240 Pearls. 



Margarites, which I took out of the shell myselt 

 to see the experiment, and I further gained this 

 knowledge thereby, that all such that have Margarites 

 in them are rough and craggy on the outside, the 

 rest are all plain ; by which observation I soon 

 avoided fruitlesse labour in opening of such as had 

 nothing in them. I found also many fair ones which 

 were not fully ripe, and so came short of that bright 

 Oriental colour which others have." 



The late Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, an eminent English 

 conchologist, writing of the two common species of 

 British Unios — U. tumidus and U, pictorum — says: 

 "Both of these species produce Pearls, though of 

 very small size and inferior lustre. A consolidated 

 mass of Pearl is sometimes formed inside the right 

 valve near the margin of the posterior side." 



Scotch Pearls. 



In Tytler's " History of Scotland," we read that 

 as far back as the twelfth century, considerable com- 

 merce in Scotch Pearls was carried on. A fishery 

 existed up to the end of the last century, in the river 

 Tay, which is alluded to in Goldsmith's "Natural 

 History." In the river Earn, a tributary of the Tay, 

 and in the river Doon, Pearl-mussel gathering found 



