112 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 



Mr. Street; in his ' Gothic Architecture in Spain/ states 

 that, even in that country, the old belief of the power of 

 the bones of St. James of Compostella to work miracles 

 appears now practically to have died out, and that there 

 are no longer great pilgrimages to his shrine. However, 

 at Santiago de Compostella he saw one professional pil- 

 grim with his rags covered with scallop shells, whom he 

 had previously seen begging at Zaragoza ; and in one of 

 the Plazas at Santiago, an old woman was selling scallop 

 shells. 



The custom of bearing scallop shells as a badge of 

 pilgrimage, is more widely spread than is usually sup- 

 posed, for Sir Rutherford Alcock mentions their use on 

 the sleeves of many of the Japanese pilgrims to the 

 Cone of Fusiyama, in the island of Japan. 



Shells were used by the Romans to ornament their 

 dwellings, and the ' Fountain of Shells/ described in Sir 

 W. GelPs ' Pompeiana/ was decorated with the Tyrian 

 Murex and the scallop.* 



The scallop is figured on the coins of Saguntum, which 

 are of Phoenician time, the dolphin being on one side, 

 with the letters s. a. g. w. under, and the scallop on 

 the reverse ; and Florez, in his f Medallas de Espafia/ 

 Parte 2, 1728, says of these coins : " These (the dolphin 

 and the scallop shell) allude to Neptune and Venus, for 

 as the dolphin is sacred to Neptune, so is the shell to 

 Venus,t as the daughter of the sea, and also for the 

 pearls it engenders, applied to the adornment of women. 

 This shell is most appropriate for the impress of a mari- 

 time city, from the utility enclosed within it, and its ap- 

 plication to diverse uses, either from its seed for jewels, 



* Jeffreys, Brit. Conchology, vol. i. p. 67 ; Introduction. 



f " Faveas concha Cypria recta tua," Tibullus, lib. iii. El. 3, etc. etc. 



