AVICULID^. SEA- WING. 87 



fishes, which come leaping by close to it, and being 

 unmolested grow so bold as to skip into its shell and 

 fill it full. The Pinnoteres, waiting for the opportunity, 

 gives notice to the Pinna by a gentle pinch ; upon 

 which, shutting its mouth, it kills whatever is within 

 the shell, and divides the spoil with its companion."* 



Mr. Sayf says, that a small crab (a species of Pinno- 

 teres), which lives in the shell of the common American 

 oyster [Ostrea virginica) ,is much valued by oyster eaters 

 in the United States, and that in opening a large 

 quantity of oysters, these little crabs are collected apart, 

 and serve to gratify the palate of gourmands. They 

 are only seven-twentieths of an inch long, by two-fifths 

 wide.J 



The byssus, or silky thread of the Pinna, is called by 

 the Sicilian fishermen, lana jpenna, and is manufactured 

 into a silken fabric. It was known to the ancients, and 

 called by them pinna-wool, and by the Tarentines lana 

 pesca, or fish-wool. St. Basil, Bishop of Cassarea, in 

 Cappadocia, mentions it in one of his homilies, saying, 

 e: Whence had the Pinna its gold-coloured wool, that 

 colour which is inimitable ? "§ 



Gibbon states that the Romans called the Pinna " the 

 silk-worm of the sea," and that a robe made from the 

 silk was the gift of a Roman Emperor to one of the 

 Satraps of Armenia. 



In Aufrere's travels is a description of the mode of 

 collecting these shellfish by the Neapolitans, and of 

 the manufacture of different articles from the silk : — 



* Pliny, ' Nat. Hist.' bk. ix. c. 42 (or 66 Tr. Bohn). 



t ' Journ. Acad. Sc. Phil.' i. 68. 



X ' Popular Hist. Brit. Crustacea.' 



§ ' Stolberg's Travels,' vol. ii. p. 151, translated by Thomas Holcroft. 



