68 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



There can be little doubt that there are certain 

 marine insects which artistically perforate the shell 

 of the oyster, and produce that phenomenon which 

 results in a pearl.* 



Jack Minton took his preserver into partnership, 

 and so managed Milk Pond as to make a fortune of 

 from £50,000 to £60,000. In due time, Drake ap- 

 peared before the Court of Session, and, in spite of 

 his plea of "Not guilty," was condemned to be 

 hanged forthwith. He expiated his crime at Morris- 

 town, in front of the prison door, and in the presence 

 of all the oyster-fishers of the country. Minton 



and make stockings and gloves of it ; also a silky kind of cloth, of a 

 golden lustrous brown, shot with green. Specimens of the cyssus 

 were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1855. 



* The formation of pearls is sometimes promoted by divers causes 

 which excite the mollusc to secrete an extraordinai-y quantity of the 

 nacreous deposit. Thus, when it is attacked by marine worms, which 

 pierce their way through the shell, the creature repels the invasion by 

 depositing a larger quantity of nacreous matter, and by that means 

 thickens its protective covering. It is probable that this excess of sub- 

 stance agglomerates in small particles, which grow dense and hard, and 

 assume more or less spherical forms, according as they may be depo- 

 sited against the shell itself, or among the membranous lobes of the 

 animal's flesh. These pearly formations increase in size every year, as 

 may be seen by the concentric layers of which they are composed. In 

 the same manner, a grain of sand, the ovum of a fish, or any other 

 foreign body entering the shell, and lodging itself in a place whence it 

 cannot be expelled, becomes covered by the secretion and thus forms 

 the nucleus of a pearl. In India and China, attempts have been made 

 to utilise this fact, and produce pearls of unusual size by introducing 

 pieces of shell or glass beads into the half-open valves of the oyster, 

 and even by touching the creature through the shell with a fine auger ; 

 but hitherto this method has not been attended by any very remarkable 

 results. 



