THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 51 
blood; hence it has acquired the name of bloody 
clam. 
A visit to the muscle-shoals, which are to be 
found on the borders of salt marshes, or where 
along inlets the muddy bottom is exposed for some 
time during low water, cannot but prove interest- 
ing and instructive. Two forms of muscle will 
very generally be found here, aggregated in large 
numbers and clusters. One of these, pointed and 
wedge-shaped in outline, with a dark blue epi- 
dermis and a purplish or horn-colored shell, is the 
edible muscle (Mytilus edulis), a common form of 
both the American and 2 
European coasts, and per- 
haps the most widely dis- 
tributed of all known 
Mollusea. It occurs in 
great clusters, matted to- EDIBLE’ MURCLE. 
gether by byssus, which also attaches it to stones, 
piles, wrecks, and floating bodies -of all sorts. 
Although more commonly an inhabitant of the 
tidal zone, it is also found in depths ranging to 300 
feet or more. This species has been put to little 
economical use in this country—although by many 
considered to excel in flavor the ordinary clam 
—hbut in various parts of Northern Europe it is 
esteemed a very desirable article of food. The 
annual muscle-consumption in the markets of 
Edinburgh and Leith is estimated at 400 bushels 
(about 400,000 muscles). In some of the German 
waters the muscle-fishery is conducted by placing 
boughs of trees in the shallows inhabited by the 
