TJie American Pcarl-FisJictics. 229 



of them. Acosta, in the fourth book of his history, 

 glorieth that he had eat of these oysters, and found 

 Pearls in the middle of them. When the night 

 Cometh, the fishermen retire to the island and carry 

 the oysters home to him that employeth them. 

 Upon the opening they find in some none, in 

 others from one to six Pearls, more or less, and in 

 some great numbers of grains, which we call seed 

 Pearl. These oyster shells are within of a lively 

 colour, towards an azure, they make spoons of them 

 and other toys, such as we call Mother-of-Pearl. 

 The Pearls are of very different forms, bigness, 

 figure, colour and polish, and differ also much in 

 their price." 



The principal fisheries or Pearl-producing centres 

 on the West coast of America, are those of Panama 

 and California. It is believed that Pearl-banks 

 extend with more or less interruption, from the 

 Gulf of Darien to the Gulf of California, though 

 generally at too great depths to be reached by the 

 ordinary methods of fishing. The Pearls from the 

 Western coast of America are obtained from the 

 Meleagrina Californica, a mollusc which has a 

 smaller and thinner shell than the common Pearl- 

 oyster — M. Margaritifera. The Mother-of-Pearl 

 shell of this species is known in commerce as 

 "Panama" or "bullock-shell," but the principal 



