River Pearls; British and Foreign. 239
with the virtues and use thereof, by D. B. Gent" This worthy gentleman devotes a section to the subject of Pearls, or as he calls them Margarites, and gives some information on the subject of British Pearls well worth quotation :—
"I
have seen," says the writer, "very fair Margarites taken out of a
shell-fish called a horse-mussel, and on the inside of the said shell
remains the true Mother-of-Pearl. I knew an honourable lady, which by
the employing three or four men to catch these fish out of the waters,
took with a little charge so many ripe Oriental Margarites, as made a
very rich double necklace. Also I knew one Mr. Primas Davis (a very
ingenious gentleman) who by making use of some vacant hours in taking
up these shells, in a short time got so many Margarites of an even size
and good colour, as made him a choice hat-band. The shells of these
fish are on the outside very black, and not so great as other
horse-mussels. I have seen some in Buckinghamshire, and other
countries, and they are so plentiful in some parts of the river Clun
(which cometh out of Montgomeryshire, through some part of Shropshire)
that they do more than cover the bottome of that river, and were it not
for the deepnesse of the water, there would be no difficulty in taking
of them. I have some few of the said
