86 THE SEA-SIDE AND AQUARItJM. 



to a different and more agreeable relation in which 

 they stand towards him. At the tables of some 

 epicures, these creatures are considered as a great 

 delicacy. The Romans, who, as Dr Adam tells us, 

 were particularly fond of shell- fish, bringing them all 

 the way from Britain to the luxurious city, appear 

 to have set an edible value upon the Pholades. M, 

 Desmarest, to the great annoyance of the geologists, 

 has attempted to prove that the celebrated perforations 

 in the temple of Serapis by the Pholades, took place, 

 not in consequence of the subsidence of the land, but 

 of the conversion of the temple and its vicinity into 

 a fish-pond ! And M. De Blainville aggravates them 

 still more, by putting the question ' whether the 

 Pholades were not put there purposely for the supply 

 of the table ? ' At the present day they are largely 

 used as an article of food in France and Italy, and on 

 the coasts of the Mediterranean, where they abound. 

 In the neighbourhood of Dieppe, Mr Stark tells us 

 that bands of women and children, each armed with 

 a pickaxe, make a formidable array against the un- 

 happy Pholades, who tremble in their rock-citadels 

 as these besiegers approach. By means of the sharp 

 point of this implement they are able to detach con- 

 siderable fragments of the rock, and a rich harvest of 

 the molluscs ensues. They are then sent to market, or, 

 deprived of their shells, are used as bait for other fish. 

 " That gem-like phrase, l sermons in stones,' to use 

 the words of a living poet, has sparkled so long ' upon 

 the finger of Time,' that its brilliance has become 



