91 8 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



changed in the animal who secretes or who has secreted 

 the Pearl. Any modification in the confirmation, or in the 

 histological nature of its tissues, does not indicate a 

 malady, an organic trouble ; the presence alone of the 

 Pearl is the indication of something abnormal. 



And after a few more pages in a similar strain, he 

 proceeds to say of the Pearl-Oysters, in reference to their 

 secretions : " Instead of pitying them for it, we may 

 felicitate them for it. And if we were at any cost to pre- 

 sume for the calcareous secretion, it would then be neces- 

 sary to say, how very ill these oysters would have been if 

 they had not had this malady ! In thinking hereafter of 

 the rich pendules, ornamented with pearls, in the fine and 

 delicate ears of an aristocratic beauty, we will think no 

 longer of an oyster sick, but of an oyster saved. // is more 

 lively" (g) 



So many difficulties surround the study of the Forma- 

 tion of Pearls, that it is by no means surprising that a host 

 of conjectures, often of a very fanciful and even wild cha- 

 racter, have from time to time been promulgated with the 

 view of explaining the origin of these enigmatical little 

 bodies. Time was when the oyster was credited with 

 breeding it by the simple process of yawning at springtide, 

 and swallowing the " limpid, fertilising dewdrop." Pliny 

 held this view, and described the " fruit of the oyster" as 

 "pearls, better or worse, greater or smaller, according to 

 the quantity and quality of the dew received by these shell- 

 fish." The early Arabian bards, too, entertained no man- 

 ner of doubt that pearls were drops of vernal rain, con- 



(g) A Chapter, " La Perle," in " Diamants et Pierres Precieuses," 

 by E. Jannettaz, E. Vanderheym, E. Fontenay, and A. Coutance. 

 Paris, 1 88 1. 



