258 DIMYARIA.—MYTILIDA. 
used as bait for all sorts of fish, especially had- 
docks, cod, ling, halibut, plaice, skate, whiting, &c. 
In Newhaven alone there are four large deep-sea. 
fishing-boats, which generally go out three times 
a-week, and fish for about thirty weeks in the year, 
excluding Sundays and bad weather. Hach of 
these large. boats carries eight men, with eight 
lines of 800 yards in length, which, at a low calcu- 
lation, take 1,200 mussels to bait each time they 
are used; so that each large boat will use 28,800 
mussels per week, equal to 864,000 per annum. But 
there are about sixteen other smaller boats, which 
go out daily, or rather at 12 o’clock every night, for 
about the same number of weeks in the year. 
Each carries four men, with four lines 800 yards 
long. ‘Their consumption of mussels will come to 
3,456,000. The total consumption of mussels for 
bait annually in Newhaven alone may be reckoned 
at 4,320,000. As there are nearly as many used 
at Musselburgh, and Fisherrow, Buckhaven, Elie, 
Anstruther, Pittenweem, Crail, and other places on 
the Frith of Forth, we may calculate that thirty or 
forty millions of mussels are used for bait alone by 
the fishermen of this district each year. Numbers 
come from the river Eden-on-Fife, and are sold at 
25s. per cask. The best mussels at Newhaven are 
got directly north of the Pier, in three fathoms 
water, and are sold at 8d. per basket, each contain- 
ing nearly a bushel. ‘The beds are private pro- 
perty, and some of them having been injudiciously 
or avariciously exhausted, the number of mussels 
in the Forth has decreased, and the price increased, 
within the last ten years.’ 
The eminent authors of the work just cited fur- 
nish us with some other particulars of interest. 
