68 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



proves, without doubt, that shellfish cau be impreg- 

 nated with copper or other poisonous substances, 

 which probably would affect those who ate them. 

 Some persons consider that mussels are* unwholesome 

 if a small species of crab (Pinnotheres pisum, or 

 Pinnotheres veterum), which is sometimes found in 

 their shells, is not carefully taken out ; others, that 

 they are only fit for food in the winter months ; and 

 by some on account of their feeding on the spawn of 

 the star-fish, which is poisonous.* It is said that if a 

 silver spoon is boiled with the mussels, and it turns 

 black, it proves that they are poisonous, and not fit to 

 be eaten. But, whatever may be the cause of the 

 wholesale poisoning by these shellfish, they have been 

 the means of saving many poor from starvation in times 

 of scarcity. Mr. Patterson, of Belfast, in his ' Intro- 

 duction to Zoology/ mentions having been informed 

 by an old inhabitant of Holywood, near the above- 

 mentioned town, that in 1792, or 1793, there was a 

 great drought prevailing, which caused much distress, 

 and that in the month of June or July, twenty poor 

 families from the interior of the country encamped on 

 the roadside, near the beach to the west of Holywood, 

 remaining there about five weeks, subsisting partly 

 on such vegetable matter as they could pick up about 

 the hedgerows and fences, but principally upon 

 the mussels which are so abundant on the extensive 

 mud-banks of the neighbouring coast. No instance 

 of disease from this diet occurred, and during that 

 summer the poorer classes in the village appeared 

 quite as healthy as in other years, though mussels 

 formed their chief food. 



* ' British Conchology,' vol. i'i. p. 109. 



