MYTILID^. PEARLS. 
55 
found in Kerry^ in Donegal, in the Moy near Doxford, 
and in many of the other Irish rivers ; and Mr. Buckland 
states, in the ^ Field, ^ December 10th, 1864, that they 
abound near Oughterard, and that a man called Jemmy 
the Pearl-catcher^^ told him he knew when a mussel had 
a pearl in it, without requiring to open it first, because 
'^she (the mussel) sits upright with her mouth in the 
mud, and her back is crooked,’^^^ — that is, it is corrugated 
like a cow^s horn. Bruce, in his “ Travels, observes 
that the pearl-fishers of Bahrein informed him that they 
had no expectation of finding a pearl when the shell was 
smooth and perfect, but were sure to find some when the 
shell was distorted, and deformed ; and he adds that this 
applies equally to the Scotch pearl- mussels. In France 
they also collect pearls from the pearl-mussels, and they 
generally sell them as foreign pearls. At Omagh, in 
the north of Ireland, there was formerly a pearl-fishery ; 
and Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick, about 1094, sent a pre- 
sent of Irish pearls to Anselm, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. Scotch pearls were in demand abroad as early 
as the twelfth century. Suetonius says that the great 
motive of Csesar^s coming to Britain was to obtain its 
pearls, and states that they were so large that he used 
to try the weight of them by his hand, and dedicated a 
breastplate made of them to Venus Genetrix.* Accord- 
ing to Pliny, the island of Taprobane (Ceylon) was most 
productive of pearls; and he considers that the most 
valuable were those found in the vicinity of Arabia, in 
the Persian Gulf. 
Oriental pearls are found in the Meleagrina marga- 
ritifera, or pearl-oyster ; and Chares of Mytilene, in his 
seventh book of his ^ Histories of Alexander,^ tells us 
* Camden’s 'Britannia,’ p. 962. 
