254 Natural History of Molluscous Animals : — 
illustrious naturalist with a premium of 1800 dollars (about 
4501.), which in that country must have been a very consider- 
able sum. * 
Pearls are the toys of civilised nations, while shells them- 
selves become the pride and ornament of savage tribes; for 
it is in poetry only that we find damsels who think themselves 
—. “ when unadorn’d 
Adorn’d the most.” 
A negro Venus with a large cowry (Cypra‘a) for an ear- 
pendant, another for a nose-jew el, and a string of volutes for 
a necklace, may, in the opinion of your fair lady, have a very 
ridiculous and childish taste, but, in reality, the one values 
her pretty shells as highly as the other doth her pearls. And 
this is no idle supposition: for I remember that Sir J. Banks 
could not, by any present, induce an Otaheitan girl to part 
with her native ornaments; and some tribes so curiously 
and neatly form their shells into festoons and bracelets, and 
wear them so gracefully, that even European travellers have 
expressed admiration of them. Some years ago I saw, in the 
museum of Mr. Bullock, a very magnificent piece of dress of 
this kind. It was the chief mourner’s dress of ceremony at 
the funerals of Otaheite. ‘The part worn over the face was 
made of large plates of mother of pearl shell fastened together 
with fibres of the cocoa nut; and the elaborate drapery 
stretched across the breast was composed of several thousands 
of pieces of mother of pearl, each separately drilled and fast- 
ened together in a manner that would be found difficult for a 
European artist to copy, with the advantage of iron tools, 
which were then totally unknown to these interesting islanders. 
To many people shells serve many purposes more useful 
than that of ornament. You must have read that in India, 
and among the various nations in Africa, a species of cowry 
(Cypre‘a moncta) is the current coin; and in the Travels of 
Park you may see a table of their comparative value. ‘The 
Iroquois, and other North American tribes, make their wam- 
pum, which serves the purpose of records, from portions of 
perlaceous bivalve shells; and they seem to have another sort 
of wampuin made with a species of Cassis Lamarck, which 
they string into a belt, and, according to Reseenre invari- 
* The above account of pearls and of the pearl fishery has been drawn 
up from the following works :— Plinit Hist. Nat., lib. ix.; Adams’s Roman 
Antiquities ; Pennant’s Brit. Zoology, vol. iv. p. 163. ; Humboldt’s Personal 
Narrative, vol. ii.; Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia, vol. li. p. 246—249., &c. 5 
ee s Ceylon; Pulteney’s Life of Linneus, by Dr. Maton, p. 92 93. 
and 550 
