166 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



animal food, I have never known of their making use of these shellfish. 

 This is rather curious when they pick many smaller mollusks from the 

 rocks and esteem them. It looks as though for some peculiar and un- 

 known reason they have never taken to these mussels. 



Mr. W. O. Buck, Neosho, Mo. : It is traditional on the east coast, 

 passing down from the Indians, that mussels are poisonous, and they 

 have not been used for that reason. As Professor Field spoke of their 

 being poisonous under certain circumstances, it occurred to me to ask 

 if it is possible that there is a poisonous variety, or a season in which 

 mussels are poisonous? I suggest this to get at the origin of that 

 tradition. 



Professor Field : There is possibly a species of mussel that is 

 poisonous; but, as I have mentioned, if the mussels are not fresh they 

 give rise to serious digestive disorders, and one or two cases have 

 resulted in death. For instance, a great many years ago when Alaska 

 was under Russian control and Bernhoff was governor, there was a 

 party of 200 Aleuts who were collecting furs for him and camping on 

 the shore of Bering Straits. They saw mussels exposed above low- 

 tide mark, collected large quantities and ate them, and 150 of the 200 

 died before morning. The explanation was that these mussels were 

 exposed for a long time in the sunshine and had decayed. The liquor 

 in the mussel decays readily, and it was really a case of ptomaine 

 poisoning. You must be sure that a mussel is alive before cooking it. 

 It is like a lobster. Be sure your lobster is alive before you put it in 

 the pot. 



Mr. E. N. Carter, St. Johnsbury, Vermont: I have seen certain 

 Indians gathering mussels in great piles, wading out in the water, 

 getting and shelling them. The Indian women gather around the beds 

 in the river and scoop up the mussels, take them to shallow places, and 

 shell and eat them. 



Mr. Boardman : In connection with the mussel's spoiling, exposing 

 them to the sun is the way the oyster men have of killing them when 

 they are so thick on the oyster beds that they will smother the oysters. 

 It kills the mussels, not the oysters. 



Mr. Dyche : I would Hke to ask as to the difficulty of gathering and 

 preparing these mussels. 



Professor Field : It is much easier to collect mussels than oysters. 

 In fact you can go out with a pitchfork and load them in the boat 

 The difficulty comes in assorting them. As taken from the water they 

 are covered with mud and all hang together. In dredging you can 

 probably pick up greater quantities than of oysters at one set of the 

 dredge. I know of one case where the steamer Fish Hawk, dredging 

 in Vineyard Sound, took up one ton at one set. 



Mr. Dvche: How about the difficulty as compared with clams? 



Professor Field : It is much easier. You get clams one by one and 

 mussels you get by the pitchforkfull. You could load mussels into a 

 freight car as you would sand, if you could get the car to the proper 

 point. 



Mr. Ward T. Bower : Professor Field's remark in regard to the 



