settle again to the bottom, without return for that time. Doubtless they have, as it were, a natural carefulness of their own commodity, as not ignorant how great estimation we mortal men make of the same amongst us; and, therefore, so soon as the fishermen do catch them, they bind their shells together, for otherwise they would open and shed their pearls, of purpose for which they know themselves to be pursued. Their manner of apprehension is this; first, four or five persons go into the river together, up unto the shoulders, and there stand in a compass one by another, with poles in their hands, whereby they rest more surely, sith they fix them in the ground, and stay with one hand upon them; then, casting their eyes down to the bottom of the water, they espy where they lie by their shining and clearness, and with their toes take them up (for the depth of the water will not suffer them to stoop for them), and give them to such as stand next them." The Scotch pearls, according to Boece, were engendered in a long and large sort of mussel, called the horse-mussel. On the subject of the origin of the pearl he follows Pliny's notion. These mussels, he says, "early in the morning, in the gentle, clear, and calm air, lift up their upper shells and mouths a little above the water, and there receive of the fine and pleasant breath or dew of heaven, and afterwards, according to the measure and quantity of this vital force received, they first conceive, then swell, and finally product the pearl." "The pearls that are so got in Scotland," he adds, "are not of small value; they are very orient and bright, light and round, and sometimes of the quantity of the nail of one's little finger, as I have had and seen by mine own experience." In his own Description of England, also, written about the middle of the sixteenth century, Harrison notices those still to be found in that part of the island. He accounts for their having fallen into disrepute in a curious way. "Certes," he writes, "they are to be found in these our days, and thereto of divers colours, in no less numbers than ever they were of old time. Yet are they not now so much desired because of their smallness, and also for other causes,
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