United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This conceit does not admit the possibility of error or omission in the search, and it does not allow that the diseased oyster can transmit its pearl-bearing qualities and its peculiar flavors; so that the attitude of aging youth, in the stiffening of its tastes, is one of rejection toward all new bivalves, or, not to be tediously metaphorical, books."
Benzoni* relates the adventure of one Luigi Lampagnano, to whom Charles the Fifth granted the privilege of proceeding with five caravels to the coasts of Cumana to fish for pearls. Laet Nova Orbis page 669. The pearl-bearing oyster is of a more delicate nature than most of the other acephalous mollusca.
Unio pictorum is the scientific name of one, because the shells were once the cups in which the old Dutch painters kept their colours, and are still used to hold ground gold and silver for illuminating. The pearl-bearing mussel is longer than the other kinds, flatter and darker, and the lining of mother-of-pearl is equal to half the total thickness of the shell.
All is fish that comes to its net; if anything, it prefers the gaudier of the finny tribes; it is only when it becomes sophisticated that its appetites turn into tastes, and it begins to appreciate the flavor of that diseased but pearl-bearing species of oyster which we call genius, because we have no accurate name for it.
The Ceylon government used to exact three out of every four oysters brought in, the current tribute of two out of three having become operative only a few years since. It should be known that the pearl-bearing oyster of the Indian Ocean is only remotely related to the edible variety of America and Europe.
Word Of The Day