Cockle shell

“ It lives in sand, and can bury itself so quickly that you would have to use your spade with all your might in order to keep pace with this little shell-fish. Where Cockles have buried themselves you will see spurts of water and sand, showing where they are busy down below in the wet sand.
Besides being so skilful at digging, the Cockle is a first-rate jumper. If left on the beach, it jumps over the sand, towards the sea, in the funniest way. It is strange to see a quiet-looking shell suddenly take to hopping and jumping like an acrobat. ”

“ Wherever the receding tide leaves an area of exposed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found; and hundreds of men, women, and children, may be seen plodding and groping over the stinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys, who vociferate all day long,—“Here’s your fine cockles, here! ”

“ Generic character: shell equivalve, convex, ribbed, striated, or grooved, the margin toothed: hinge with two teeth near the beak, and a lateral one on each side: fifty-four species.
"Observe how the beaks of this common Cardium, cockle, turn inwards, and the bosses project. Another striking character is the ribs, that are generally longitudinal, and not concentric or transverse, as in Tellìna, and, as you will see, in Venus. C. aculeatum has small spines on the valves; C. costatum, the ribbed cockle, is one of the finest species of this genus, and C. cardissa is a beautiful shell. ”

“ It is better to take the line and leave the shell. One form, indeed, that of the cockle, has been in all ages used as the decoration of half domes, which were named conchas from their shell form: and I believe the wrinkled lip of the cockle, so used, to have been the origin, in some parts of Europe at least, of the exuberant foliation of the round arch. The scallop also is a pretty radiant form, and mingles well with other symbols when it is needed. The crab is always as delightful as a grotesque, for here we suppose the beast inside the shell ”

“ A second change which takes place in the Baltic fauna and which may be correlated with the variation in salinity, is that the stenohaline forms of the marine fauna disappear altogether, while the euryhaline ones become dwarfed. Thus, the common cockle shell, Cardium edule, in the North Sea, of normal marine salinity, is the size of a small apple, at Stockholm, where the salinity is below 10 permille, the shell in the deeper, more saline water is only as large as a walnut and is even smaller along shore where the water is fresher. ”

“ After a few days, when the mantle bearing the shell valves has developed so much as to enclose the whole body, the young cockle sinks to the bottom and commences to follow the habits of the adult. The usual size of the cockle in its shell is from 1 to 2 in. in breadth.
The common cockle is regularly used as food by the poorer classes. It occurs in abundance on sandy shores in all estuaries. At the mouth of the Thames the gathering of cockles forms a considerable industry, especially at Leigh. On the coast of Lancashire also the fishery, if it may be so called, is of considerable importance. ”

“ By these slips, the rain which runs down the branches and stem of the tree, is conducted into the shells, and fills them at every considerable shower; and as each shell will contain two or three pints, forty or fifty thus placed under different trees will supply a good number of men. A pair of these cockle shells, bleached in the sun, weighed a hundred and one pounds; but still they were much inferior in size to some I have since seen.
The fruit of the pandanus, as it is used by these Indians and by the natives of Terra Australis, affords very little nourishment. ”

“ The outside of the shell, however, is always white and chalky-looking, and no one who saw the two valves fastened together as they are when the animal is alive would have the least idea how beautiful they really are.
This creature always lives buried in the sandy mud, just as the cockle does. It has a very powerful “foot,” by means of which it burrows, and two long and very slender siphon tubes. ”

“ Indeed the species is scarcely known elsewhere; so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savoury bonne bouche it is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton, a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially in matters relating to shells and shell-fish, says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the “red noses,” as they call the great cockles, and search for them at the low spring-tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. ”

“ Agnes now picked up another shell, and her mother smiled when she discovered that it was a Whelk, or Buckie. “My dear Agnes,” said she, “you certainly cannot boast of finding any very rare shells in your travels; for the whelk is nearly as common as the cockle. However, there is a material difference between them, for the whelk, or buccinum, is a univalve, that is, its shell is only in one part, like that of the snail. ”

