lusterless
brown, and handfuls of them sell for only a few shillings. A large
percentage are of a grayish or milky color, or of a bluish white tinge;
these seldom attain much value unless aided by excellence of shape and
purity of skin. A few are of a dark, fiery tint and of great luster.
Sometimes the pearl is, of a beautiful pink tint, sometimes of a light
violet, or other exquisite shade. The fine pink ones are very rare and
are highly prized. The best are those having the sweet, pure white
light which constitutes the inimitable loveliness of a pearl; but few
of them are found even in the most favorable seasons, and usually these
are from the streams in the northeastern counties and some of the
streams in the southwest. Very few combine the qualities of perfection
in shape and luster; and the product of many seasons might be examined
in vain to furnish enough pearls to make a well-matched necklace of
gems weighing from five to ten grains each. But occasionally beautiful
specimens are discovered, weighing fifteen or twenty grains or more.
One found in Aberdeenshire a few years ago, perfect in shape and
luster, weighed twenty-five grains, and sold at first hand for £50.
Another one, found at the confluence of the Almond and the Tay in 1865,
weighed thirty grains.
While
most of these pearls are sold to jewelers in Edinburgh, Aberdeen,
Inverness, Perth, and other towns, many of the finest specimens have
gone into the possession of prominent Scotch and English families, who
have a fancy for collecting them. Queen Victoria possessed a fine
collection of Scotch pearls, choice specimens of many years' search,
obtained almost exclusively from the Aberdeenshire waters which murmur
round her beautiful Highland home. In 1907, a Scotch pearl was sold in
Perth for the sum of £80 ; this was of a good luster with a bluish
tint, it was spherical, measured seven sixteenths of an inch in
diameter, and weighed twenty-one grains.
The
falling-off in the yield of pearls in some streams is credited to a
certain extent to the building of bridges and the consequent
abandonment of fords. This is based on the theory that injury to the
mollusk has something to do with the production of pearls, and that
they are to be found more plentiful about fords and places where cattle
drink. The theory is beautifully stated by the lamented Hugh Miller: "I
found occasion to conclude that the Unio of our river-fords secretes
pearls so much more frequently than the Unionidae and Anadonta of our
still pools and lakes, not from any specific peculiarity in the
constitution of the creature, but from the effects of the habitat
which it chooses. It receives in the fords and shallows of a rapid
river many a rough blow from the sticks and pebbles carried down in
time of flood, and occasionally from the feet of men and animals that
cross the stream during droughts, and the blows induce the morbid secre-
