BIVALVE MOLLUSC A. 



359 



covered with similiar bouchots. At the present time these lines of 

 hurdles form a perfect forest in the little creek. About 230,000 piles 

 support 125,000 fascines, which, according to M. Coste, "bend all 

 the year under a harvest which a squadron of ships of the line would 

 fail to float." There are about 500 of these bouchots in the bay, 

 each from 200 to 250 yards in length and six feet high. 



The isolated piles are without palisades, and are uncovered only 

 at spring tides. In the months of February and March the spat 

 collected on them scarcely equals in size a grain of linseed ; by the 



Fig. 159. Isolated Piles covered with the Spawn of Mussels. 



month of May it will be about the size of a split pea ; in July, a 

 small haricot bean : this is the moment for its transplantation. In 

 this month the bouchotiers as the men occupied in this culture are 

 called launch their punts, and proceed to the part of the bay where 

 these piles are driven. They detach with a hook the agglomerated 

 masses of young mussels, which they gather in baskets, and carry 

 them to their bouchots. These bouchots, that is to say, the piles 

 covered with fascines and branches, .are of four different heights, 

 forming, so to speak, four stages, according to the age and growth of 

 the mussel. Each stage receives the mollusc suitable to it. In the 

 first stage of its existence the mussel cannot endure exposure to the 



