MYTILUS. 109 



ling/' being evidently a corruption of the Icelandic 

 word " Krseklingur," having the same signification. The 

 hinge-teeth are usually three or four only. The shell is 

 often distorted. 



The mussel has been from time immemorial a fa- 

 vourite article of food in this and other maritime coun- 

 tries. Pennant, after a preface of " Ne fraudentur 

 gloria sua littora," especially praises those from Lan- 

 cashire. Large quantities are regularly brought to 

 Billingsgate from the Dutch coast. A small kind, 

 called in Brittany " Cayeu," is chiefly in request there, 

 being esteemed more delicate and digestible. " Potage 

 aux moules " is by no means to be despised at the table 

 d'hote of the Hotel de PEpee at Quimper. Herr 

 Adolphe Meyer informs me that boughs of elm and 

 other trees are laid down in the Bay of Kiel, and taken 

 up at the end of three, four, or five years, between 

 December and March, being then covered with fine 

 mussels. These laden boughs are sold by weight, and 

 the shell-harvest is sent into the interior of Germany, 

 where it is in great request. He adds that the mussel 

 is not reckoned wholesome in summer. Many cases of 

 serious illness, and even of death, have resulted from its 

 occasionally deleterious qualities. " The faculty " seem 

 to be completely at fault as to the nature of this poison. 

 By some it is attributed to the mussels living among 

 putrescent matters, as in docks and near the outlet of 

 public sewers ; by others to their feeding on the spawn 

 of starfish, which are well known to be poisonous ; by 

 others to their being too freely eaten and causing a sur- 

 feit, or to a morbid state of the system in the persons 

 eating them ; by a few to their imbibing into their 

 tissues a solution of copper; and Delle Chiaje showed 

 that in many instances it was owing to these mollusks 



