238 Part III. — Twenty-fifth Annual Beport 



perhaps the best. They reach bait size quickly, and are eSnerally 

 allowed to fatten for a year, so that at four years they are ready to be 

 sold for bait or food, but are often kept until they are 5 or 6 years old." 

 The Budle Bay mussel is an excellent bait at 3 years of age (King). 



Transplanting.— In the Eden, Wilson says, the scaups are mostly 

 found on muddy flats, uncovered at low water. They are cropped in 

 rotation. The "seed" consisting of young mussels from g-inch to one 

 inch or thereabouts in length, are dredged from parts where they have 

 been deposited naturally. These have in many cases previously carried 

 a crop of mussels. The seed may, however, grow on places unadapted 

 for rearing saleable mussels. The rate of growth is very rapid, an inch 

 to an inch and a half in a year being no uncommon addition to the 

 length. It seems to be the case that the longer the mussels are dry 

 between tides the slower is their growth. The quickest growth is made 

 by those lying in the bed of the stream, where they are never uncovered ; 

 the higher the scaup the less chance of success. Some hurdles erected 

 for Professor M'Intosh in the Eden became densely covered with young 

 mussels. Mussels are commonly dredged in the Eden 4| inches in 

 length. 



According to Fullarton and Scott, " the bed of the river is a fruitful 

 source of seed at Montrose. Sometimes seed has been obtained by 

 taking quantities off the foreshore rocks. When the seed attains a 

 suitable size, 2-|-inch, about the size of an ordinary bean, it is dragged 

 from its bed by means of rakes into the cobles. If the mussels are left 

 long on a high bank they become stunted in appearance, and additions 

 take place to the shell in thickness rather than in length, the consequence 

 being that the mussel assumes an inelegant shape and a blunted aspect 

 at the posterior end, and instead of a brownish-black layer of periostra- 

 cum on the outside of the shell, a greyish coating there indicates the 

 dwarfing of the mussel. These mussels are locally known as 'crocks.' 

 When they are transferred to lower banks, and banks more within reach 

 of the tide, they soon begin to grow, and the capacity of the contained 

 space becomes enlarged. It is found that the time required for the seed 

 to mature and reach the bait size varies from three to eight years. On 

 one of the best banks it may grow to two inches or larger in three years 

 or so, but on most of the banks a much larger time is required. Severe 

 winters retard the growth of the mussel." 



On Budle Bay, Northumberland, King had some of the dwarf mussels 

 found on the rocks near the shore transplanted ; they were all failures. 

 He says that a mussel requires a twelve months' growth before it will 

 stand transplanting. 



Meek writes that at Montrose seed mussels, 2 to 3 years old, are lifted 

 from the channel and deposited on the bank, where they remain from 2 

 to 5 years more before they attain a saleable size. "In the Eden the 

 seed is taken from the higher and shoreward parts of the banks at 2 to 3 

 years old, and removed to suitable places near the channel, where it 

 requires 2^ to 3 years before it reaches bait size." 



Scott and Baxter describe transplanting operations which they carried 

 out at Morecambe. The mussels, which were small through overcrowding, 

 were removed to lower ground where they were practically always under 

 water, being only exposed for a short time at very low ebbs. " Many of 

 these mussels were what are locally known as ' blue-nebs ' — very old 

 mussels with thick shells of a dead-blue colour, much corroded, especially 

 in the hinge region, and having no epidermis on them. When the shell 

 is opened the animal is usually found to be thin and watery. These 

 mussels are commonly met with on the sea-shore. They are exposed to 

 the air for a long time between each period of high-water and are beyond 



