292 



ton were a quantity of cockle-shells of different sizes, 

 rubbed down until they were reduced nearly to rings. 



An impudent hoax was played on the learned Wer- 

 nerian Society in 1825 by a pretended " discovery of live 

 cockles in peat-moss, at a great distance from the sea, 

 and much above its present level." The name of the 

 place where this phenomenon is said to have been ob- 

 served was Cocklesbury near Greta Bridge, and some 

 highly ingenious arguments were adduced to show how 

 the cockles got into the moss, and contrived to exist for 

 centuries out of their native element. It need scarcely 

 be said that the writer of the article was imposed upon 

 by a scientific wag. Other Scotchmen have been equally 

 credulous. Buchanan relates a strange notion, which 

 he had heard was prevalent in Barra, one of the Western 

 Isles, that the cockle originates from a freshwater bi- 

 valve (probably a species of Pisidium) called the "seed" 

 by the inhabitants, who supposed that it grew larger in 

 the sea, after being carried down by the river. 



According to Searles Wood, C. edule in its recent and 

 fossil state has sixteen synonyms. 



(A - sr- 9- C. MI'NIMUM *, Philippi. s-K-K ^ W 



C. minimum, Phil. Moll. Sic. i. p. 51, and ii. p. 38, t. xiv. f. 18. C. Sm- 

 cicum, F. & H. ii. p. 33, pi. xxxii. f. 6. 



BODY of a gelatinous consistency and whitish colour. 



SHELL roundish- oval, with an oblique outline, convex 

 (especially behind), thin but nearly opaque, rather glossy : 

 sculpture, 28-30 delicate and flattened longitudinal ribs, more 

 or less covered throughout with minute crowded arched scales, 

 which are sometimes arranged in a double row, giving a sca- 

 brous appearance to the surface ; furrows rather narrow and 

 slight, crossed by microscopical striae, which are three times as 

 numerous as the costal scales, and in younger and less perfect 



* Smallest. 



