THE SCALLOP. 21 



so as to reduce the aperture to a very narrow line. 

 Finally, a thick coat of enamel, or glossy porcellaneous 

 lime, is spread over the entire surface of the shell, from 

 the narrow aperture to the back -line, which coat takes 

 the form of those traiiverse folds which are so character- 

 istic of the species and so elegant. 



Here, clinging to the perpendicular wall of rock, 

 sheltered snugly by an overshadowing stone, which I 

 have just removed, is a lovely specimen of the Squin or 

 Scallop. 1 In the ages of monkery, when men's eyes 

 were more directed to the land where the blessed Lord 

 Jesus once sojourned than to the place where He now 

 is, and pilgrimage to an earthly country was more 

 valued than that to a heavenly, this shell affixed to the 

 hat was the accepted sign that the wearer had visited 

 Jerusalem ; and received the homage of sanctity that 

 such a pilgrim claimed. 



" He quits his cell, the pilgrim staff he bore, 

 And fixed the scallop in his hat before. " 2 



Some mystic connexion, some secret sympathy, was 

 assumed to exist between the scallop and St. James, the 

 brother of the Lord, first bishop of Jerusalem. What 

 it was appears to be irrecoverably lost in the darkness 

 of those very dark ages, and is doubtless not worth the 



1 Pecten opercularis, of which see a group in Plate ir. 



2 Parnell's "Hermit." 



