neretina

Updated: May 28, 2025

But these neretinae are everywhere up to the source of the river, for they feed on all kinds of decaying substances. If the pearl is the result of a disease or injury, the beauty of the neretina is a product or transformation from foul things to fair ones.

C. J. (Charles John) Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames

I have a series of neretina shells from the Philippines, much larger in size and brown in colour, in which many of the same kinds of ornament occur. A fresh-water mussel shell from North America in my possession is coloured green, and so marked and crimped as to resemble exactly a patch of water-weed, such as grows on stones and piles.

C. J. (Charles John) Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames

But even in the London river, if you go and seek among the pebbles above Hammersmith Bridge when the river is low, you may find a score of neretina shells not one of which is coloured like the rest or ornamented with exactly the same pattern, yet each is fit to bejewel the coronet of some Titania of the waters.

C. J. (Charles John) Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames