The Harvest of the Sea / A contribution to the natural and economic history of the British food fishes

by James Glass Bertram

During the past two or three summers the early industry of pearl-seeking has been very successfully revived in Scotland, chiefly through the exertions of Mr. Moritz Unger, a dealer in gems residing in Edinburgh. That gentleman having, in the way of his trade, occasionally fallen in with pearls said to be obtained in Scottish rivers, was so struck with their great beauty that he determined to set about their collection in a more systematic way. At that time there was in Scotland only one professed fisher for pearls, who lived at Killin, and whose stock was principally bought up by the late Marquis of Breadalbane. Mr. Unger, having in view the extension of the trade, travelled over the whole country, and announced his intention of buying, at a fixed scale of prices, all the pearls he could obtain—taking possession, in the meantime, of such gems as he could get from the peasantry, and paying them a liberal price. The consequence is, that now, instead of there being but one professed pearl-seeker in Scotland, there are hundreds who cling to pearl-fishing as their sole occupation, and, being sober and industrious men, they make a good living by it.

The Scotch pearls were, in the middle ages, celebrated all over Europe for their size and beauty. Just one hundred years ago—between the years 1761 and 1764—pearls to the value of £10,000 were sent to London from the rivers Tay and Isla; but the trade carried on in the corresponding years of this century is far more than double that amount. Mr. Unger estimates the pearls found last summer (1864) to be of the value to the finders of about £10,000; whereas, on his first tour, he bought up, four years ago, all that were to be had for the sum of £40. Single specimens have recently been found worth as much as £60.

From the middle of last century till about 1860 the Scottish pearl-fisheries were quite neglected, and large pearls were found only as it were by accident in occasional dry seasons, when the rivers were scant of water, and the mussels were consequently accessible without much trouble. It was left for Mr. Unger to discern the capabilities of the Scottish pearl as an ornamental gem of great value; and it is now a fact that the beautiful pink-hued pearls of our Scottish streams are admired even beyond the Oriental pearls of Ceylon. The Empress Eugenie, Queen Victoria, and other royal ladies, as well as many of the nobility, have been making large purchases of these Scottish gems. In some rural districts the peasantry are making little fortunes by pearl-seeking for only a few hours a day. Many of the undemonstrative weavers and cobblers, whose residence is near a pearl-producing stream, contrive, in the early morning, or after the usual day’s work, to step out and gather a few hundreds of the pearl-containing mussels, in which they are almost sure to find a few gems of more or less value. The pearl-fisher requires no capital to set him up in his trade; he needs no costly instruments, but has only to wade into the stream, put forth his hand, and gather what he finds.

