mickramock

mollusque commented on the word mickramock

To the naturalist, of whatever "persuasion," these mangrove thickets afford a wonderful field 'for observation. If he is an ornithologist, the homes of the herons and the eyries of the ospray sic are here at hand; is he a conchologist, how rapturously he views in the still water the winged aplysea sic, the rich tints of the triton, or, as it climbs the buttress of the mangrove, the mottled mickramock; a lover of crustaceans, the great hermit-crab, with his imbricated armor and formidable side-arms, most potent for defense, at the mouth of his confiscated castle; mayhap a gorgeously colored strombus of the larger growth.

--"Along the Florida Reef", 1871, Harper's New Monthly Magazine 42(249): 359

November 20, 2011