68 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
colour. Some peculiarity in the animal inhabitant 
uniformly furnishes a clue to its mode of life. The 
construction of the Pinna points out its adaptation to 
smooth waters and sheltered bays; and, though 
generally found in the Mediterranean, Indian, Ame- 
rican, Atlantic, and European oceans, as well as in 
the Adriatic and Red seas, they are seldom seen on 
bold and rocky coasts, exposed to the furious surg- 
ings of the tide. The classic shores of the Medi- 
terranean are, consequently, one of their favourite 
resorts; and hence the rocks under Cape St. Vido, 
once celebrated for an abbey of Basilican monks, 
as well as the shores of the Mare Grand, are com- 
pletely studded with the interesting shell-fish. 
Thousands of spinning worms, 
That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair’d silk, 
To deck her sons. Milton. 
They are elegantly termed the silk-worms of the 
ocean, in allusion to the fine silky beard, or byssus, 
by means of which they moor themselves firmly to 
the rocks, or allure small fish by the floating or 
trembling of the filaments in the water. 
This they possess in common with the Muscle. 
But instead of an hundred undivided, parallel, and 
flattened fibres, terminated with a circular gland, 
furnished with absorbents, and growing from the 
body of the animal, we have here a machine as 
