112 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
Mr. Street^ in his ^ Gothic Architecture in Spain/ states 
that^ even in that country/the old belief of the power of 
the bones of St. James of Compostella to work miracles 
appears now practically to have died out^ and that there 
are no longer great pilgrimages to his shrine. However^ 
at Santiago de Compostella he saw one professional pil- 
grim with his rags covered with scallop shells^ whom he 
had previously seen begging at Zaragoza j and in one of 
the Plazas at Santiago^ an old woman was selling scallop 
shells. 
The custom of bearing scallop shells as a badge of 
pilgrimage^ is more widely spread than is usually sup- 
posed, for Sir Rutherford Alcock mentions their use on 
the sleeves of many of the Japanese pilgrims to the 
Cone of Fusiyama, in the island of Japan. 
Shells were used by the Romans to ornament their 
dwellings, and the Fountain of Shells,^ described in Sir 
W. GelFs ^ Pompeiana,^ was decorated with the Tyrian 
Murex and the scallop."^ 
The scallop is figured on the coins of Saguntum, which 
are of Phoenician time, the dolphin being on one side, 
with the letters s, a. g. w. under, and the scallop on 
the reverse ; and Florez, in his ^ Medallas de Espaha,^ 
Parte 2, 1728, says of these coins : “These (the dolphin 
and the scallop shell) allude to Neptune and Venus, for 
as the dolphin is sacred to Neptune, so is the shell to 
Venus, t as the daughter of the sea, and also for the 
pearls it engenders, applied to the adornment of women. 
This shell is most appropriate for the impress of a mari- 
time city, from the utility enclosed within it, and its ap- 
plication to diverse uses, either from its seed for jewels, 
* JeffreySj Brit, Concliology, vol. i. p. 67 1 Introduction. 
t Faveas concha Cypria vecta tua/’ Tibullus, lib. iii. El. 3, etc. etc. 
