MUSSEL CULTURE. 



129 



sand, whence escape at intervals bubbles of air. In order to attract them to the sur- 

 face, the fishermen throw into the hole a pinch of salt ; the sand immediately becomes 

 stirred, and the animal presents itself just above the point of its shell. It must be seized 

 at once, for it disappears again very quickly, and no renewed efforts will bring it to the 



THE RAZOR FISH (Solen 



surface a second time. Its retreat is commonly cut short by a knife being passed below 

 it ; for it burrows into the ground with such velocity that it is difficult to capture it with 

 the hand alone. The fish itself is a kind of marine worm/' 



But of the Acephalous Mollusca none are more important to man than the mussel 

 and oyster, the pearl-bearing varieties of which latter have been already considered. Both 

 are familiar to every reader. 



The Mytilus edulis, the edible mussel of commerce, the "poor man's oyster/' is 

 provided with a byssus, a bundle of hairs or threads, by which it can anchor to the rock. 

 In its natural state it is much less fitted for human food than when cultivated. Their civi- 

 lisation, as it might be termed, dates back to the year 1236, when the master of a barque, 

 an Irishman named Walton, was wrecked in the bay or creek of Aiguillon, a few miles 

 distant from Rochelle. The exile at first supported himself by hunting sea-fowl in the 

 neighbouring marshes, where he also soon began, being an observant man, to notice certain 

 peculiarities of mussel life. 



"Walton remarked that many of the mussels attached themselves by preference to that 

 part of posts or stones a little above the mud of the marshes, and that those so situ- 

 ated soon became plumper and fatter, and more suitable for edible purposes, than those 

 buried in the mud. He soon saw the possibilities of a new branch of industry. " The 

 practices he introduced," wrote a distin- 

 guished French writer, long ago, " were 

 so happily adapted to the requirements 

 of the new industry, that, after six cen- 

 turies, they are still the rules by which 

 the rich patrimony he created for a 

 numerous population is governed." He 

 placed long rows of twelve-foot posts, 

 about six feet high out of the watery 

 mud, and a yard apart, each pair of 

 which always formed a letter V; in other words, a number of them radiated from 

 a common centre. The posts were interlaced with a basket-work of branches, so as to 

 form continuous hurdles ; these are now termed bouchots. He also had isolated posts, 

 and one of his great ideas was, as in oyster culture to-day, to arrest the spat, which 

 137 



THE MUSSEL (Myt'ilus edulis). 