An intelligent pearl-fisher, who resides near the river Doon, has sent me the following graphic account of what he calls “the pearl fever:”—“For many years back the boys were in the habit of amusing themselves in the summer-time, when the water was shallow, by gathering mussels and searching them for pearls, having heard somehow that money could be obtained for them; but they often enough found that, however difficult it might be to secure the pearl, it was still more difficult to get it converted into cash—threepence, sixpence, or a shilling, being the ordinary run of prices, buyers and sellers being alike ignorant of the commodity in which they were dealing. It was not until the middle of the summer of 1863 that the fever of pearl-seeking broke out thoroughly on the banks of the classic Doon. The weather had been uncommonly dry for some time, and the river had in many places become extremely shallow; some of the women and children had been employing their spare time in gathering mussels and opening them, and few of those who had given it a trial failed to become the possessors of one or more pearls. Just then Mr. Unger made his appearance, and bought up all he could get at prices which perfectly startled the people; and, as a consequence, young and old, male and female, rushed like ducks to the water, and waded, dived, and swam, till the excitement became so intense as to be called by many the ‘pearl fever.’ The banks of the river for some time presented an extraordinary scene. Here a solitary female, very lightly clad indeed, is seen wading up to the breast, and as she stoops to pick up a mussel, her head is of necessity immersed in the water. Having got hold of a shell she throws it on to the opposite bank and stoops for another, and in this manner secures as many as her apron will hold, and carries them home to find that, very likely, she has more blanks than prizes among them. There, in a shallow part of the stream, a swarm of boys are trying their fortune; there is a great degree of impatience in their mode of fishing, for each shell is opened and examined so soon as it is lifted. A little above them are two scantily-clad females earnestly at work; one of them is actually stone blind, but she gropes with her naked feet for a shell, then picks it up with her hand, carefully opens it with a stout knife, and with her thumb feels every part of its interior. She has been pretty successful, and her tidy dress when she is resting from her labour betokens the good use she makes of the proceeds of her fishing. The spectator may next pass through the crowds of men, women, and boys similarly employed, where the grassy banks are reddened by the constant tread of many feet, and the smell of heaps upon heaps of putrid mussels tells the magnitude of the slaughter. The eye is then attracted by the sight of a man on crutches making for the river. He soon gets seated on the right bank of the stream, where his better half, in water almost beyond her depth, is gathering from the bottom of the muddy and all but stagnant part of the river a quantity of shells for him to examine. Nor were the labours of this couple unrewarded; by their united exertions they earned in a few weeks somewhat above £8, and so little idea had they of the value of the pearls, that on one occasion when they expected about 15s. for a few they had despatched to the collector, they were agreeably surprised at the receipt of three times the amount by return of post. It was found that the fishing was most successful where the river was deep and its motion sluggish. To get at the mussels in such places, large iron rakes, with long teeth and handles about twenty feet in length, were procured, and by means of these some of the deepest parts of the river were dragged and some valuable pearls secured; many of which were disposed of at £1 each, others at 25s., and one at £2; while a great number ranged from 7s. 6d. to 15s. each. But by far the greater portion were either entirely useless, or on account of their smallness, bad shape, or colour, were parted with for a mere trifle. Some idea of the extent of the pearl-fishery in 1863 of this one river may be gathered from the fact that Mr. Unger paid to those engaged in it a sum exceeding £150 for each month the fishing lasted; and a goodly number of pearls were disposed of to private individuals in the vicinity for their own special use, besides those that found their way into the markets. During the continuance of the fishery the general cry was that so much exposure of the body was likely to introduce a variety of diseases such as had not hitherto been known in the place; but no such effects made their appearance. And though there were exceptional cases where the extra cash (for it was like found money) obtained for the pearls was worse than wasted, there are many who can point to a new suit of clothes or a good lever watch, when asked what they had to show as the reward of the many cold drenchings they got while dredging the Doon for pearls.”

In 1863 a controversy arose as to which rivers produced the best pearls, and it was then argued that only in those streams issuing from lochs was a continuous supply of the pearl-mussel to be found, and although there are a few pearl streams which take their rise in some little spring and gather volume as they flow, yet their number, as far as is known, is only four—viz. the Ugie, Ythan, Don, and Isla—and even these are now (1865) very nearly exhausted. Many of the finest gems have been found in the Doon, Teith, Forth, Earn, Tay, Lyon, Spey, Conan, etc. etc. Until this summer (1865) it has been supposed that the lochs are the natural reservoirs of the pearl-mussel, and when in 1860-1 a portion of Loch Venachar was laid dry for the purpose of building a sluice for the Glasgow Waterworks, innumerable shells were found, from which the labourers gathered a great many very fine pearls. The above theory was thereby so much confirmed that Mr. Unger was induced in 1864 to try further experiments on Lochs Venachar, Achray, and Lubnaig, by means of dredging, which, considering the rough mode of procedure, was so successful, especially on a place called Lynn Achore, at the east end of Loch Venachar, that he at last considered himself justified in incurring considerable expense. Accordingly he procured this summer (1865) one of Siebes’ diving apparatus, and bringing down one of the best divers from London, proceeded to search the bottoms of several lochs on a systematic plan. Many obstacles were thrown in Mr. Unger’s way by the proprietors, and although he was particularly anxious to experiment on Loch Tay, the present Earl of Breadalbane would not grant permission for him to do so. But with the consent of the Earl of Moray the first regular trial was made on Loch Venachar, and it was ascertained beyond a doubt that shells were to be found in all the sandy shallow parts of the loch; not however in beds, as people were led to suppose from dredging experiments, but only here and there in clusters of a dozen or so, except at the mouth of the loch, where they were more extensive and in larger quantities. The diver also went down in various parts of the loch to the depth of a hundred feet, where it was found to be quite impracticable to search for anything so small as a pearl-mussel on account of the thick muddy bottom. Mr. Unger, nothing daunted by this partial failure, went to Sir Robert Menzies, who not only consented at once to his trying Loch Rannoch, but generously placed all available boats and utensils, besides the service of several men, at his disposal; after a week’s trial, however, Mr. Unger was reluctantly compelled for the present to desist from any further experiments.

