EDIBLE BIVALVES. 33 



branch has many offsets, the load will be enough for any one 

 man to carry.* 



The oyster is a bivalve shell, and there are many others of 

 this class which are edible ; indeed I know of none, with the 

 few occasional exceptions formerly mentioned, which are posi- 

 tively hurtful. The most valuable European species are the 

 mussel (Fig. 5, b) and the cockle. Large quantities of the 



Fig. 5. 



former are yearly taken from the shores to be used princi- 

 pally for bait ; but they are also often eaten, roasted or 

 pickled, or made to enter into the composition of sauces. 

 Their fishery occupies a considerable number of persons, 

 especially where the mussels have obtained a reputation for 

 superior excellence. This is the case with the mussels of 

 Buddie Bay, on the coast of Northumberland ; and those of 

 Isigny, near Bayeux, and of other places on the western coast 

 of France, are held in high estimation. Mussels, of however 

 inferior delicacy, are found in very great abundance on the 

 rocks which border the coast between Saint Malo and Can- 

 cale, in the department de la Manche, where they are torn 

 from their attachments by means of an iron hook at low water ; 

 and the annual profit of this fishery is estimated at from ,000 

 to 2,500 francs, -j- The cockle (Cardium edule, Fig. 5, a) is 

 in season from autumn to spring, and great numbers are con- 

 sumed in all our coastward towns and villages. J In Torbay, 



* Voy. au Senegal, 87. See more on edible mollusca in vol. i. of " The 

 Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle." 



t Lit. de la France, i. 173. For an account of the curious manner in 

 which mussels are propagated near Rochelle, and the importance attached to 

 the fishery there, see the Journ. de Physique, xciii. 196, &c. 



J " The cockle-beds at the mouth of the Tees have long afforded employ- 



