MYTILID^. PEARLS. 55 



found in Kerry, in Donegal, in the Moy near Foxford, 

 and in many of the other Irish rivers ; and Mr. Buckland 

 states, in the e Field/ December 10th, 1864, that they 

 abound near Oughterard, and that a man called " Jemmy 

 the Pearl-catcher" told him he knew when a mussel had 

 a pearl in it, without requiring to open it first, because 

 " she (the mussel) sits upright with her mouth in the 

 mud, and her back is crooked," — that is, it is corrugated 

 like a cow's horn. Bruce, in his "Travels," observes 

 that the pearl-fishers of Bahrein informed him that they 

 had no expectation of finding a pearl when the shell was 

 smooth and perfect, but were sure to find some when the 

 shell was distorted, and deformed ; and he adds that this 

 applies equally to the Scotch pearl -mussels. In France 

 they also collect pearls from the pearl-mussels, and they 

 generally sell them as foreign pearls. At Omagh, in 

 the north of Ireland, there was formerly a pearl-fishery ; 

 and Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick, about 1094, sent a pre- 

 sent of Irish pearls to Anselm, Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury. Scotch pearls were in demand abroad as early 

 as the twelfth century. Suetonius says that the great 

 motive of Caesar's coming to Britain was to obtain its 

 pearls, and states that they were so large that he used 

 to try the weight of them by his hand, and dedicated a 

 breastplate made of them to Venus Genetrix.* Accord- 

 ing to Pliny, the island of Taprobane (Ceylon) was most 

 productive of pearls; and he considers that the most 

 valuable were those found in the vicinity of Arabia, in 

 the Persian Gulf. 



Oriental pearls are found in the Meleagrina marga- 

 ritifera, or pearl-oyster ; and Chares of Mytilene, in his 

 seventh book of his ' Histories of Alexander/ tells us 



* Camden's 'Britannia,' p. 962. 



