AVICULID^. — SEA-WING. 141 



oyster {Ostrea Virginica) is much valued by oyster 

 eaters in the United States; and that in opening a 

 larj^e quantity of oysters these little crabs are collected 

 apart, and serve to gratify the palate of gourmands. 

 They are only seven-twentieths of an inch long, by two- 

 fifths wide.* 



The byssus or silky thread of the Pinna is called by 

 the Sicilian fishermen lana penna, and is manufactured 

 into a silken fabric. It was known to the ancients, and 

 called by them pinna-wool, and by the Tarentines lana 

 pesca, or fish-wool. St. Basil, Bishop of Csesarea, in 

 Cappadocia, mentions it in one of his homilies, saying, 

 " Whence had the pinna its gold-coloured wool, — that 

 colour which is inimitable ?"t 



Gibbon states that the Romans called the pinna the 

 " silkworm of the sea," and that a robe made from the 

 silk was the gift of a Roman Emperor to one of the 

 Satraps of Armenia. 



In Aufrere's travels is a description of the mode of 

 collecting these shellfish by the Neapolitans, and of the 

 manufacture of dififerent articles from the silk : — 



"As soon as a, pinna is discovered, an iron instrument, 

 called pernonico, is slowly let down to the ground over 

 the shell, which is then twisted round and drawn out. 

 When the fishermen have got a sufficient number of 

 them, the shell is opened, and the silk, called lana penna, 

 is cut off the animal, and, after being twice washed in tepid 

 water, once in soap and water, and twice again in tepid 

 water, is spread upon a table, and suffered to become 

 half dry in some cool and shady place. Whilst it is yet 

 moist, it is softly rubbed and separated with the baud, 



* Popular Hist. Brit. Crustacea, p. 54. 



t Stolberg's Travels, toI. ii. p. 151, transl. by Thomas Holeroft. 



