SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 187 



moorings. But though abundant chiefly on rocky 

 shores, yet we may find mussels, too, on low, rock- 

 less strands, lying about sometimes in such numbers 

 as to render the shore very unpleasant by their 

 decomposing masses. The peasants of many lands 

 are accustomed to eat them, though on the coasts 

 of Yorkshire the belief in their unwholesome pro- 

 perties is so general, that they are universally 

 rejected by the inhabitants. The fox is said some- 

 times, when pressed by hunger, to leave his lurking- 

 places and come down to the coast, to make a 

 meal of these and some other bivalve fish, which 

 he may chance to find there. Mussels are eaten, 

 too, by sea-birds, and are of great use as baits for 

 fish. They are certainly eaten, year after year, 

 with impunity by the people of some of our island 

 shores. That, however, the mussel is, under some 

 circumstances, of a deleterious nature, there are 

 too many well authenticated cases on record for 

 us to doubt. Dr. Combe gives an account of a 

 circumstance which occurred in the town of Leith, 

 in June. 1827, at which time numbers of poor 

 persons became ill in consequence of eating mussels 

 which they had gathered from the docks. So great 

 was the excitement occasioned in the town by this 

 event, that the magistrates issued orders, pro- 

 hibiting their use as food. About thirty persons 

 suffered from having partaken of them ; some were 

 severely affected, and two died. Some writers 

 have thought that the illness arising from eating 

 this food would not have occurred had not the 

 mussels been in a state of putrefaction; others 

 have ascribed it to the little crustacean, the pea 

 crab, often found in the shell of the mussel. There 

 is no doubt that the flesh of the mussel is at all 



