MYTILIDJE. MUSSEL. 73 



pearls, except in large ornaments or jewels for churches-. 

 In the reign of Charles L, the Scotch pearl trade was 

 considered of sufficient importance to be worthy of the 

 attention of Parliament.* 



John Spruel in ' An Accompt Current betwixt Scot- 

 land and England,' Edinburgh, 1 705, says, "If a Scotch 

 pearl be of a fine transparent colour, and perfectly 

 round, and of any great bigness, it may be worth 15, 

 20, 30, 40 to 50 rix-dollars, yea, I have given 100 rix- 

 dollars (16 9s. 2d.) for one, but that is rarely to get 



such I have dealt in pearl these forty years 



and more, and yet to this day I could never sell a 

 necklace of fine Scots pearl in Scotland ; nor yet fine 

 pendants, the generality seeking for oriental pearls, 

 because further fetcht. At this very day I can show 

 some of our own Scots pearl, as fine, more hard and 

 transparent than any oriental. It is true that the 

 oriental can be easier matcht because they are all of a 

 yellow water; yet foreigners covet Scots pearl." 

 Suetonius says that the great motive of Csesar's 

 coming to Britain was to obtain its pearls, and states 

 that they were so large that he used to try the weight 

 of them by his hand, and dedicated a breastplate made 

 of them to Venus Genetrix.f 



Oriental pearls are found in the Meleagrina margari- 

 tifera, or pearl-oyster, which belongs to the family 

 Aviculidse. 



The common freshwater Unio (Unio tumidus), and 

 also Unio pictorum, both produce pearls, but they are 

 generally small, and of a bad colour; sometimes I 



* < The Scotch Pearl Fishery ' (< The Wesleyan and Methodist Maga- 

 zine,' January, 1865, from the 'Times' and the ' Scotsman'), 

 f Camden's ' Britannia,' p. 962. 



