PECTEN. 75 



for food. Old fishermen have a notion that it is taken 

 in greater quantities after a fall of snow ; but, if true, 

 this is difficult of explanation, because a scallop never 

 burrows or lives anywhere but on the surface of the 

 sea-bed. They used to be plentiful in Lulworth Bay on 

 the Dorset coast; but now they are rarely found alive. 

 I was told that the breed had been exterminated there 

 by an epicurean officer of the coast-guard. The late 

 Major Martin would allow any conchologist to dredge 

 as much as he pleased in the bays of the Connemara 

 coast, provided he only took useless shells, such as 

 Tellina balaustina ; but all the big clams (P. maximus) 

 were reserved for the table at Ballynahinch Castle. 

 This kind of preserve would be much less expensive to 

 keep than a good pheasant-cover or a well-stocked moor, 

 and it would not be so liable to be poached. Nor were 

 the shells less prized in the days when Ossian sung. 

 The flat valves were the plates, the hollow ones the 

 drinking- cups of Fingal and his heroes, and " the joy of 

 the shell went round." The animal of P. maximus has 

 long attracted the attention of naturalists. As Mr. 

 Clark observed, " When the valves are opened, and the 

 mottled surfaces of the double margins of each valve are 

 in conjunction, and the various circles of filaments and 

 cirri fully exserted in a shallow basin of sea-water, it is 

 scarcely possible to conceive a more beautiful and in- 

 teresting appearance/' The animal is small compared 

 with the size of the shell. This is also the case with 

 other kinds of Pecten; and it may be owing to the 

 expansibility of the organs, which require much space 

 for their action. Donovan mentions a strange idea, 

 which was entertained by " modern as well as ancient 

 authors/' that the way in which scallops leap or raise 

 themselves up is by forcing the under valve against 



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