MUSSELS AND PECTENS 33 



monize remarkably well with the purple. Occasion- 

 ally a very large and perfect specimen is polished 

 on a lapidary's wheel, and the result is remarkably 

 pretty. But far more often we see Nature's method 

 of bringing out the colors. If you hnd a little beach 

 near a mussel ledge you will notice that the sand 

 contains unnumbered bits of blue and white and 

 brown, all bright and polished, and forming the most 

 lovely bed of gaily colored gravel imaginable. If 

 you examine the pieces you will find that most of 

 them are nothing but broken mussel-shell, and you 

 will admire the bright colors that blend so perfectly. 

 And while we are speaking of colors, let me ask you 

 to observe the combinations all along the rim of the 

 ocean. What soft tints of olive green in the sea- 

 weeds, enlivened by the brilliant red of a starfish or 

 the bright emerald of a frill of Ulva. How beauti- 

 fully they harmonize with the gray of the rocks and 

 the blue of the sea and the sky. What fertile sugges- 

 tions for an artist who is seeking new patterns for 

 a fabric or a carpet. 



But to return to our mussel, the flesh of which is 

 bright orange-colored. Its shell was one of the first 

 from our coast that received attention in Europe. In 

 1789 Captain George Dixon published an account of 

 his voyage around the world, and he speaks of find- 

 ing this species on the northwest coast of America in 

 these words: 



"We saw, also, on this coast a kind of mussel, in color and 

 shape much like the common edible mussel of Europe, but dif- 

 fered in being circularly wrinkled and a great deal larger. One 

 valve I saw at Queen Charlotte's Islands measured above nine 



