90 THE SEA-SIDE AND AQUARIUM. 



Many readers are probably unacquainted with the 

 great consumption of the Mussel as bait. The follow- 

 ing extract may be interesting: "In Newhaven 

 alone there are four large deep-sea fishing-boats, which 

 generally go out three times a week, and fish for 

 about thirty weeks in the year, excluding Sundays 

 and bad weather. Each of these large boats carries 

 eight men, with eight lines of 800 yards in length, 

 which, at a low calculation, take 1200 mussels to bait 

 each time that they are so used; so that each large 

 boat will use 28,800 mussels per week, equal to 

 864,000 per annum. But there are about sixteen 

 other smaller boats, which go out daily, or rather at 

 twelve o'clock every night, for about the same number 

 of weeks in the year. Each carries four men, with 

 four lines 800 yards long ; their consumption of mus- 

 sels will come to 3,456,000. The total consumption 

 for bait annually, in Newhaven alone, may be reckoned 

 at 4,320,000. As there are nearly as many used at 

 Musselburgh and Fisherrow, Buckhaven, Elie, An- 

 struther, Pittenweem, Crail, and other places on the 

 Frith of Forth, we may calculate that thirty or forty 

 millions of mussels are used for bait alone by the fisher- 

 men of this district each year. As an article of food, 

 there cannot be used fewer than ten bushels per week 

 in Edinburgh and Leith, say forty weeks in the year ; 

 in all 400 bushels annually. Each bushel of mussels, 

 when shelled and freed from all refuse, will probably 

 contain from three to four pints of the animals, or 

 about 900 or 1000, according to size. Taking the 