“ THE LILY OF THE ENCHANTED SEA STORY OF NOORNA BIN NOORKA, THE GENIE KARAZ, AND THE PRINCESS OF OOLB THE WILES OF RABESQURAT THE PALACE OF AKLIS THE SONS OF AKLIS THE SWORD OF AKLIS THE LILY OF THE ENCHANTED SEA Now, after the cockle-shell had skimmed calmly awhile, it began to pitch and grew unquiet, and came upon a surging foam, pale, and with scintillating bubbles. The surges increased in volume, and boiled, hissing as with anger, like savage animals. Presently, the cockle-shell rose upon one very lofty swell, and Shibli Bagarag lost hold of it, and lo! ”

“ That higher forms of life than the sea-squirt and insect race are by no means exempt from the influence of retrogressive change is an observation worth noting at the close of our researches. We know, for instance, of lowly structures in shell-fish life appearing in the midst of highly organized frames. A mussel, a cockle, or an oyster, whose early development runs in parallel lines to that of the snail and whelk class, is nevertheless esteemed less highly organized than the latter. ”

“ Some of the “Cockles” (Cardiidæ) from warm latitudes are highly coloured and adorned with most beautiful sculpture. Probably the majority are eatable, as the common cockle (Cardium edule) of the British coast. ”

“ CONTENTS OF SHELL-MOUND.
The third shell in order, in this bank of shells, is the mussel, and then the cockle,—all edible. “There is evidence enough in these mounds,” says Dr. Gordon, “to show that they have been the work of man, and not the effect of any tidal current, or any other natural cause. The shell-fish which the remains represent are, with scarcely an exception, edible, and continue to be eaten to this day. In all deposits by the sea, there is abundance of species that have ever been rejected as food. The shells are full-grown, or adult shells. ”

“ The pinna has a smooth mouth; but the large oyster has a wide mouth, and is bivalve, and has a smooth shell. But the limpet is univalve, and has a smooth shell; and the mussel has a united shell. The solen and balanus are univalve, and have a smooth shell; and the cockle is a mixture of both kinds." Epænetus also says, in his Cookery Book, that the interior part of the pinna is called mecon. But in the fifth book of his treatise on the Parts of Animals, Aristotle says, "The purple-fish are born about spring, and the ceryces at the end of the winter. ”

“ A single small oyster shell, with a great number of cockle shells. (j) Two circular disks of shell, represented in figure 57, a, exhibiting the front and back view. The central part is of a deep reddish color, and is well polished. Each disk is 5 cm. in diameter and is perforated at the center. They were probably used as ear ornaments. Excavations were made in this mound to the ground level, but no additional objects were found in it.
Mound No. 17
Fig. ”

“ First scraping the mud and stones, so as to get down to the base of the fish, Mat placed the heavy spike against the shell, which Tim had graphically enough described as a huge cockle; such, indeed, it exactly resembled, but on a gigantic scale, measuring along the jaws over three feet ”

“ At 1 o'clock, being past the shoal and finding the tide setting to the westward, I anchored in 35 fathom, coarse sand with small coral and shells. Being nearest to Cockle Island I immediately sent both the boats thither; one to cut wood, and the other to fish. At 4 in the afternoon, having a small breeze at south-south-west, I made a sign for my boats to come aboard. They brought some wood and a few small cockles, none of them exceeding 10 pound weight; whereas the shell of the great one weighed 78 pound ”

“ But we must restrict our notice of this division to a few genera, that more space may be devoted to that important class, the Cephalopodous Mollusca.
The Cardium, Venus, and Mussel shells, are familiar examples of the Dimyaria. The conglomerates, now forming in the British Channel, from accumulations of the recent species of Cockle (C. edule) , have been previously noticed; see Lign. 124, p. 386. In the strata of England « 405 » there are upwards of thirty species: the Crag contains several, particularly a large and delicate shell, the Cardium Parkinsoni (Min. Conch. tab. 49) . ”

