PHOLADID^. PIDDOCK. 
161 
France it is called le dail commun, gite, or pitau ; and in 
Spain, folado. 
An old fislierman told me tliat the pudworm, as he 
called it, was a very delicate fish ; and he had often 
noticed on the Hampshire coast, that at low spring- 
tides, in the winter, when sharp frosts set in, and when 
that part of the shore, where these mollusks bury them- 
selves, is left exposed by the tide, they are all killed. He 
was in the habit of collecting the Fholas dactylus as bait 
for white fish, digging them out of the clay or shale; and 
he added that if he kept them a day or so before using 
them, they changed colour, and shone like glowworms, 
even shone quite brightly in the water, some distance 
below the surface, when put on the hooks for bait. 
This reminds me of the following quaint lines in Bre- 
ton’s Ourania,’ quoted in Daniel’s Rural Sports 
“ The glowworme shining in a frosty night 
Is an admirable thing in Shepheard’s sight. 
Twentie of these wormes put in a small glasse, 
Stopped so close that no issue doe passe, 
Hang’d in a Bow-net and suncke to the ground 
Of a poole or lake, broad and profound j 
Will take such plentie of excellent fish 
As well may furnish an Emperor’s dish.” 
The luminosity of the Fholas after death is referred to 
by Pliny, who says, the onyches shine in the dark like 
fire, and in the mouth even while they are eaten 
and, that it is the property of the dactylus (a fish so 
called from its strong resemblance to the human nail) 
to shine brightly in the dark, when all other lights are 
removed, and the more moisture it has the brighter is 
the light emitted. In the mouth, even while they are 
* Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. bk. ix. c. 51. 
M 
