THE UNIVEESAL FAMILY PAPER FOR INTER-COMMUNICATIONS ON 



NATURAL HISTORY-POPULAR SCIENCE— THINGS IN GENERAL. 



Conducted toy WILLIAM KIDD, of Hammersmith,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 

 Birds;" " Birds of Passage ; " "Instinct and Reason;" " The Aviary," &c. 



"the OBJECT OP OUR WORK is to make MEN WISER, WITHOUT OBLIGING them to turn over folios and 

 OUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 49._i852. 



SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4. 



Price 3d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Is. Id. 



NOTES BY A NATURALIST. 



PEARL FISHERY. 



Though the greater number of 

 Pearls worn by the ladies of the present day 

 are undoubtedly procured from foreign 

 countries, yet it is no less true that our 

 own country produces not a few, which are 

 palmed oft* on purchasers as imported. 

 This is done — in order that the fact of their 

 being native should not diminish the value 

 of the gems ! 



In most rapid rivers, whose bottom is com- 

 posed of a mixture of gravel and mud, is to 

 be found a fresh-water mussel, with a coarse 

 black shell, often very much abraded at the 

 umbones Inside these, a pearl or two may 

 be occasionally found. I notice in the 

 Naturalist, — a Journal which, like " Our 

 Own," cannot be too widely circulated — 

 that Mr. Kennedy found many specimens, 

 containing pearls, in the Clyde. Naturalists 

 will recognise the mussel as the Alosmodon 

 Margaritifera ; and they need not, I think, 

 be told that the pearl is supposed to be pro- 

 duced by a disease to which the mollusc 

 which inhabits the shell is liable. I had 

 already made an unsuccessful search in the 

 River Derwent for this shell (about the be- 

 ginning of May), and had almost doubted 

 whether it existed in the river at all, but for 

 the opportune appearance of a single valve 

 on the pasture on its banks. 



Having obtained definite information as 

 to the part of the stream where we were likely 

 to come upon the treasures, we started off 

 about noon, on a fine day in the middle of May, 

 before the rain had flooded the river so as to 

 prevent our successful fishing. I say om*,because 

 I was not alone ; being accompanied by a 

 gentleman who takes an interest in Natural 

 History, and for whom I was forming a col- 

 lection. I was honored, toOjWith the company 

 of one of the most original, and certainly most 

 amusing men in Keswick, who is familiarly 

 known as Sir Richard Musgrave, save only 



by a few discontented individuals, who per- 

 sist in calling him " Dick. 1 ' Sir Richard is 

 one of the numerous family of guides, to be 

 found in summer months in every place of 

 resort ; but his period of imago not having 

 arrived yet (for the season in Keswick does 

 not begin till the latter end of June), he was 

 contented to shoulder a rake, as any other 

 untitled grub would have done. I carried 

 a shell spoon, and a long rod to attach to it, 

 and these, with a botanical box to hold the 

 specimens, and Sir Richard's pipe (which was 

 constantly in his mouth), completed our arms 

 and ammunition. The clay was one of pecu- 

 liar beauty. It was a day, when stillness 

 and a moderate degree of sunshine give a 

 chastened effect to every object in nature. 

 As we walked under the lofty Skid daw, the 

 cuckoo sounded its half-melancholy note 

 over head, and was answered by faint echoes 

 from not a few rocky nooks. 



" While high up in the mountains, in silence 



remote, 

 The cuckoo unseen is repeating his note, 

 And mellowing echo on watch in the skies. 

 Like a voice from some loftier climate, replies." 



Birds of all sorts, such as are usually met 

 with on a May-day ramble, called for our 

 passing admiration, and be sure that " Our 

 Editor's" favorite, the Blackcap, did not es- 

 cape without its share. But we had now 

 passed both of the bridges which cross the 

 river, and were within about a quarter of a 

 mile of the spot where it becomes lost in the 

 Lakes of Bassenthwaite ; and by directions 

 previously received, we imagined that we 

 must be in the vicinity of our friends the 

 mussels. The water was about three feet 

 deep at this place ; very clear, and with a 

 bottom of gravel mixed with sand and mud. 

 In this I soon detected a mussel, the mouth 

 end of which was only visible ; and looking 

 to the unpractised eye like anything but 

 what it was. This fellow was fished out, and 

 opened ; but he was very healthy, and no 

 pearl was to be found. Another and another 



Vol. II. 