“ The Bessy—for so Ben Tripper had named his bawley, after his favourite sister—was lying on the mud just above Leigh. A fishy smell pervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vast heaps of white cockle-shells. These were dug [13] by the cocklers either from the sand at the end of the Canvey Island or on the Maplin Sands somewhere off Shoebury.
The large boats often return deeply laden with them. On reaching Leigh the cockles are thrown out in great heaps by the side of the creek, where they are covered at each tide. ”

“ In this way, too, some members of the genus solen force their way through the sand; while those called Tellina spring to a considerable distance, by first folding the foot into a small compass, and then suddenly expanding it, closing the shell at the same time with a loud snap; so that you see these sober-looking mollusks are sometimes frolicksome fellows; this is an enforcement of the lesson, judge not by appearances.
Some of the species, both of the Mussel and Cockle families, [54] have very beautiful shells. ”

“ For the long taper foot being thrust to its utmost, feels about for some resisting surface, that stone, half buried in the sand, for instance; which no sooner does it feel than the hooked point is pressed stiffly against it, the whole foot by muscular contraction is [Pg 95] made suddenly rigid, and the entire creature,—mantle, siphons, foot, shell and all—is jerked away in an uncouth manner, “quite permiscous,” as the fisherman hard-by says, to a distance of some foot or more. But the cockle can leap on occasion much more vigorously ”

“ And in Sophron cockles are called melænides.
For now melænides will come to us,
Sent from a narrow harbour.
And in the play which is called "The Clown and the Fisherman," they are called the cherambe. And Archilochus also mentions the cherambe: and Ibycus mentions the periwinkle. And the periwinkle is called both ἀναρίτης and ἀνάρτας. And the shell being something like that of a cockle, it sticks to the rocks, just as limpets do. But Herondas, in his Coadjutrixes, says—
Sticking to the rocks as a periwinkle. ”

“ Although so small compared with Cyprina, these shells may be identified by their clothing of epidermis, together with the family characteristics given above.
The Cyprinidæ also contains the interesting Heart Cockle (Isocardia cor) , the form of which is so characteristic that identification is easy. The heart-shaped shell is thick and strong, and is swollen out in such a manner that the umbones are wide apart. These latter are also curved into a spiral form, and the ligament between them is prominent. ”

“ In many of those objects, too, which the gilder prepares, the cockle-shells, or cockle-like scrolls and cups so prominently displayed might be as elegantly and more appropriately supported by well-devised groups of algæ than by lilies, fleurs-de-lys, or traceries of meaningless design.
One very pretty diminutive species of Fucus (F. canaliculatus) grows on the very edge of the tide, and often where the waves wet the rocks only with their spray. The chief crop grows certainly above the level of half-tide, and these plants show a preference for droughty situations ”

“ Their chief pastime is weighing each other, for which purpose they are liberally provided with scales. They can be captured by nets, or rods and lines, or, when they are cockles, they can be captured by the human hand, but, in this latter case, they cannot be tamed, having very little intelligence. The cockle has no scale, and feels the deprivation keenly, hiding himself deep in the sea and seldom venturing forth except at night-time. He is composed of two shells and a soft piece, is chiefly useful for poisoning children and is found at Sandymount, a place where nobody but a cockle would live. ”

“ Found in all harbours in the Province of Auckland, even up to high water mark, this greedy little animal, seldom more than an inch long, is well worth watching. In some localities, when a cart has been driven along a beach, the track, as soon as the tide reaches it, will swarm with the Cominella lurida. They are looking for cockles or other shellfish smashed by the wheel, and will even burrow in the sand to get at them. If you lift up a broken or injured cockle, some will cling to it with their rasp-like tongues till they are lifted out of the water. ”