30 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
Cockle was the common name in olden times for 
the escallop of pilgrims, — he wore the cockle in his 
hat/^ etc. ; and it is still often so used in heraldic lan- 
guage. Lydgate, when he says — 
“ And as the cocYille^ with heavenly dewe 
So clene 
Of kynde, engendreth white perlis rounde.” 
means evidently the oyster, alluding to the old fable of 
pearls being formed by the oyster’s rising to the surface 
at the full moon, and opening its shell to receive the 
falling dew-drops, which thus hardened into pearls, — 
an idea which is quaintly detailed by Robinson, in his 
^ Essay towards a Natural History of Westmoreland 
and Cumberland’ (1709), who, in speaking of the pearls 
procured from the rivers Irt and End, says, Those 
large shellfish which we call horse- mussels, which, gap- 
ing eagerly and sucking in their dewy streams, conceive 
and bring forth great plenty of them” (the pearls), 
“ which the neighbourhood gather up at low- water, and 
sell at all prices.” The natives of India have a simi- 
lar belief with regard to the origin of pearls, viz. that 
they are congealed dewdrops, which Buddha in certain 
months showers upon the earth, when they are caught 
by the oysters whilst floating on the waters to 
breathe.* 
The natives of Java have a still stranger belief that 
the pearls themselves breed and increase if placed in 
cotton, and they actually sell what they term breed- 
ing pearls” for this purpose, affecting to distinguish the 
male from the female. Those pearls which are clus- 
tered together, in the form of a blackberry, are said 
by them to be thus produced. Nor is this belief pecu- 
* ‘Household Words,’ vol. hi. p. 80, “ My Pearl-fishmg Expedition.” 
