AV1CULID.E,— -SEA-WING. 
141 
oyster [Ostrea Virginica) is miicli valued by oyster 
eaters in tlie United States; and that in opening a 
large quantity of oysters these little crabs are collected 
apart, and serve to gratify the palate of gourmands. 
They are only seven-twentieths of an inch long, by two- 
fifths wide.* 
The byssns or silky thread of the Pinna is called by 
the Sicilian fishermen lana penna^ and is manufactured 
into a silken fabric. It was known to the ancients, and 
called by them pinna-wool^ and by the Taren tines lana 
pesca^ or fish-wool. St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, in 
Cappadocia, mentions it in one of his homilies, saying, 
Whence had the pinna its gold-coloured wool,— that 
colour which is inimitable 
Gibbon states that the Romans called the pinna the 
silkworm of the sea/^ and that a robe made from the 
silk was the gift of a Roman Emperor to one of the 
Satraps of Armenia. 
In Aufrere^s travels is a description of the mode of 
collecting these shellfish by the Neapolitans, and of the 
manufacture of different articles from the silk :• — 
^'As soon as db pinna is discovered, an iron instrument, 
called pernonico, is slowly let down to the ground over 
the shell, which is then twisted round and drawn out. 
AVhen the fishermen have got a sufficient number of 
them, the shell is opened, and the silk, called lanapenna^ 
is cut off the animal, and, after being twice washed in tepid 
water, once in soap and water, and twice again in tepid 
water, is spread upon a table, and suffered to become 
half dry in some cool and shady place. Whilst it is yet 
moist, it is softly rubbed and separated with the hand, 
* Popular Hist. Brit. Crustacea, p. 64. 
t Stoiberg's Travels, vol. ii. p. 151, trausl. by Thomas Holcroft. 
