Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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But you may find cockles spoken of both in the masculine and feminine gender. Aristophanes says, in his Babylonians—

They all gaped on each other, and were like
To cockles (κόγχαι) roasted on the coals.

And Teleclides, in his Hesiodi, says, “Open a cocle (κόγχη);” and Sophron, in his Actresses, says—

And then the cockles (κόγχαι) as at one comma d
All yawned on us, and each display'd its flesh.

But Aeschylus uses the word κόγχος in the masculine gender, in his Glaucus Pontius, and says—

Cockles (κόγχοι) muscles, oysters.

And Aristonymus, in his Theseus, says—

There was a cockle (κόγχος) and other fish too drawn from the sea
At the same time, and by the same net.

And Phrynichus uses the word in the same way in his Satyrs. But Icesius, the Erasistratean, says that some cockles are rough, and some royal; and that the rough have a disagreeable juice, and afford but little nourishment, and are easily digested; and that people who are hunting for the purple-fish use them as bait: but of the smooth ones those are best which are the largest, in exact proportion to their size. And Hegesander, in his Memorials, says that the rough cockles are called by the Macedonians coryci, but by the Athenians crii.