MUSSELS. 259 
“Mussels are kept in many places in artificial 
beds, to be used when required for bait. At 
Anstruther, in Fifeshire, we have seen these ‘ mus- 
sel gardens,’ as they are called—little plots of sea- 
shore between tide-marks, edged in by stones, and 
held as private property. In Northumberland, 
Mr. Alder states, the fishermen build up piles of 
stones among the rocks, to keep their mussels 
sane. 
The Freshwater Mussel (Unio) has long been 
known as one of those shell-fish that produce 
pearls ; but those procured trom the present species 
are commonly small, ill-coloured, and of little value, 
though they have been at various times much 
sought for. The passage in Camden’s “ Britannia,” 
about the pearls in Cumberland, evidently refers 
to these. ‘ Higher up the little river that runs into 
the sea,...the shell-fish, having by a kind of 
irregular motion taken in the dew, which they 
are extremely fond of, are impregnated and _ pro- 
duce pearls, or to use the poet’s phrase, bacce 
cochlew, shell-berries, which the inhabitants, when 
the tide is out, search for, and our jewellers buy of 
the poor for a trifle, and sell again at a very great 
price.” The attempt to account for the origin of 
pearls by the drinking in of dew-drops, my readers 
may probably think more poetical than philosophi- 
cal. A very curious account of a recent pearl- 
fishery in North Wales is given by a correspondent 
in “ Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History’”’ for 
1830. The writer has confounded the Mytilus 
edulis with the Unio. To the latter only his remark 
on pearls “found up the river” applies. His ac- 
count is as follows, with some slight omissions :— 
* Brit. Mollusca, ii, 174, et seq. 
