Pvn H,i I'UitlS

PINNA. 99
Islandica), and of its playing the part of jackal
to the
lion, has been so often repeated, that I will not inflict it
again on my readers. Cicero was fully persuaded
of the
truth of this pretty fable, and he used it as an illustra-
tion in his treatise ' De Natura Deorum/ Swan, in his
'
Speculum Mundi/ moralized upon it as follows :—
cc And thus day by day they get their living, like a com-
bined knot of cheaters, who have no other trade than
the cunning deceit of quaint cousenage ; hooking in the
simple sort with such subtill tricks, that be their purses
stuft with either more or lesse, they know a way to
sound the bottome, and send them lighter home : lighter
in purse, though heavier in heart." But Pierius, in his
(
Hieroglyphica/ draws a different conclusion ; for, after
quoting Theophrastus (" vita fortasse conchis servari non
potest, nisi ope cancri "), he commends the example of
the Pinna and its companion to any one who cannot do
without the aid and counsel of another. Poli gave the
name Chimcera to the animal of this genus, and fully
treated its anatomical details, the illustration of which
occupies no less than four plates of his magnificent work.
But he denied it a foot (" pes nullus"), and stated that the
byssus issued from the base of an organ
e '
which he called
ligula." Another Neapolitan writer (Giannettasi) ,
although not also a naturalist, celebrated the Pinna at
great length in the eighth
book of his '
1. Pinna ru'dis*, Linne.
Halieuticon/
P. rudis, Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 1159. P. pectinata, F. & H. ii. p. 255, pi, xliii.
f. 1, 2, and pi. liii. f. 8.
Body large, reddish-brown or yellowish : cirri arranged in
two rows on the posterior margin of the mantle, and in one
only on the anterior margin :
foot conically subcylindrical, and
having a byssal groove at the posterior bend.
*
Bough.
f2