AND LINE-FISHING 



the sand. As an article of food, these animals are prob- 

 ably as nourishing as oysters, though they are so often 

 said to be poisonous. Whether they are so, or not, must, 

 as with snails, depend largely upon the feeding ; a mussel 

 that has passed a good part of its life clinging to the 

 copper bottom of a liner can scarcely be wholesome as 

 food. In any case the fish should never be eaten during 

 the summer months. 



But why " go after " mussels when so many millions of 

 them are to be picked from rocks, breakwaters, and mud- 

 or shingle-banks ? 



The question is reasonable enough, though it would 

 never be asked by any one who had the least idea as to 

 the number of mussels that are used in the United 

 Kingdom alone, every year. Hundreds of thousands, not 

 of mussels, but of tons of mussels, are gathered annually 

 and sold ; and, absurd as it may sound, there is little 

 difference between the profits made on them and those 

 derived from the oyster-fishery. To France alone, the 

 Belgians export over twelve million francs'* (half a million 

 pounds 1 ) worth every year. 



Then who are the consumers ? 



The ground, in the first place ; all the small mussels, 

 and those which may have been tainted with sewage or 

 poisoned by the copper bottoms of ships, are sent away 

 by the barge-load for manure, or for lightening heavy 

 clay soil. 



Secondly, the poor. Apart from those mussels that 

 are eaten from choice, or those which the fisher-people 

 out of work are sometimes glad to make a dinner of, 



51 



