68 



THE SILK OF THE PINNA. 



and thus Wordsworth, when he celebrates the hospitality of 

 the "hooded Celibates" of St. Bees: — 



nor do they grudge the boon 



Which staff and cockle-hat and sandal shoon 

 Claim for the pilgrim."* 



Fist. 10. 



You will now admit that 

 the Mollusca have contributed 

 their due share to ornament 

 " the outward man ;" and you 

 could scarcely expect such ani- 

 mals to do more in the way 

 of clothing us. Nor do I mean 

 to surprise you by finding 



amongst them a rival to the silk- 

 worm, for indeed the claims of 

 the silk-spinning Mollusca are 

 very trifling. But the Pinna? 

 (Fig. 10), a curious genus of the 

 bivalved class, do spin a kind 

 of silk, which has been woven 

 into some articles of dress, in 

 early times so highly prized as 

 to have been set aside for the use 

 solely of emperors and kings. 

 This silk is the byssus, or rather 

 the cable, of the animal, by 

 means of which it is moored to 

 the rocks, in the same manner 

 that our common mussel is. In 

 a crude state the silk is called 

 lana penna : the threads are 

 extremely fine, of a perfect 

 equalness in diameter through 

 their whole length, and of great 

 strength. It is cleansed from 

 its impurities by washing in soap and water, drying and rub- 



* " The abbey of St. James, in Reading, gave Azure, three scallop-shells 

 or. Here I know not what secret sympathy there is between St. James and 

 shells ; but sure I am, that all pilgrims that visit St. James of Compostella 

 in Spain (the paramount shrine of that saint), returned thence obsiti con- 

 chis, 'all beshelled about' on their clothes, as a religious donative there 

 bestowed upon them." Fuller, Ch. Hist. ii. 228. On shells in heraldry, 

 see a beautifully-illustrated and interesting volume, entitled ' The Heraldry 

 of Fish,' p. 220—228, bv Thomas Moule : Lond. 1842. Also, Gibbon's Life, 

 p. 15. 



