Distribution of Pearls and Peart-shell. 83 
Although the pearls used by the ancient people of 
the Mediterranean were largely those obtained from the 
true pearl-oyster, pearls from other sources seem also to 
have been employed. Pliny“ informs us that they used 
formerly to be found in the seas of Italy, but more 
frequently about the Thracian Bosporus ; they were of a 
red colour, and small, and enclosed ina shell-fish known 
by the name of “ mya.” Off the coast of Acarnania they 
were obtained from a shell-fish called “ pina,’ but the 
pearls were ill-shaped, and of marble hue ; those found 
about Cape Actium were better, though of small size. 
Pearls have been associated with the name of Britain 
from very early times. According to Suetonius, the great 
motive of Cesar’s expedition into Britain in 55 B.C., was 
to obtain its pearls, which were so large that he used to 
try the weight of them by his hand. Pliny ® confirms 
this, saying that Caesar dedicated a breastplate covered 
with British pearls to Venus Genetrix, and hung it in her 
temple at Rome. The British pearls, doubtless obtained 
from the fresh-water pearl-mussel, Wargarttana margari- 
ttfera, seem to have been regarded by ancient writers as 
dull in colour and lustre and inferior to the pearls of the 
Orient. 
The imperial diadem of the sovereigns of the ancient 
Britons, Whitaker remarks, was sometimes encircled with 
an ornament of the mussel-pearls, as appears from the 
coins which have come down to us.*" 
That the pearl or pearl-shell was appreciated by the 
inhabitants of Britain as early as the Neolithic age seems 
SSP linia oNalklscmlloles 1xesche-5 Os F 
*9 Pearls are frequently obtained from the P2za-shell at the present 
day. 
ee Elimya <stNsbteac eb Keats chiyn5 715 
41 Whitaker, ‘‘ History of Manchester,” 2nd ed., London, 1773, vol. i., 
pp- 22 and 342. 
