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A Guide to Doing Statistics in Second Language Research Using SPSS and R (Second Language Acquisition Research Series) – Ebook PDF Version full chapter instant download
A Guide to Doing Statistics in Second Language Research Using SPSS and R (Second Language Acquisition Research Series) – Ebook PDF Version full chapter instant download
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CONTENTS
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Preface xv
Acknowledgments xix
PART I
Statistical Ideas 1
1.4.7 Functions in R 35
1.4.8 Functions in R Practice Activities 36
1.4.9 The R Workspace 37
1.4.10 Specifying Variables within a Data Set, and Attaching
and Detaching Data Sets 37
1.5 Missing Data 38
1.5.1 Missing Data and Multiple Imputation in SPSS 38
1.5.2 Missing Data Application Activity in SPSS 43
1.5.3 Missing Data and Multiple Imputation in R 43
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PART II
Statistical Tests 169
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11 Looking for Group Differences When the Same People are Tested
More than Once: Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance with Wug
Tests and Instruction on French Gender 401
11.1 Understanding Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance Designs 403
11.1.1 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance Design of the
Murphy (2004) Study 405
11.1.2 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance Design of the Lyster
(2004) Study 406
xiv Contents
I wrote this book for myself. I remember being a graduate student, working on my dissertation and
struggling to make sense of the statistics I needed to analyze my dissertation. I wanted a book to help
me understand SPSS that would use examples from my field, but none existed. This book was born of
that longing. This book is written to help those new to the field of statistics feel they have some idea
of what they are doing when they analyze their own data, and how to do it using a statistical program.
In the first edition of the book only SPSS was included. In this edition, the statistical programs
SPSS and R are illustrated side by side so that those who want to use SPSS can continue to do so,
those who know SPSS but want to learn R can do so more easily, and those who want to start learning
statistics with R can also do so. I originally wrote the book that way, and I am pleased to have that
format now, although it makes the book quite a bit larger. Including R increased the size enough that I
needed to cut down the finished product in my revised edition. I have thus cut out most of the sections
that were formerly labeled “Advanced Topic,” as well as the three chapters on chi-square, analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA) and non-parametric statistics. In my experience, chi-square and ANCOVA
are not used as frequently in second language acquisition (SLA) as the other statistical tests that
remain in the second edition. Nevertheless, they are good and useful chapters, so if you need informa-
tion on them, please look at them online! I was especially pleased with the many interesting graphics
that are available for the categorical variables that are found in the Chi-Square chapter, so if you need
any of those, take a look online. I cut out the Non-Parametric Statistics (i.e. the classical types of non-
parametric statistics, such as the Kruskal–Wallis or Mann–Whitney U tests). I judged that robust sta-
tistics, which are mostly non-parametric, would be better substitutes than these tests, but the chapter
is still available online, if readers would prefer these traditional tests. There are also alternative ways
of conducting tests (usually in R), such as the sections cut from Chapter 11 on RM-ANOVA, which
tell how to use mixed-effect models instead of the least-squares approach.
I have included a graphical user interface to R called R Commander. I think this program makes
it easier to work into R, but there are many places in the book where you will need to go to the R
Console (the command-line interface) to do things in the book, so I have tried to ease the reader into
the R code by showing the code from any R Commander menu choices, and explaining the parts of
these. There are quite a number of advantages, as I see it, to learning R instead of SPSS if you are just
learning about statistics:
x It is free.
x It is supported by the statistical community and, as such, continues to be updated with new
packages that can do different things.
x R has more sophisticated analyses and is extremely strong in the area of graphics.
x Using command syntax for statistics helps users understand better what they are doing in the
statistical analysis.
xvi Preface
Some users may be concerned that because R is free, that means it is of low quality. Muenchen (2008)
noted that, at the time, comparisons of R with SPSS found that the quality of R was just as high as
SPSS, and that the R base packages were reviewed and revised just as carefully as SPSS. (This is not
necessarily true for all the R packages, however, and Muenchen noted that you can find reviews of
individual packages at http://crantastic.org/.)
