44 Natural History of Molluscous Animals : — 
the Jellina Gari Lin. ; and in South America they use a large 
muscle, 8 in. long and of excellent flavour, but the name ‘of 
which is unknown tome. “They are often salted and dried ; 
after which, they are strung on slender rushes, and, in this 
manner, large quantities are exported.” * This practice re- 
minds me of a somewhat similar one adopted by the Africans in 
the neighbourhood of the river Zaire or Congo. They take large 
quantities of a species of Mya from out the mud round Kam- 
penzey Island, and, as in a raw state the animals are without 
flavour, they stick them on wooden skewers, as the French do 
frogs, and half dry them. ‘They pass thus into a state of semi- 
puirefaction, become entirely to the taste of the negroes, and 
form an important object of traffic. + ‘The natives of New Hol- 
- land and New Zealand did, at the time of their discovery, use 
the Chama gigas (jig. 6. c), a very large shell, a pair of the 
valves of which were presented, as natural curiosities, to 
Francis I. by the Venetians; and which Louis XV., more 
zealous, as he has himself taken care to let us know, for the 
glory of God, destined to hold holy water in the magnificent 
church of St. Sulpice in Paris, where they to this “day ac- 
tually serve the purpose of baptismal fonts.{ Captain Cook 
tells us that it sometimes attains a size so great that two men 
are required to carry it; and containing full 20 lbs. of good 
meat, it often firahed: him and his fellow-adventurers an 
esteemed repast. Bruce mentions the same species as being 
found in the Red Sea, but in this respect he is probably 
mistaken. The fish of /zs shell, however, are very whole- 
some, and have a peppery taste, a circumstance so much the 
more convenient, that they carry that ingredient of spice 
along with them for sauce, with w ‘hich tr avellers seldom bur- 
then themselves. § 
Of the wnzvalved shells I have not much to say. You may 
have noticed the periwinkle (Ttrbo littdreus) (fig. 7. a) and 
common whelk (Baccinum lapillus Zin.) exposed for sale, in 
large quantities, in the fish-shops of the metropolis ||; and they 
frequently furnish to the poorer classes of our sea-coast towns 
and villages a repast, perhaps sufficiently wholesome, and 
certainly 1 not destitute of relish. But, even to them, these 
may be regarded merely in the light of luxuries: it is far 
* Stevenson’s Narrative of Twenty Years’ Residence in South America, 
vol. i. p. 123. 
+ Tuckey’s Narrative, &c., p..55. 
{ Smith’s Tour on the Continent, vol. i. p. 82. 
§ Bruce’s Travels, &c., vol. ii. p. 112 
|| They do not appear to have been so common in the days of Samuel 
Johnson. In his Journey to the Western Islands he says, “ Here I saw what 
I had never seen before, limpets and muscles in their natural state.”*(—p. 295.) 
