PINNA. 99 



Islandica), and of its playing the part of jackal to the 

 lion, has been so often repeated, that I will not inflict it 

 again on my readers. Cicero was fully persuaded of the 

 truth of this pretty fable, and he used it as an illustra- 

 tion in his treatise ' De Natura Deorum/ Swan, in his 

 ' Speculum Mundi/ moralized upon it as follows : — 

 cc And thus day by day they get their living, like a com- 

 bined knot of cheaters, who have no other trade than 

 the cunning deceit of quaint cousenage ; hooking in the 

 simple sort with such subtill tricks, that be their purses 

 stuft with either more or lesse, they know a way to 

 sound the bottome, and send them lighter home : lighter 

 in purse, though heavier in heart." But Pierius, in his 

 ( Hieroglyphica/ draws a different conclusion ; for, after 

 quoting Theophrastus (" vita fortasse conchis servari non 

 potest, nisi ope cancri "), he commends the example of 

 the Pinna and its companion to any one who cannot do 

 without the aid and counsel of another. Poli gave the 

 name Chimcera to the animal of this genus, and fully 

 treated its anatomical details, the illustration of which 

 occupies no less than four plates of his magnificent work. 

 But he denied it a foot (" pes nullus"), and stated that the 

 byssus issued from the base of an organ which he called 

 e ' ligula." Another Neapolitan writer (Giannettasi) , 

 although not also a naturalist, celebrated the Pinna at 

 great length in the eighth book of his ' Halieuticon/ 



1. Pinna ru'dis*, Linne. 



P. rudis, Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 1159. P. pectinata, F. & H. ii. p. 255, pi, xliii. 

 f. 1, 2, and pi. liii. f. 8. 



Body large, reddish -brown or yellowish : cirri arranged in 

 two rows on the posterior margin of the mantle, and in one 

 only on the anterior margin : foot conically subcylindrical, and 

 having a byssal groove at the posterior bend. 



* Bough. 



f2 