Muenchen also noted that R could do everything that SPSS could do and more, and if you bought
a commercial copy of SPSS with all of the functionality of R, it would cost tens of thousands of dol-
lars. In Japan, where I am currently working at a university, access to SPSS is not automatic and
requires purchase of an individual site license. Perhaps your institution does not mind spending over
USD100,000 for licenses for multiple users. However, as more institutions seek to pare down expenses,
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learning R (which can do everything that SPSS can do) makes more and more sense.
Now that I can use R, I have included information about how to conduct various kinds of robust
statistics in the book, although some of the sections on robust analyses in R have had to be moved
online. For more information on how to do robust analyses in different ways, see those online sections.
Currently, SPSS can perform bootstrapping, and I have shown how to do that in this book, but there
are several other robust tests that can only be performed in R. It is true that SPSS has a way to run
R, but one must use scripts to do so, and I have not felt moved to try to figure this system out, feeling
that if one is going to learn scripts, one might just as well start using R. In addition, SPSS cannot run
the current version of R and is instead using R from a number of versions back. (R releases come out
twice a year.)
I am a strong advocate for using robust statistics, which basically rely on the techniques of para-
metric statistics but use computer-intensive techniques that eliminate the requirement that data be
normally distributed (an assumption that probably is often not true in our field; see Larson-Hall &
Herrington, 2009).
Almost all of the data sets analyzed in the book and the application activities are real data, gath-
ered from recently published articles or theses. I am deeply grateful to these authors for allowing me
to use their data, and I feel strongly that those who publish work based on a statistical analysis of the
data should make that data available to others. The statistical analysis one does can affect the types of
hypotheses and theories that go forward in our field, but we can all recognize that most of us are not
statistical experts and we may make some mistakes in our analyses. Providing the raw data serves as a
way to check that analyses are done properly, and, if provided at the submission stage, errors can be
caught early. I do want to note, however, that authors who have made their data sets available for this
book have done so in order for readers to follow along with the analyses in the book and do application
activities. If you wanted to do any other kind of analysis on your own that would be published using
these data, you should contact the authors and ask for permission to either coauthor or use their data
(depending on your purposes).
This book was updated with the most recent version of IBM SPSS Statistics available at the time
of writing, and I was working on a PC. As of this writing, the most recent version of SPSS was 22.0
(2013). SPSS 22 is quite different in some ways from previous versions, and for those who may be
working with an older version I have tried to provide some guidance about possible differences. I have
used small capitals to distinguish commands in SPSS and R and make them stand out on the page.
For example, if you need to first open the File menu and then choose the Print option, I would write
FILE > PRINT.
I also used the most recent version of R, which was version 3.1.3 (released 9 March 2015) and R
Commander version 2.1–7 (released 19 February 2015). I used R on both a PC and a Mac. Because
these programs are updated frequently, there may be some times especially when certain packages do
not work. I urge you at those times to google the package and see what might have replaced it.
I have written this book mainly as a way for those totally new to statistics to understand some of the
most basic statistical tests that are widely used in the field of SLA and applied linguistics. I suggest that
the best way to read most chapters is to open the data sets that are included with the book and work
Preface xvii
along with me in SPSS or R. You can learn a lot just by recreating what you see me do in the text. The
application activities will then help you move on to try the analysis by yourself, but I have included
detailed answers to all activities so you can check what you are doing. My ultimate goal, of course, is
that eventually you will be able to apply the techniques to your own data. I assume that readers of this
book will be familiar with how to use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X and pull-down menus, and how
to open and close files. These data files will be available on the website that accompanies this book.
SPSS files have the .sav extension, while most R files are .csv, which are comma-delimited text files.
Some sections in the chapters are labeled “Advanced Topic.” These sections can be skipped by
novices who are already feeling overwhelmed by the regular statistics, but they provide additional
information or justifications for choices I have made to the more statistically knowledgeable readers.
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For the novice to statistics, the book is meant to be read in chronological order for both parts of the
book. Part I introduces the fundamental concepts in statistics that are necessary to beginning a statisti-
cal analysis. Part II then provides information in individual chapters about basic statistical procedures
that are commonly used in second language research. In some cases these chapters also build upon one
another, although users who are familiar with statistics and just looking up information on one specific
technique can skip directly to the relevant chapter.
