MUSSEL AND COCKLE. 51 



learn of the perils and dangers to which the poor divers are 

 exposed from the voracious sharks, which hover about the 

 fishing grounds, and make a dash at their victim, heedless 

 of the written charms, with which the priest or shark-charmer 

 has provided him previous to his descent, and of much more 

 than we can find space here to tell. All we can now do is 

 to give the portrait, as drawn by Thomas Hood, of a lady 

 who takes up her abode in all the pearl-producing bivalves, 

 and who is therefore, perhaps on this account, called 



THE MOTHia; of tkaul. 



■ THE MUSSEL AND THE COCKLE. 



It is in the Bimyaria division of the Conchifera that we 

 must look for these familiar bivalves, the Mussel, or, as it is 

 sometimes spelled, Muscle, and the Cockle; the former called 

 in scientific language Mytilus, which in Latin means simply 

 a shell-fish, and the latter Cardium, which may have reference 

 to the hinge of this bivalve, or the heart- shape assumed by 

 several of the species; cardo, in Latin, signifying the hinge of 

 a gate, and cardesco, a stone in the shape of a heart. 



It is to the Mytilidm family that we shaU first direct our 



