, lying side
by side on their bellies on the beach, digging
a hole in the sand together. They both were
grinning from ear to ear.
How very sporting, to let your best canine
pal choose the morning activity. How very
luxurious, to spend that precious commodity
of time doing something so purely fun and silly.
Inspired, I decided to let my dog direct
the morning’s activities. Not surprisingly, she
wanted to wander and sniff, so we did. Her
nose glued to the ground, she trotted from
seashell to seashell, curiously sniffing each
before following an invisible trail to the next.
Was she smelling the shells’ former
inhabitants? Could she differentiate the
species by their smells?
With fanciful evocative names like moons,
olives, volutes, ceriths, augers and wentletraps,
shells come in a vast range of colors, sizes
and shapes. Shells found on ocean beaches
or along lake shores are the exoskeletons of
mollusks.
Mollusks comprise the second largest
phylum of animals, with more than 100,000
species. They are invertebrates and include
everything from snails and slugs to chitons,
clams, scallops, squid, octopus and more.
Although so widely varied, mollusks share a
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common characteristic. They all have a mantle,
which is a soft layer of tissue covering their
bodies. In many mollusk species, the cells
in this special tissue produce an outer shell
using proteins and minerals, mainly calcium
carbonate and aragonite.
The mollusk’s mantle is a miniature
construction site, with proteins establishing
a framework (like rebar) and minerals binding
to the protein rebar frame and building shape
around it (like cement).
As a mollusk grows, it keeps its shell—unlike
crabs and lobsters, which molt their shells
annually and grow entirely new ones. Mollusks
continue to build the shell they were born with,
making it bigger and bigger to accommodate
its larger soft body. The animal adds to the
shell along its outer layers.
The result is growth rings that measure the
age of a mollusk, much like the rings of a
tree trunk. Just as with tree trunks, scientists
can read these layers of shell growth to gain
clues about the ocean and environment the
shell grew in. Temperature, salinity, oxygen
levels, even events like volcanic eruptions or
hurricanes are recorded in the way the rings of
the shell grows.
Each shell has three layers that look and
feel vastly different because the proteins and
minerals are different in each layer, and they
bond in different ways. The outer shell is
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usually rough, can have spikes or ridges and can
come in a rainbow of colors. The middle layer
is crystalized minerals so it is very strong. The
innermost layer is connected to the mantle
itself. Called nacre, or mother of pearl, it is
smooth, shiny and sometimes iridescent.
Humans have long been attracted to both
the beauty of seashells as well as their strength
and versatility. Shells have been crafted into
tools for millennia, and they have inspired art
for at least as long.
People made beads from shells as far back
as 100,000 years ago. Sometimes beads were
crafted into jewelry; shell necklaces have been
found in Stone Age graves in France. Beads
crafted from quahog clam shells were also used
by northeastern Native Americans as a means
of recording events or agreements. Known as
wampum, these beads became Massachusetts’
first official currency in the 17th century.
Shells are symbolic in many religions.
I recently hiked part of the Camino de
Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage culminating
at the cathedral of Campostela de Santiago in
northern Spain. This church houses the remains
of Saint James, who is symbolized by scallop
shells, and the entire pilgrimage trail is marked
with them. As proof that they completed the
route, pilgrims would carry a scallop shell for
the rest of their lives.
Ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as
certain people of Africa, believed seashells
were symbols of fertility. Hindus revere whelk
shells that curve to the left as symbols of the
god Vishnu. Right-curving shells are sacred to
Buddhists.
Indeed, the ways we value and use shells
seems as varied and numerous as the species
that produce them, or the number of shells
washed up on beaches. When I contemplate
all that seashells have meant to people across
the ages, it inspires a sense of wonder in me.
That small souvenir you picked up on a stroll
down the shore represents a terrific amount.
What a lovely reminder it is, humbly sitting
on your desk or windowsill, of how we are all
connected—to each other and to nature. A
beautiful, simple seashell.
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