Part I consists of four chapters. In Chapter 1, I start things off by telling you how to set yourself
up with SPSS or R and how to start entering data and manipulating it. One important point here is
how to deal with missing data. It seems most researchers believe they need to throw out incomplete
data but I find many statisticians enthusiastic about the use of missing-data imputation, and there are
sophisticated statistical methods to do so. If your data are missing at random, this is a better choice
than eliminating partial data entries that researchers have worked hard to gather, so if you do not
know about imputation, be sure to take a look at Chapter 1. Throughout the book important terms
are highlighted in bold, and summaries of their meanings are found in the glossary. In Chapter 2, I
discuss some essential ideas that are necessary to understanding further chapters, such as identifying
whether variables are independent or dependent and what null hypothesis testing is. Hidden statistical
assumptions authors have are revealed in this chapter and can help those new to statistics to better
understand the statistical jargon that they will often see. In Chapter 3, I show how to produce numeri-
cal summaries of data, such as means, medians and standard deviations, and how to check for measures
that might indicate problems with standard statistical assumptions, such as a normal distribution and
equal variances for all groups. Graphic ways of evaluating the same types of information have been
intentionally placed in the same chapter, for I feel that graphic summaries are just as informative as,
if not more so, numerical summaries, and I argue strongly for more use of graphic summaries in our
research. Chapter 4 is the result of my first reading many papers that argue that we are often on the
wrong track with our statistical analyses when we rely on a single dichotomous measure such as a p
value (less or greater than 0.05) to tell us whether our results are important, and then reading Geoff
Cumming’s recent (2012) book called Understanding the New Statistics. Cumming is persuasive and
clear in his argument that we need to bring better ways of measuring and hypothesizing about our
data into use, and this includes mostly confidence intervals and effect sizes. In the first edition, I did
urge readers to use confidence intervals, but I did not understand then as well as I do now, thanks to
Cumming, how to do so in a way that actually used the confidence intervals differently from p values.
I hope the information in this chapter conveys the beauty of confidence intervals, the problems with p
values and the excitement I feel about the “new statistics” to you as well as Cumming did to me (and
I do urge you to read Cumming for more information!).
In Chapter 5, I lay out the different statistical tests that will be covered in Part II. I provide infor-
mation about how to choose a test, depending on the questions and the types of data you have. I
illustrate how these statistical tests are used in actual studies in second language research. I hope this
will help you understand the differences between the tests, although you should know that figuring out
statistics does take some time and you should not expect to be an expert after reading Chapter 5! But
maybe you will have a small inkling of how the various tests are used. In the remaining six chapters of
xviii Preface
Part II, I go over various types of statistical analyses that are common in the field of second language
research. In Chapter 6, I cover correlation; in Chapter 7, I introduce the reader to multiple regression;
in Chapter 8, I look at t-tests; in Chapter 9, I look at the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA); and
in Chapter 10, I extend ANOVA to the case where there is more than one independent variable (fac-
torial ANOVA). In Chapter 11, I extend ANOVA even further to the case where there are repeated
measures. Three more chapters are available online: Chi-Square, ANCOVA (an ANOVA analysis
with covariates) and Non-Parametric Tests. In general, the chapters go from conceptually easier tests
to more difficult ones, although this is not true for regression analysis.
