346 



THE OCEAN WOULD. 



and fifty of these small threads, with which the animal anchors itself 

 most securely to the rock. Aided hy this cordage, the mussel suspends 

 itself to vertical rocks, holding on a little ahove the surface of the 

 water, so that the shell is smooth and polished as compared with the 

 coarse and rugged shell of the oyster. 



The mussels, like the oysters, are gregarious, and widely diffused 

 over all European seas. They ahound on hoth sides the Channel, 

 their lower price having procured for them the name of " the poor 

 man's oyster;" but it is infinitely less digestible and savoury than its 



congener. 



o Q 



Fig. 158. Byssus, mantle, and oviduct. 



A, right lobe of the mantle; D, rectum; G, branchiae; H, foot; J, posterior muscle; L, superior tube; 

 o, heart; p, ventricle; Q, auricle; x, pericardium; b, tentacles; d, byssus; e, gland of the byssus; g, re- 

 tractile muscle of the foot ; h, valves of the mantle ; i, oviduct ; j, orifice of the excretory organ ; k, inter- 

 nal ditto. 



Many of our readers may think that mussels are found on the shore 

 in a state of nature, of good size, well flavoured, and fit for the table. 

 Nothing of the kind ! Detached from the rocks and cliffs of the sea, 

 where it has been growing in a natural state, it is lean, small, acrid, 

 and unwholesome food ; and it is only when human industry inter- 

 venes to ameliorate this child of Nature that it becomes palatable and 

 wholesome food. In order to trace the ameliorative process by which 

 the coriaceous flesh of the mussel was rendered tender, fat, and even 

 savoury, we must conduct the reader back into the middle ages. 



Some time in 1236 a barque, freighted with sheep and manned by 

 three Irishmen, came to grief upon the rocks in the creek of Aiguillon, 

 a few miles from Eochelle. The neighbouring fishermen who came 



