The young muscles never have any pearl in them. The shells that have the best pearls are wrinkled, twisted, or bunched, and not smooth and equal, as those that have none. And the crafty fellows will guess so well by the shell, that though you watch them never so carefully, they will open such shells under the water, and put the pearls in their mouths, or otherwise conceal them. Yet sometimes when they have been taking up shells, and believing by such signs as I have mentioned, that they were sure of good purchase, and refused good sums for their shares, they found no pearl at all in them. Upon discourse with an old man that had been long at this trade, he advised me to seek not only when the waters were low, but on a dusky, gloomy day also, lest, said he, the fish see you, for then he will shed his pearl in the sand; of which I believe no more than that some muscles have voided their pearls, and such are often found in the sands.[198] [Illustration] MADAME NORISCHKINE DUCHESSE ELIZABETH DAUGHTER OF GENERAL SOBELIEFF NÉE STRAUDMAN (CONSTANTIN) FIRST COUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS For several years following 1760, the Scotch pearl fisheries were of considerable local value. The zoölogist, Thomas Pennant, wrote of them several times in his “Tour of Scotland.” Referring to the Tay and Isla rivers, then as now the center of the Scotch pearling, he states: “There has been in these parts a very great fishery of pearl, got out of the fresh-water muscles. From the year 1761 to 1764, £10,000 worth were sent to London, and sold from 10s. to £1 6s. per ounce. I was told that a pearl had been taken there that weighed 33 grains. But this fishery is at present exhausted, from the avarice of the undertakers. It once extended as far as Loch Tay.”[199] And he adds later that, some years preceding, a pearl fishery was prosecuted in Loch Dochart with great success and the pearls were esteemed the fairest and largest of any.