River Pearls ; British and Foreign. 245 



of the river by a net, or slit at the end of a pole, 

 the shells are then opened, and are subsequently 

 either left on the banks or returned to the river. 

 Sometimes from two to three hundred may be 

 opened and no Pearl found. It is in the large 

 deformed shells that the Pearls generally occur, and 

 these are mostly buried in deep water, the Pearls 

 being worth from £/\. to ^10 each. 



Etiropean Pearls. 



Many of the rivers of the Continent are the 

 home of the Pearl- mussel. It is found widely 

 distributed in the streams of Northern Europe, 

 being especially abundant in Norway, Sweden, 

 Finland, Saxony, and Bohemia ; and even as far 

 south as Bavaria. 



The attention of scientific men in this country 

 was called to the River-Pearls of Norway as far 

 back as the year 1673; in a letter from Hamburgh, 

 " By the learned Christopher Sandius," translated in 

 the " Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' 

 for 1674. We are there told that ''The Pearl-shells 

 in Norway do breed in sweet waters : their shells 

 are like mussels, but larger." The writer then asserts 

 that it sometimes happens that the eggs of the 

 mollusc instead of being voided adhere to the 



