202 Mussels 9 Size, Food, Markets. 



is here excluded. It only perchance in a desultory manner 

 forms part of a consignment despatched to market. The 

 smallest we have met with in their living habitat have been 

 (supra) almost microscopic, or little more than visible to the 

 naked eye. There are abundance of seed size bean length to 

 an inch upwards to the other sizes above given. The very 

 largest and not many of them seldom more than 3| to 4 

 inches. Wilson (I.e.} says : examples measuring 4| inches are 

 commonly dredged near St. Andrews. 



The mussels which are raised in our District, be it observed, 

 are chiefly intended and ostensibly sent to London for culinary 

 purposes. Only to a very limited extent are they used as bait 

 for local line fishing say, at Margate, Deal, Dover, Folkestone 

 and Harwich. London is the principal market for the matured 

 mussels, though we understand that considerable consignments 

 of seed mussels at times are sent to Holland, the fresh produce 

 of the Whitstable dredgers on the Kentish Flats and the 

 Blackwater. As already indicated, hundreds of tons are 

 dredged, mostly by the Faversham and Rochester boats in the 

 Thames mouth and sold to the Kentish farmers for manure. 

 In like manner, Brightlingsea craft supply Essex's agricultural 

 wants. 



Concerning the food of the mussel, it is nearly similar 

 to that of the oyster; but, possibly, at least in our Thames 

 examples, there seems to be more comminuted vegetable 

 material and sandy mud in the former than in the latter. 

 Otherwise expressed, the mussel is the grosser feeder of the 

 two. Whilst sand is not infrequently fatal to the oyster, the 

 mussel doubtless possesses a greater power of getting rid of it,* 

 while accumulating mud around. 



Species and Varieties. So far as our fisheries are concerned, 

 the (1) COMMON MUSSEL (if. edulis) is the all-important one. 

 But there are several other sorts, recognised by naturalists, 

 which are found here and there, and some of them ordinarily 



* See "Researches of Viallanes," quoted by Ascroft, " Mussel Beds and Mud 

 Banks," Rep. Lancashire S. F. Labor, for 1898. 



