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occurs. I have only seen three instances, and that on 

 large Mussels near low- water mark. 



Sea birds, Danish crows, and rats break the shell and 

 devour the Mussel. 



I consider the best and only way that existing natural 

 Mussel beds can be properly cultivated and protected, is to 

 make them the actual property of some one. If they are 

 allowed to be fished indiscriminately, they will quickly 

 become exhausted, as has been the case with hundreds of 

 natural scalps on the coast. 



Fifty years ago Mussels were very prolific on the East 

 Coast of England, and almost every small harbour had its 

 natural scalp outside, which fed the "lays" or fattening 

 grounds inside, to the great profit of the owners of such 

 lays. About that period some ill-starred individual dis- 

 covered they were valuable for manure, when commenced 

 a raid on the scalps, which is the origin of their present 

 downfall. I can remember, as a boy, seeing hundreds and 

 thousands of tons brought to land and sold to the farmers 

 for manure, at three-halfpence a bushel. 



An Act was passed by Parliament in 1868, called " The 

 Sea Fisheries Act, 1868," which enables the Board of Trade 

 to grant provisional orders to corporations and private indi- 

 viduals to regulate Oyster and Mussel fisheries ; but the 

 result, so far, has been very unsatisfactory. The reports 

 of Mr. H. Cholmondeley Pennell, and Mr. W. E. Hall, two 

 of the Inspectors of Fisheries, on the Oyster and Mussel 

 fisheries, at eighteen different stations, show the beds to be 

 worked in a very unsatisfactory manner. 



Mr. Hall reports in 1877, that the Boston Corporation 

 undertook to regulate the fishing in Boston Deeps in the 

 year 1870, so as to maintain the supply. The Oyster beds, 

 he states, remain in the state of denudation which chaiac- 



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