124 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



that Gossip Report could be given to romancing, 

 or that travelers could "see strange things." No 

 fable is too monstrous for his credulity. 



One of the pretty fables Pliny repeats is that 

 pearls are formed by drops of dew falling into the 

 gaping valves of the oyster. It never occurred to 

 him to ask whether oysters were ever exposed to 

 the dew? whether the drops could fall into their 

 valves ? whether oysters kept their valves open ex- 

 cept when under water ? or, finally, whether, if the 

 dew did fall in, it would remain a rounded drop ? 

 The drop of dew had a certain superficial resem- 

 blance to the pearl, and that was enough. ^Elian's 

 hypothesis was somewhat better : he supposed that 

 the pearls were produced by lightning flashing into 

 the open shells. 



Turning from these ancient sages, you will ask 

 how pearls are formed ? And almost any ingenious 

 modern, not a zoologist, will tell you (and tell you 

 falsely) that the pearl is a disease of the oyster. 

 One is somewhat fatigued at the merciless frequen- 

 cy with which this notion has been dragged in, as 

 an illustration of genius issuing out of sorrow and 

 adversity, and it is time to stop that "damnable 

 iteration" by discrediting the notion. Know then 

 that if 



" Most wretched men 

 Are cradled into poetry by wrong, 

 They learn in suffering what they teach in song" 



it is not true that oysters secrete in suffering what 



