56 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
that the Indian Sea, and also off the coast of Ar- 
menia, Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, a fish is caught 
very like an oyster ; large and of oblong shape, contain- 
ing within its shell flesh which is plentiful, white, and 
very fragrant, and from it the men pick out white bones, 
called by them pearls. And of these they make neck- 
laces and chains for the hands and feet, of which the 
Persians are very fond, as are the Medes and all Asia- 
tics, esteeming them as much more valuable than golden 
ornaments.^^* * * § Occasionally, they are called stones and 
bones by Greek authors ; and Tertullian calls them mala- 
dies of shell-fish and warts — concharum vitia et ver- 
rucas.^^ Pliny statesf that when pearls grow old they 
become thick and adhere to the shell, from which they can 
only be separated b}'^ a file ; again, that pearls which 
have one surface flat and the other spherical, opposite to 
the plane side, are for that reason called tympania, or 
tambour-pearls, quibus una tantum est facies, et ab ea 
rotunditas, aversis planities,ob id tympania nominantur.’^ 
The tympana, or hand-drums of the ancients, were 
often of a serai-globular shape, like the kettle-drums of 
the present day. Shells which had pearls still adhering 
to them were used as boxes for unguents. J Long pear- 
shaped pearls, called elenchi, had their peculiar value, re- 
sembling the alabaster boxes in form which were used for 
ointments. Earrings were invented by the Roman 
ladies, called ‘‘crotalia, or castanet pendants, from the 
pearls rattling as they knocked against each other.^^§ 
The story of Cleopatra swallowing the pearl, in order 
* Athenseus, vol. i. p. 155. 
t Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. b. ix. p. 432. 
t Pliny, Nat. Hist. b. ix. p. 432, and note. 
§ Pliny’s Nat. Hist. vol. ii. b. ix. p. 435. 
