142 Mr Stark on the Discovery of Live Cockles 



Art. XXVII. — Notice regarding the Discovery of Live 

 Cockles in a Peat Moss at a great distance from the Sea. By 

 John Stark, Esq. M. W. S. Communicated by the Author. 



At the meeting of the Wemerian Society on the 19th of No_ 

 vember, Henry Witham, Esq. read a -very interesting paper 

 " On the Discovery of Live Cockles in Peat-moss, at a great 

 distance from the Sea, and much above its present level." 

 These shells were discovered in the month of October last in 

 Yorkshire, about forty miles from the sea-coast, in the course 

 of a mineralogical excursion by Mr Witham through that 

 county. He was led to the spot by a tradition which prevailed 

 in the country of this anomalous occurrence, and found the 

 cockles alive in the sandy bottom of a drain which had been 

 formed through the moss. This peat-moss is situate about a 

 mile and a half, or two miles, (we understood him to say) from 

 Greta Bridge, and about two miles from the river Tees. 

 That cockles had existed in that spot for a period of unknown 

 antiquity is ascertained from the name of the farm in which 

 this peat-moss occurs, and which it has borne for centuries — 

 Cocklesbury. Specimens of the cockles were laid on the table 

 by Mr Witham, and of the sand in which they burrowed ; 

 and live specimens would have been exhibited, but from the 

 circumstance of the ditch being frozen over when a friend 

 visited the place for the purpose of procuring them. The 

 cockles are found in considerable quantity. Mr W. gathered 

 a number, and even had the curiosity to eat some of them. 

 They differed but little in taste from the common cockle, un- 

 less it were that they seemed not quite so salt. 



The specimens of the shells exhibited by Mr Witham, and 

 of which the writer of this notice, by the kindness of that gen- 

 tleman, is in possession of one, agree in every respect with 

 those found on most of our sandy shores — the Cardium edide 

 of Linnaeus. They are of the ordinary size, and nothing in 

 their external appearance would lead any one to suspect they 

 were from a locality so very different. With the exception of 

 one instance, which has been pointed out to us by a scientific 

 friend, nothing similar, as far as has come to our knowledge, 

 has been remarked before ; though the publication of Mr 

 Witharns discovery, by directing attention to the subject, may 



