COASTLINES 



water the action would have no effect on the mussel — it 

 would continue to cling tenaciously. Who has taught the 

 eider (which is a sea creature) the only way to release 

 itself from the mussel's grip? For there is only one way, 

 and this the eider takes. The bird is a sea-living creature, 

 and rarely except in the breeding season does it visit 

 fresh water. Yet if it gets a mussel clamped tightly on its 

 beak it will get away from the sea to the nearest stretch of 

 fresh water. There it will keep ducking its head : for the 

 mussel, which thrives in salt water, is killed by fresh water. 



So rich are the beds of mussels in many parts that it 

 is not thought necessary to cultivate them, although 

 experiments on the Lancashire coast and elsewhere have 

 shown that small, stunted mussels from overcrowded 

 areas grow to large marketable ones if transplanted to 

 other areas. 



On the west coast of France, in the shallow bay called 

 Anse de L'Aiguillon, they have been cultivated for 

 centuries. The system of breeding them goes back over 

 seven hundred years to the time when an Irishman 

 named Walton, voyaging in a small ship carrying sheep, 

 was wrecked there, in 1235. ^^ ^^^ the sheep were the 

 only survivors, and in trying to catch fish he discovered 

 that mussels covered his nets thickly because the nets 

 were raised above the mud, in which they would other- 

 wise have been smothered. Walton then began the 

 method of cultivation which has been carried on ever 

 since— using twigs fastened to stakes, to which the 

 mussels attach themselves. This is the "bouchot" system 

 — the boucholeurs pushing themselves out to the bou- 

 chots (stakes) in flat-bottomed boats with the help of one 

 foot encased in a large sea boot and swung over the side 

 of the boat. 



Mussels are no friends of oysters. They menace them 

 in a curious way, sometimes literally smothering oyster 

 beds with their accumulated masses, which bury the 

 oysters alive in a rock-like tomb. 



131 



