130 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 



presently purple in the sun.* Lister, in 1686, mentions 

 the discovery of a shellfish, Purpura Anglicana, on the 

 shores of the Severn, in which there is a vein, contain- 

 ing a juice, giving the delicate and durable tincture 

 of the rich Tyrian purple. A writer in the 'Annual 

 Register ' for 1760 says that, being "at a gentleman's 

 house in the west of Ireland," he "took particular no- 

 tice of the gown of the lady of the house. It was a 

 muslin flowered with the most beautiful violet colour. . . . 

 She told me it was her own work, and took me to the 

 seaside, where she gathered some little shells ; . . . beating 

 them open and extracting the liquor with the point of a 

 clean pen, she marked some spots directly before me." 

 He adds : — <( I suppose a hundred fishes would not pro- 

 duce a drop as large as a pea." Richard of Cirencester 

 also mentions as a production of Britain, shells " from 

 which is prepared a scarlet dye of the most beautiful 

 hue, which never fades from the effect of sun or rain," 



It is also stated in the ( Athenaeum J of July 20, 1850, 

 that the Nicaraguan Indians use a purple dye prepared 

 from shellfish. 



Pliny says that there are two kinds of fish that pro- 

 duce the purple-dye, the Buccinum and the Purpura, 

 purple, or pelagia.f Murex trunculus is generally con- 

 sidered to have yielded it. 



We all know the story of the discovery of the Por- 

 phyra shellfish, by the dog of a Tyrian nymph loved by 

 Hercules ; which having picked up some of these shells, 

 and crushed them with its teeth, its mouth became 

 stained with purple-dye. It is scarcely probable that it 



* Neumann's ' Chemistry,' p. 510 ; the Memoirs of the French Aca- 

 demy for 1736. See Philosophical Transactions, No. 178. 

 f Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. bk. ix. chap. 67. 