Writing this book has given me a great appreciation for the vast world of statistics, which I do
not pretend to be a master of. Like our own field of second language research, the field of statistics is
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always evolving and progressing, and there are controversies throughout it as well. If I have advocated
an approach that is not embraced by the statistical community wholeheartedly, I have tried to provide
reasons for my choice and additional reading that can be done on the topic. Although I have tried
my hardest to make this book accessible and helpful for readers, I would appreciate being informed of
any typos or errors in this book or answers to application activities, or any areas where my explana-
tions have not been clear enough. Because of the watchful eye of many readers, I am convinced that
this edition would be error-free if I were simply updating the SPSS version. But because I have added
in a whole new statistical program, there are bound to be places where I have again made mistakes. I
understand that this is frustrating, especially when you are trying to learn a new topic, and I apologize
in advance. I cannot give you a free copy of the book if you catch things, but I hope you will feel the
satisfaction of helping others if you do find something and pass it along. Please check the website for
errata as I will post these as readers send them to me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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I would like to thank the many individuals who have helped me to write this book. First is Richard
Herrington, who guided and helped me discover many treasures of statistics, including R. He
provided many articles, many answers and just fun philosophizing along the way. Susan Gass and
Alison Mackey were instrumental in helping me get this book accepted into the Second Language
Acquisition Research Series and providing encouragement. Elysse Preposi and Leah Babb-Rosenfeld,
editors at Routledge, were very helpful in the laborious process of getting the book into its best form
possible and I appreciate their warm help. Many thanks to the students in my Research Methods
courses who provided feedback on the book in its various stages. I also thank the reviewers of the book
for their careful work in reading the manuscript and providing useful feedback. A number of readers
of the first edition helpfully sent me corrections, the most thorough and enthusiastic being Gabriele
Pallotti from Italy, whose notes of a careful reading of the entire book were quite helpful. Other readers
who have written more recently and whose names are thus not lost to the mists of time include Yves
Bestgen, Tuan Phu, Matthias Raess and Lawrence Cheung. I sincerely appreciate their help, and the
only reason I am sorry to be expanding this book and including R is that there will most likely be a
number more mistakes that will occur. I welcome input on this and apologize in advance. I again want
to profusely thank the authors who have given permission for the reproduction of their data in the
examples presented in the book. They are cited individually in their respective chapters, but I feel this
book is much more relevant and interesting to readers because of the data that they provided me with.
Last but not least is my family who did not see much of me in the final stages of finishing this revision,
and were very patient in giving me the time to get it finished. A special thank you to my son, Lachlan,
who graphed out the data for the small multiples figure in the online chapter on ANCOVA.
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Part I
Statistical Ideas
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In my view R is such a versatile tool for scientific computing that anyone contemplating a career in
science, and who expects to [do] their own computations that have a substantial data analysis component,
should learn R.
John Maindonald (R Help thread, 5 January 2006)
In this chapter I will provide instructions for getting started with both SPSS and R. SPSS—now
owned by the IBM corporation and called IBM SPSS Statistics—is probably the most commonly
used statistical program in the field of social sciences for which it was originally developed, and is
used by many researchers working in the field of second language research. It uses a graphical user
interface (GUI) with drop-down menus that should be familiar to those who use programs such as
Microsoft Word or Excel. I will also explain how to get started with R, which is the programming
language and software environment most statisticians use and has grown greatly in popularity in the
last decade, including with linguists. (See an R-lang mailing list created by Roger Levy in 2007, which
also contains an archive of all prior messages.) By itself R does not have an intuitive GUI, but in this
book I will show you how to use a GUI called R Commander that will help simplify the use of R for
beginners.
In this chapter I will first explain how to physically get started by opening the software and either
importing or entering your own data into a spreadsheet. (Data are the information you have.) Another
important part of getting started is being able to save data. Once you have some data to work with,
this chapter then goes on to explain ways you might like to manipulate your data, such as combining
columns or calculating percentages, filtering out some cases of participants that you do not want to
include in the analysis, or creating new groups from existing columns of data. I will also give you some
help as to what to do if you have missing data, and finally, some resources for getting more help with
these programs. The SPSS instructions throughout have been tested only with a PC (not Mac) with
SPSS. The R instructions have been tested on both a PC and a Mac and any differences between these
platforms will be noted in the text or on the website.
Note that there are two tabs in the Data Editor at the bottom of the spreadsheet. One is the “Data
View,” which is the default view. The other is the “Variable View.” If you click on this tab, you will
see a different spreadsheet that is used to enter specific information about your variables, such as their
names, type and number of decimal points you want to see, among others.
SPSS has two different types of windows. One is the Data Editor, which looks like a spreadsheet
and is where you enter your data. The other type of window is where any output appears. This window
is called the “Statistics Viewer.” In SPSS, any calls to perform data analysis, such as creating a graph,
doing a statistical test or creating a table result in objects automatically appearing in the Statistics
Viewer (see Figure 1.2). If you save data from the Statistics Viewer, these files have a .spv extension.
