80 DR JOHNSTON'S CATALOGUE OF BIVALVED SHELLS. 



tain seasons is brought to the market, many people being fond of them 

 when roasted or pickled ; and it is also occasionally used as a bait by 

 our fishermen. On the rocky and exposed coast of Berwickshire it 

 rarely attains a size exceeding one inch, but becomes very large and fine 

 in the gravelly and sandy bays which lie opposite Holy Island, where it 

 finds a supply of brackish water. The Cockle 1 ( Cardium edule) is gre- 

 garious in the same places, whence large quantities are annually taken 

 for sale to Berwick and the neighbouring villages. The Clams (Pec- 

 tenida) are rare with us, excepting the small obsoletus, which is the fa- 

 vourite food of the flounder, from the stomach of which many specimens 

 can generally be procured. The Solenes, or Razor-fish, and the Myae 

 abound on the sandy flats about Goswick and southward, burrowing in 

 the sand and gravel, but being used neither for food nor bait, they are 

 consequently not sought after. The only Oyster-bed is in the channel 

 between Holy Island and the mainland, and is the private property of 

 the Earl of Tankerville. In the inventory of the Priory of Holy Island 

 for 1381-2, we find expended for " a sloop (navicula) bought of a cer- 

 tain Scotchman (de quodam skoto), with the oysters and other goods 

 contained in it, 100s." From the nature of the purchase, Mr Raine 

 thinks it may be inferred " that there were at that period no oysters to 

 be procured at home ;" and suggests, that the oysters of this very cargo 

 were the founders of the present valuable colony. (Hist. N. Durham, 

 p. 110.) The conjecture is, I believe, unfounded, for not many years 

 since, the oysters being exposed, by the unusually great recess of a 

 spring tide during the night, to a severe frost, were all killed, and the 

 bed had to be renewed from Prestonpans ; and, if my information is 

 correct, a similar accident has occurred more than once during the last 

 half century. 



None of our bivalved shells are remarkable for their brilliancy or 

 beauty. The fresh-water species are of a dirty green or horn colour, 

 while the marine are generally of a uniform dull chalky-white, often co- 

 vered with a brown epidermis, and sometimes marked with coloured 

 lines and spots, but less strongly than on the same shells from the south- 

 ern shores of our island, and greatly inferior to the specimens figured in 

 our illustrated works on Conchology. The pectenes, however, exhibit 

 mottled and streaked surfaces of brown, yellow, and white, which is very 

 agreeable, and hence they have been applied to many articles of fancy- 

 work ; and when the outer layer of the shell of the mussel is removed 

 with care, a fine display of blue and white bands, blending their irrides- 

 cent hues, is exposed. The delicate valves of Kellia suborbicularis I 

 have seen very successfully used in imitating the petals of the hawthorn. 



1 " On the sands of those farms (Ross and Elwick) are very large cockles, known in 

 the country by the name of Budle-cockles : also an oyster scarp, which has long been famed 

 by those who profess an elegant taste, the oysters produced there being said to excel those 

 of every other part of the kingdom." Hutchison's Durham, v. Hi. p. 471. 



