CULTIVATION OF THE MUSSEL IN FRANCE 



115 



many MoUusca, and it is more probable that a certain form 

 ot slow decomposition in some shell-fish develops an alkaloid 

 poison which is more harmful to some people than to others 

 just as some people can never digest any kind of shell-fish 1' 

 These alkaloid developments from putrescence are called 

 ptomaines. In confirmation of this view, reference may be 

 made to a case, taken from an Indian Scientific Journal in 

 which an officer, his wife, and household ate safely of a basket of 

 oysters for three days at almost every meal. The basket then 

 passed out of their Jiands, not yet exhausted of its contents and 

 a man who had already eaten of these oysters at the officer's 

 table was afterwards poisoned by some from the same basketful 



ihe cultivation ot the common mussel {Mytilus edulis L) is 

 not practised in this country, although it is used as food in the 

 natui-al state of growth all round our coasts. The French 

 appear to be the only nation who go in for extensive mussel 

 larming. The principal of these establishments is at a little 

 town called Esnaudes, not far from La Eochelle, and within 

 sight of the He de Ee and its celebrated oyster parks The 

 secret of the cultivation consists in the employment of 'bouchots' 

 or tall hurdles, which are planted in the mud of the foreshore' 

 and upon which the mussel {la moule, as the French call it) 



"'To. J^'" '""''^'"^ '' '^^^' ^° ^'^^^ b^^^^ "^^ented as long ago 

 as 1235 by a shipwrecked Irishman named Walton. He used 

 to hang a purse net to stakes, in the hope of capturing sea birds 

 He found however, that the mussels which attached themselves 

 to his stakes were a much more easily attainable som-ce of food 

 and he accordingly multiplied his stakes, out of which the 

 present 'louchot' system has developed. The shore is simplv a 

 stretch of liquid mud, and the bouchots are arranged in shape 

 like a single or double V, with the opening looking towards tlie 

 sea. The fishermen, in visiting the bouchots, glide about over 

 the mud in p^Toques or light flat-bottomed boats, propellino- 

 them by shoving the mud with their feet. Each bouchot is now 

 about 450 yards long, standing 6 feet out of the mud, makino- 

 l riT] '?'^^^ basket-work, and as there are altogether a^ 



!^1 ^1^/°^^^^^^ '^'^ '^'^^ mussel-bearing length of wall is 

 neaiiy ioU miles. 



' This is the view otE. Kay Lankester, Quart. Joum. Micr. Sc. xxvi 80 

 - De Quatrefages, Mambles of a Naturalist. 