(Versions of SPSS older than 16.0 created .spo files as the output files, and these cannot be opened in
SPSS 16 unless you install the SPSS 15.0 Smart Viewer, available on the installation CD, according
to the SPSS help files.)
Section 1.1 deals with entering and importing data into SPSS as well as saving files. If you want
information about and practice with manipulating variables in SPSS, such as moving columns or
rows or simply deleting them, combining two or more variables into one variable, recoding groups or
excluding cases from your data, see the online section titled “Manipulating variables in SPSS.”
Once you have SPSS open, I am sure you will want to get started trying to do things! If you have not
used the initial pop-up menu shown in Figure 1.1 to open a file that has already been created, you can
also do this through the menus using the sequence F i l e > O p e n > D a t a and then navigating to
the .sav file you want. If you do this, you will see that the spreadsheet in the SPSS Data Editor becomes
filled with data, as shown in Figure 1.3.
Figure 1.3 The Data Editor in “Data View” (“Data View” tab is highlighted at bottom) with data in it.
x Rows in SPSS are cases. This means that each participant should occupy one row.
x Columns in SPSS are separate variables, such as ID number, score on a test or category in a certain
group.
x You can name each case (participant) by making your first column the ID number of each
participant.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
CHAPTER IX
THE SHELL, ITS FORM, COMPOSITION AND GROWTH—DESIGNATION OF
ITS VARIOUS PARTS
Fig. 148.—Aplustrum
aplustre L. Mauritius,
showing the partly
internal shell (S); F,
foot; LL, cephalic
lappets; TT, double
set of tentacles. (After
Quoy and Gaimard.)
Fig. 149.—Sigaretus
laevigatus Lam.,
showing shell partially
immersed in the foot;
F, anterior
prolongation of the
foot. (After Souleyet.)
(3) Internal; e.g. Philine, Gastropteron, Pleurobranchus, Aplysia,
Limax, Arion, Hyalimax, Parmacella, Lamellaria, Cryptochiton, and,
among bivalves, Chlamydoconcha.
(4) Absent; e.g. all Nudibranchiata and Aplacophora, many
Cephalopoda, a few land Mollusca, e.g. all Onchidiidae, Philomycus,
and Vaginula.
The Univalve Shell.—In univalve Mollusca the normal form of the
shell is an elongated cone twisted into a spiral form round an axis,
the spiral ascending to the left. Probably the original form of the shell
was a simple cone, which covered the vital parts like a tent. As these
parts tended to increase in size, their position on the dorsal side of
the animal caused them gradually to fall over, drawing the shell with
them. The result of these two forces combined, the increasing size of
the visceral hump, and its tendency to pull the shell over with it,
probably resulted in the conversion of the conical into the spiral shell,
which gradually came to envelop the whole animal. Where the
visceral hump, instead of increasing in size, became flattened, the
conical shape of the shell may have been modified into a simple
elliptical plate (e.g. Limax), the nucleus representing the apex of the
cone. In extreme cases even this plate dwindles to a few calcareous
granules, or disappears altogether (Arion, Vaginula).
Varieties of the Spiral.—Almost every conceivable modification
of the spiral occurs, from the type represented by Gena, Haliotis,
Sigaretus, and Lamellaria, in which the spire is practically confined to
the few apical whorls, with the body-whorl inordinately large in
proportion, to a multispiral form like Terebra, with about twenty
whorls, very gradually increasing in size.
Fig. 151.—Examples of
shells with
disconnected whorls;
A, Cyathopoma cornu
Mf., Philippines; B,
Cylindrella hystrix
Wright, Cuba. (Both ×
4.)
Fig. 152.—Example of a
shell whose apical
whorls alone are
coiled, and the
remainder produced in
a regular curve.
(Cyclosurus Mariei
Morel., Mayotte.)
In some cases the regularly spiral form is kept, but the whorls are
completely disconnected; e.g. some Scalaria, Spirula; among fossil
Cephalopoda, Gyroceras, Crioceras, and Ancyloceras; and, among
recent land Mollusca, Cylindrella hystrix and Cyathopoma cornu (Fig.
