The Mussels and Rock-eaters 



exposes the piers with their dingy incrustations of barnacles and 

 black mussels of all sizes. Every fugitive timber, afloat or sunken, 

 is coated. Vessels at anchor soon become loaded. 



The young are numberless. At breeding time the mantle 

 of the adult becomes transformed into brood chambers. The 

 enormous development of the reproductive organs minimises 

 all others. The minute yellow eggs seem to fill all the space be- 

 tween the valves. The "fry" settle upon any support that 

 oflFers, to save themselves from suffocation in the soft mud. 



We Americans do not eat mussels to any extent. They 

 are in the fish markets because the foreign population demand 

 them. In Europe they are rated a staple sea food, and consign- 

 ments are shipped inland, as clams and oysters are in this coun- 

 try. In the Bay of Kiel it is a regular practice to put down 

 branches of elm and other suitable trees. In a few years these 

 boughs are taken up, laden with fme, large mussels. 



Mussel-farming is carried on by the French who set tall 

 stakes in the liquid mud with six feet exposed at low water. 

 Basket work connects the stakes, and mussels cover the whole. 

 They require less care than oysters, but are very sensitive to 

 cold. Acres are sometimes killed by a single gale. As every 

 yard of the basket-work, called houchots, is calculated to yield 

 a cartload of mussels, worth six francs, the profit of mussel cul- 

 ture can be guessed at. The most important "farm" has a total 

 mussel-bearing surface amounting to somewhat over one hundred 

 square miles. 



The old tale that the Bideford bridge is held together by the 

 network spun by mussels has a grain of truth in a husk of fable. 

 It is true that the town council, believing that the masses of mus- 

 sels protect the foundations from being undermined by the tide, 

 has forbidden the taking of mussels from this place. Mussel 

 beds in various places act as barriers, protecting lowlands from 

 inundation. An artificial jetty is soon loaded with mussels and 

 filled with silt, which year by year increase its stability and 

 efficiency as a breakwater. 



The Indians gathered mussels for food, and the colonists 

 did likewise, but learned soon that clams and oysters were better 

 food. The scow-loads of young mussels dredged or raked from 

 beds along the coasts of New England and Long Island are sold 

 to farmers who spread them as fertilizer on their fields. For 



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