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On the Economical Uses of some species of Testacea. 253 
salt water ponds, (Bouchots) into which a certain quantity of fresh 
water is allowed to enter ; by which means they are improved both 
in size and flavor, ‘They are in season in the autumn. 
In Italy,. where, owing to the frequent fasts, shell fish enter more 
largely into the food of the people than elsewhere, this species is 
extremely plentiful. The sandy bed of the Mare Piccolo, on which 
stands the town of Taranto, is literally blackened by the muscles - 
which cover it. The boats that glide over its surface are laden with 
them ; they emboss the rocks which border the strand, and appear 
equally abundant on the shore, piled up in heaps, or packed in carts. 
_ They spawn on ropes, which are tied at intervals to poles stuck in 
the water, and these, when drawn out, exhibit the semblance of mas- 
sive festoons of carved ebony,.or brilliant black coral. When about 
the size of a small bean, they are plucked from the ropes, and scat- 
tered in different parts of the bay, whence, at the period of perfec- 
tion, they are collected by means of iron rakes and sent to market. 
They are generally to be met with in the New York markets, but 
the consumption is not large, neither is the fish so excellent as the 
European : they are common on the oyster beds and other parts of 
the bay. The shell differs from the British species in being flatter, 
not so much ridged, more angular, more extended at the larger end, 
more polished on the outside, and it seldom grows so large or thick, 
but it is probably only a variety. Some parts of the fish (and at cer- 
tain seasons all) are unwholesome, and there are instances where 
death has been caused by eating them: the shell was formerly in 
England occasionally used in a somewhat similar manner as that of 
Mya Pictorum, but otherwise it is of to value. 
Where they abound, the European oyster is said to be destroyed 
by them, but this is not yet thoroughly proved. In and, they 
are particularly plentiful on the western coast, and in some places 
are considered private property, and a revenue raised from them by 
making the fishermen pay a species of tax, or fixed rent for the 
quantity taken. They are enumerated by Holinshed among the 
shell fish in use in his time, and are in the present ings eaten by the 
inhabitants of the shores of the Black Sea.* 
* Donovan’s Br. Shells in loco. Hon. R. Keppel Craven’s Tour through = 
uthern Provinces ort the kingdom of ea PP- — Sinclair’s Statist. His 
of Scotland. de la France, &c. Vol. ; 
Holinshed’s Chronicles, Vol. i. :p. 378. Le Clere’s Histoire de la 
pp. : 
Russie, Vol. iv. p..2 