151). Sometimes only the last whorl becomes disconnected from the
others, as in Rhiostoma (see Fig. 180, p. 266), Teinostoma, and in
the fossil Ophidioceras and Macroscaphites. Sometimes, again, not
more than one or two whorls at the apex are spirally coiled, and the
rest of the shell is simply produced or coiled in an exceedingly
irregular manner, e.g. Cyclosurus, Lituites, Orygoceras, Siliquaria
(Fig. 153), Vermetus. In Coecum (Fig. 170, p. 260) the spiral part is
entirely lost, and the shell becomes simply a cylinder. In a few cases
the last whorl is coiled irregularly backwards, and is brought up to
the apex, so that the animal in crawling must carry the shell with the
spire downwards, as in Anostoma (Fig. 154), Opisthostoma (Fig.
208, p. 309), Strophostoma, and Hypselostoma (Fig. 202 A, p. 302).
Fig. 153.—Siliquaria anguina Lam.,
showing scalariform coil of upper
whorls and irregular extension of
the lower.
Fig. 156.—Fulgur
perversum L., Florida. ½.
Fig. 161.—Cornucopia-
shaped monstrosity of
Helix aspersa, from
Ilfracombe. (British
Museum.)
Composition of the Shell.—The shell is mainly composed of
pure carbonate of lime, with a very slight proportion of phosphate of
lime, and an organic base allied to chitin, known as conchiolin. The
proportion of carbonate of lime is known to vary from about 99 p.c. in
Strombus to about 89 p.c. in Turritella. Nearly 1 p.c. of phosphate of
lime has been obtained from the shell of Helix nemoralis, and nearly
2 p.c. from that of Ostrea virginica. The conchiolin forms a sort of
membranous framework for the shell; it soon disappears in dead
specimens, leaving the shell much more brittle than it was when
alive. Carbonate of magnesia has also been detected, to the extent
of ·12 p.c. in Telescopium and ·48 p.c. in Neptunea antiqua. A trace
of silica has also occasionally been found.
When the shell exhibits a crystalline formation, the carbonate of
lime may take the form either of calcite or aragonite. The calcite
crystals are rhombohedral, optically uniaxal, and cleave easily, while
the aragonite cleave badly, belong to the rhombic system, and are
harder and denser, and optically biaxal. Both classes of crystal may
occur in the same shell.
Two main views have been held with regard to the formation and
structure of the shell—(1) that of Bowerbank and Carpenter, that the
shell is an organic formation, growing by interstitial deposit, in the
same manner as the teeth and bones of the higher animals; (2) that
of Réaumur, Eisig, and most modern writers, that the shell is of the
nature of an excretion, deposited like a cuticle on the outside of the
skin, being formed simply of a number of calcareous particles held
together by a kind of ‘animal glue.’ Leydig’s view is that the shell of
the Monotocardia is a secretion of the epithelium, but that in the
Pulmonata it originates within the skin itself, and afterwards
becomes free.[335]
According to Carpenter, when a fragment of any recent shell is
decalcified by being placed in dilute acid, a definite animal basis
remains, often so fine as to be no more than a membranous film, but
sometimes consisting of an aggregation of ‘cells’ with perfectly
definite forms. He accordingly divides all shell structure into cellular
and membranous, according to the characteristics of the animal
basis. Cellular structure is comparatively rare; it occurs most notably
in Pinna, where the shell is composed of a vast multitude of tolerably
regular hexagonal prisms (Fig. 162 B). Membranous structure
comprises all forms of shell which do not present a cellular tissue.
Carpenter held that the membrane itself was at one time a
constituent part of the mantle of the mollusc, the carbonate of lime
being secreted in minute ‘cells’ on its surface, and afterwards
spreading over the subjacent membrane through the bursting of the
cells.
The iridescence of nacreous shells is due to a peculiar lineation of
their surface, which can be readily detected by a lens. According to
Brewster, the iridescence is due to the alternation of layers of
granular carbonate of lime and of a very thin organic membrane, the
layers very slightly undulating. Carpenter, on the other hand, holds
that it depends upon the disposition of a single membranous layer in
folds or plaits, which lie more or less obliquely to the general surface,
so that their edges show as lines. The nacreous type of shell occurs
largely among those Mollusca which, from other details in their
organisation, are known to represent very ancient forms (e.g.
