81 



Westmoreland, and Northumberland, the Unio margaritiferus is also found 

 with pearls. Before the pearls of Britain were discarded for those of more 

 attractive lustre of exotic climes, the fishing for them might repay the lucky 

 finder of a gem. But it was no slight labour. One Unio in a hundred 

 might contain a pearl, and about one in a hundred of the pearls was toler- 

 ably clear. Sir Robert Redding, speaking of the pearl fisheries of bygone 

 times in some of the rivers of Ireland, in a paper contributed to the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions of the Eoyal Society in 1693, describes how the poor 

 people fished them in the warm months before harvest-time, when the 

 rivers were low. They took them with their toes or wooden thongs, or by 

 thrusting a stick into the shells which they caught sight of among the 

 stones as they lay in part opened, with the white foot protruded like a 

 tongue out of the mouth. " Some gentlemen of the country," continues 

 Sir Robert, " made good advantage thereof, and I myself whilst there, saw 

 one pearl bought for fifty shillings that weighed thirty-six carats, and was 

 valued at forty pounds." Pennant affirms that the British Crown still 

 contains a pearl of great price obtained from a Unio in the Conway in the 

 time of Charles II., and presented to Catherine his Queen by her chamber- 

 lain, Sir Richard Wynne, of Gwydir.* The pearls of the large American 

 Unios are rather opake and stony, but there are, doubtless, some clear and 

 lustrous. 



1. abacus, Hald. 



2. abbreviatus, Gold. 



3. abductus, Fhill. 



4. Aberti, Con. 



5. acquilina, Sow. 



6. acutus, id. 



7. acutissimus, Lea. 



8. aduncus, Soto. 



9. seruginosus, More. 



10. iEsopus, Green. 



11. affinis, Lea. 



12. aheneus, id. 



Species. 



13. Alabamensis, Con. 



14. alatus, Say. 



15. altilis, Con. 



16. ambiguus, Sow. 



17. amoenus, Lea. 



18. arnygdalum, id. 



19. angusta, Klein. 



20. angustatus, Lea. 



21. angustus, Lam. 



22. anodontoides, Lea. 



23. Ansticei, Soto. 



24. antiquior, Stride. 



25. antiquus, Sow. 



26. apiculatus, Say. 



27. approximus, Lea. 



28. aratus, Lea. 



29. arcaformis, id. 



30. arctatus, Con. 



31. arctior, Lea. 



32. arcula, id. 



33. arcus, Con. 



34. argens, Kiist. 



35. argenteus, Lea. 



36. asper, id. 



* "In Wales the Conway has been long celebrated for pearls, and the fishery still exists, though, 

 according to Dr. Macculloch, it is the source of anything but good — ' a lottery which pro- 

 duces universal poverty among the people who pursue it.' A recent account (Mag. Nat. Hist, 

 vol. ii. p. 132) represents the case more favourably, aud informs us that there are a number of 

 persons who live by this alone ; and where there is a small family to gather the shells and pick 

 out the fish, it is preferable to any other daily labour. The pearls are disposed of to an overseer, 

 who pays for them by the ounce, the price varying from Is. 6d. to 4>s. What is doue with them 

 seems to be involved in mystery ; they are, with few exceptions, useless as ornaments, and the 

 exceptions seem scarcely sufficient to support any profitable speculations." — Johnston, Introd. 

 Conch,, p. 56. 



VOL. II. 



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