NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MUSSEL 57 



Complaints as to Injury, occur very frequently, and 

 the practice, which is not uncommon, of throwing 

 star-fish overboard when sorting the lines on near- 

 ing harbour, is also severely condemned. 



The sea-urchin is believed by some to do 

 damage to mussel beds, but it does not occur with 

 great frequency between tide marks. 



The increased need for bait, and the lack of 

 proper protection, are without doubt the two 

 great causes of decline, the fishermen not being 

 sufficiently alive to the fact, that if a bed is 

 reduced by more than its average increase, a 

 process of depletion is started which can end only 

 in the ruin of the scalp. 



The natural position of many beds is such as to 

 lay them open to serious danger from floods, 

 shifting sands, gales, and frost. This is more 

 especially the case where the beds are situated 

 along the banks of a river-mouth and are long 

 exposed during low tide. A frost, if allowed to 

 act too long on scalps, weakens and paralyses the 

 mussels so that they lie with their shells open, 

 and a gale following the frost, a condition not 

 uncommon, raises silt in the broken water of the 

 rising tide, which is carried into and over the 

 mussels. Frost is, of course, more liable to have 