Pearls are found in many of the Irish and Welsh rivers, and Mr. Unger now receives constant accessions to his stock from the north of Ireland. The Conway was noted for pearls in the days of Camden. The pearl-mussels are called by the Welsh “Deluge shells,” and are thought by the ignorant to have been left by the Flood. The river Irt, in Cumberland, was also at one time a famous stream for pearls; and during last century several pearls were found in the streams of Ireland, particularly in the counties of Tyrone and Donegal. We read of specimens that fetched sums varying from £4 to £80.

If my readers be curious to know how many shells will have to be opened before this toil is rewarded with a find of pearls, let them be told that, on the average, the searcher never opens a hundred mussels without being made happy with a few of the gems. It is remarked that they are more certain to have pearls when they are taken from the stony places of the river. Thousands of mussels have been found in the sand, but these have rarely if ever contained a single pearl; whilst the shells again that are found in soft and muddy bottoms have plenty of gems, but they are poor in quality and bad in colour. No pearls are ever found in a young shell, and all such may at once be rejected. A skilful operator opens the mussel with a shell, in order to avoid scratching the pearl; the opened fish is thrown into the water, and it is either the mussels or the insects gathering about them that are greedily devoured by the salmon and other fish, so that those proprietors of streams who were becoming uneasy as to the effects of the pearl-fishery on the salmon may set their minds at rest. Although at one time none of the London dealers in gems would look at a Scotch pearl, it is an interesting fact that now the fame of the Scottish fisheries has so extended as to bring buyers from France and other Continental countries; and, as boats and dredges are now being introduced, it is thought that any moderate demand may be supplied. Great quantities of pearls have been sent to the collector through the post-office.

An Ayrshire paper says of the Doon fishery:—“That owing to the wholesale slaughter of the mussels last season, the pearl-fishing this summer (1864) in the river Doon has been neither so exciting nor remunerative. Few have paid much attention to it; but even amongst those few rather more than £100 has been obtained for pearls since the month of May, there being more than one individual who has earned at least £13 during that period, having followed their avocation daily, whilst the pearl-fishing was engaged in as a profitable recreation. As a whole the pearls of the river Doon are of an inferior quality, £2 being about the highest price at which any of them have been sold; these weighed from eight to twelve grains, but were far from being very bright in colour. ‘It is all a matter of chance,’ say some of the pearl-fishers; ‘you may fish a whole day and not make sixpence, and one worth a pound may be, yea has been, found in the second shell.’” Such things have frequently happened, but the earnest plodding fisher has always been handsomely paid for his work. Though on an average a pearl is found in every thirty shells, only one pearl in every ten is fit for the market. It will thus be seen that one hundred and thirty shells have to be gathered, opened, and examined, and one hundred and thirty lives sacrificed, in order to secure one marketable pearl.[16]

It is not unlikely that the present mania for pearl-gathering may very speedily exhaust the supply of mussels. The energy with which the fishing is carried on undoubtedly points to a very speedy diminution of a shell-fish which was never very plentiful, and it would be a very good plan to try the system of culture on hurdles which has been found so successful for the growth of the edible mussel of the Bay of Aiguillon, to be now described.