PILGRIM SHELLS. 67 



reverence attached to it.* Reversed varieties of the Tur- 

 binellus pyrum, or Chank, are held sacred in China, where 

 great prices are given for them ; and they are kept in pago- 

 das by the priests, who, on certain occasions, administer medi- 

 cines to the sick from them, and also use them to anoint the 

 emperor at his coronation, f Blumenbach informs us that 

 the same shell is made into arm and finger rings, and worn 

 by the poorer Hindoos. After their death, these rings are 

 thrown by their relations into some holy river, and never 

 again taken up by any of the people ; hence, he adds, the 

 great consumption of such rings, and the importance of the 

 fishery for the shells from which they are manufactured. J 

 The negroes of Prince's Island lay a string of the Helix 

 bicarinata above the door of their cabins as an agreeable 

 fetiche to their god, fitted to draw down his protection over 

 their modest hearths ; but the shell being one on which con- 

 chologists set a high value, and in consequence an object of 

 commerce, the devotion of the negroes has yielded to avarice, 

 and the fetiche is now exchanged for tobacco, spirits, old 

 clothes, and toys. In the dark ages a scallop (Pecten jaco- 

 baeus), fixed to the hat in front, was the emblem of the 

 pilgrim journeying to the Holy City ;|| and to this custom 

 allusion is occasionally made by our poets and popular writers. 

 Thus the love-crazed Ophelia in her song : 



" How should I your true love know 



From another one ? 

 By his cockle-hat and staff, 

 And his sandal shoon." 



And thus Parnell says of his hermit : 



" To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight, 

 To find if books or swains report it right, 

 He quits his cell, the pilgrim staff he bore, 

 And fixed the scallop in his hat before." 



* Clarke's Travels, Scandinavia, i. 75. 



t Dillwyn's Desc. Catalogue, 569. 



j Elem. of Nat. Hist. 260. The principal "Chank Fishery" appears to 

 be that of Ceylon, and is of sufficient importance to be regularly farmed and 

 carried on under a set of regulations prescribed by government. It produces 

 an annual rent of about 41,100 rix dollars. Asiatic Journal for April, 1827, 

 p. 469, fec. 



Ann. des Sc. Nat. xxiv. 27. For other religious applications of shells 

 the reader may consult Bonanni, Rec. Ment. et Ocul. 77 et seq.; and Con- 

 chologist's Companion, 52. 



|| "It is not easy to account for the origin of the shell as a badge worn 

 by pilgrims ; but it decidedly refers to much earlier Oriental customs than 

 the journeys of Christians to the Holy Land, and its history will probably 

 be found in the mythology of Eastern nations." CLARKE'S Travels, ii. 

 538, 4to. 



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