In Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius there is a curious passage about pearl-making which has been generally considered as a mere “traveller’s tale”: Apollonius relates that the inhabitants of the shores of the Red Sea, after having calmed the water by means of oil, dived after the shell-fish, enticed them with some bait to open their shells, and having pricked the animals with a sharp-pointed instrument, received the liquor that flowed from them in small holes made in an iron vessel, in which it hardened into real pearls.—It is stated by several reputable writers that the Chinese do likewise at the present day. And Sir R. F. Burton informs me that when he was on the coast of Midian he found the Arabs were in the habit of “growing” pearls by inserting a grain of sand into the shells. _THE SINGER AND THE DRUGGIST—Vol. I. p. 203._ The diverting adventures related in the first part of this tale should be of peculiar interest to the student of Shakspeare as well as to those engaged in tracing the genealogy of popular fictions. Jonathan Scott has given—for reasons of his own—a meagre abstract of a similar tale which occurs in the “Bahár-i-Dánish” (vol. iii. App., p. 291), as follows: PERSIAN VERSION. A young man, being upon business in a certain city, goes on a hunting excursion, and, fatigued with the chase, stops at a country house to ask refreshment. The lady of the mansion receives him kindly, and admits him as her lover. In the midst of their dalliance the husband comes home, and the young man had no resource to escape discovery but to jump into a basin which was in the court of the house, and stand with head in a hollow gourd that luckily happened to be in the water. The husband, surprised to see the gourd stationary in the water, which was itself agitated by the wind, throws a stone at it, when the lover slips from beneath it and holds his breath till almost suffocated. Fortunately the husband presently retires with his wife into an inner room of the house, and thus the young man was enabled to make good his escape. The next day he relates his adventure before a large company at a coffee-house. The husband happens to be one of the audience, and, meditating revenge, pretends to admire the gallantry of the young man and invites him to his house. The lover accompanies him, and on seeing his residence is overwhelmed with confusion; but, recovering himself, resolves to abide all hazards, in hopes of escaping by some lucky stratagem. His host introduces him to his wife, and begs him to relate his merry adventure before her, having resolved, when he should finish, to put them both to death. The young man complies, but with an artful presence of mind exclaims at the conclusion, “Glad was I when I awoke from so alarming a dream.” The husband upon this, after some questions, is satisfied that he had only told his dream, and, having entertained him nobly, dismisses him kindly.