= [25] OYSTER AND MUSSEL INDUSTRIES. 849 
to explore, at low water, the Bay of Aiguillon, and which enabled him 
to carry out plans and perform work which, without its aid, he could 
never have undertaken with such a muddy and mobile surface to contend 
against. Besides, this apparatus is to this day of prime necessity in the 
business. The inhabitants of Esnandes, Charron, and Marsilly not only 
use them to bring in their mussels, or to keep up their colonies, but they 
also transport in them all the wood with which they build their inclos- 
ures and palisades. In such a case a single canoe is not enough; they 
join three together abreast, tying them in front and behind with cords, 
which they pass through holes prepared for the purpose, then, loading 
the stakes and the branches on the middle canoe, they take positions 
on those at the sides, and push, one with his right leg the other with his 
left, by their united efforts directing the cargo toward the place of its 
destination. The alder and the snow-ball (obier), one employed for the 
thatching, the other for the stakes, are the only kinds of wood used in 
constructing the bouchots. 
There is one season of the year when it would be very difficult to pro- 
pel these canoes but for the timely assistance of a small crustacean, the 
Corophium longicornis, which, in following marine worms upon which he 
feeds, smooths the irregularities and rough places in the mud, which, 
hardened by the rays of the sun, would otherwise offer great obstacles 
to the movements of the fishermen. 
‘What a thousand men,” says M. d’Orbigny, sr., ‘could not effect 
in the whole summer, is performed in a few weeks by the hordes of 
these little animals, scarcely 4 lines in length and a line and a half in 
diameter; they fill up the fissures, and smooth the surface; they loosen 
the mud which is carried out of the bouchots and even out of the bay 
by the sea at each tide; and, but a short time after their arrival, the 
marshes present aS smooth a surface as at the close of the preceding 
autumn. 
‘““The Corophies first appear towards the end of April; about this time 
also the burrows of which I have spoken are inhabited by innumerable 
annelids of many species. All these marine worms, which appear in the 
month of March, as soon as the tide begins to cover them, hold them- 
selves in readiness at the openings of their retreats to seize the animal- 
cule which are floating by, secreting themselves and sinking in the mud; 
but as soon as their enemies come they are seen no more. The Corophies, 
which are very fond of them, wage upon them a war of extermination ; 
they pursue them incessantly, even in their retreats in the depths. 
Nothing is more interesting for the observer thap to see these little 
crustaceans at the rising tide moving about in all directions, striking the 
mud with their long antenne, beating it to discover their prey. Should 
they meet a Nereis, an Amphitrite, an Arenicola, frequently a hundred 
times their own size, they unite and seem to act in concert in attacking, 
killing, and devouring it, continuing the carnage until they have searched 
everywhere and nothing remains to satisfy their voracity. 
S. Mis. 29 54 