Nucula, Avicula, Trigonia, Nautilus). It is also the least permanent,
and thus in some strata we find that only casts of the nacreous shells
remain, while those of different constitution are preserved entire.
Porcellanous shells (of which the great majority of Gasteropoda
are instances) usually consist of three layers, each of which is
composed of a number of adjacent plates, like cards on edge. The
inclination of the plates in the different layers varies, but that of the
plates in the inner and outer layer is frequently the same, thus if the
plates are transverse in the middle stratum, they are longitudinal in
the inner and outer strata, and, if longitudinal in the middle, they are
transverse in the other two. Not uncommonly (Fig. 163 B) other
layers occur. In bivalves the disposition and nature of the layers is
much more varied.
Fig. 162.—A, Section of shell of Unio: a, periostracal layer; b, prismatic layer; c,
nacreous layer. B, Horizontal section of shell of Pinna, showing the hexagonal
prisms.
Fig. 165.—Neritina
longispina Récl., Mauritius.
(Operculum removed.)
The various details of sculpture on the exterior surface of the
shell, the striae, ribs, nodules, imbrications, spines, and other forms
of ornamentation are all the product of similar and corresponding
irregularities in the mantle margin, and have all been originally
situated at the edge of the lip. Spines, e.g. those of Murex and
Pteroceras, are first formed as a hollow thorn, cleft down its lower
side, and are afterwards filled in with solid matter as the mantle edge
withdraws. What purpose is served by the extreme elaboration of
these spiny processes in some cases, can hardly be considered as
satisfactorily ascertained. Possibly they are a form of sculptural
development which is, in the main, protective, and secures to its
owners immunity from the attacks of predatory fishes.
‘Attached’ genera (e.g. Chama, Spondylus) when living on smooth
surfaces have a flat shell, but when affixed to coral and other uneven
surfaces they become very irregular in shape. The sculpture of the
base on which they rest is often reproduced in these ‘attached’
shells, not only on the lower, but also on the upper valve, the
growing edge of which rests on the uneven surface of the base.
Oysters attached to the branches of the mangrove frequently display
a central convex rib, modelled on the shape of the branch, from
which the plaits of sculpture radiate, while specimens fixed to the
smooth trunk have no such rib. Crepidula, a genus which is in the
habit of attaching itself to other shells, varies in sculpture according
to that of its host. Sometimes the fact may be detected that a
specimen has lived on a ribbed shell when young, and on a smooth
one when old, or vice versâ. A new genus was actually founded by
Brown for a Capulus which had acquired ribs through adhesion to a
Pecten. A specimen of Hinnites giganteus in the British Museum
must at one period of its growth have adhered to a surface on which
was a Serpula, the impression of which is plainly reproduced on the
upper valve of the Hinnites.[339]
Fig. 166.—A specimen of Anomia
ephippium L., Weymouth,
taken upon Pecten maximus,
the sculpture of which is
reproduced on the upper
valve of the Anomia, and
even on a young Anomia
attached to the larger
specimen.
Growth of the Shell.—Nothing very definite is known with regard
to the rate of growth of the shell in marine Mollusca. Under
favourable conditions, however, certain species are known to
increase very rapidly, especially if the food supply be abundant, and
if there is no inconvenient crowding of individuals. Petit de la
Saussaye mentions[340] the case of a ship which sailed from
Marseilles for the west coast of Africa, after being fitted with an
entirely new bottom. On arriving at its destination, the vessel spent
68 days in the Gambia River, and took 86 days on its homeward
voyage. On being cleaned immediately on its return to Marseilles, an
Avicula 78 mm. and an Ostrea 95 mm. long (both being species
peculiar to W. Africa) were taken from its keel. These specimens had
therefore attained this growth in at most 154 days, for at the period
of their first attachment they are known to be exceedingly minute. P.
Fischer relates[341] that in 1862 a buoy, newly cleaned and painted,
was placed in the basin at Arcachon. In less than a year after, it was
found to be covered with thousands of very large Mytilus edulis, 100