On the Economical Uses of some specie^ of Testacea. 253 



salt water ponds, (Bouchots) into which a certain quantity of fresh 

 water is allowed to enter ; by which means they are improved both 

 in size and flavor. They are in season in the autumn. 



In Italy, where, owing to the frequent fasts, shell fish enter more 

 largely into the food of the people than elsewhere, this species is 

 extremely plentiful. The sandy bed of the Mare Piccolo, on which 

 stands the town of Taranto, is literally blackened by the muscles 

 which cover it. The boats that glide over its surface are laden with 

 them ; they emboss the rocks which border the strand, and appear 

 equally abundant on the shore, piled up in heaps, or packed in carts. 

 They spawn on ropes, which are tied at intervals to poles stuck in 

 the water, and these, when drawn out, exhibit the semblance of mas- 

 sive festoons of carved ebony, or brilliant black coral. When about 

 the size of a small bean, they are plucked from the ropes, and scat- 

 tered in different parts of the bay, vi^hence, at the period of perfec- 

 tion, they are collected by means of iron rakes and sent to market. 

 They are generally to be met with in the New York markets, but 

 the consumption is not large, neither is the fish so excellent as the 

 European : they are common on the oyster beds and other parts of 

 the bay. The shell differs from the British species in being flatter, 

 not so much ridged, more angular, more extended at the larger end, 

 more polished on the outside, and it seldom grows so large or thick, 

 but it is probably only a variety. Some parts of the fish (and at cer- 

 tain seasons all) are unwholesome, and there are instances where 

 death has been caused by eating them : the shell was formerly in 

 England occasionally used in a somewhat similar manner as that of 

 Mya Pictorum, but otherwise it is of no value. ■ 



Where they abound, the European oyster is said to be destroyed 

 by them, but this is not yet thoroughly proved. In Scotland, they 

 are particularly plentiful on the western coast, and in some places 

 are considered private property, and a revenue raised from them by 

 making the fishermen pay a species of tax, or fixed rent for the 

 quantity taken. They are enumerated by Holinshed among the 

 shell fish in use in his time, and are in the present day eaten by the 

 inhabitants of the shores of the Black Sea.* 



* Donovan's Br. Shells in loco. Hon. R. Keppel Craven's Tour through the 

 Southern Provinces of the kingdom of Naples, pp. 183 — i. Sinclair's Statist. Hist, 

 of Scotland. Herbin's Statisiique generale et particulifere de la France, &c. Vol. i. 

 pp.384 — 6. Holinshed's Chronicles, Vol. i. p. 378. Le Clerc's Histoire de la 

 Russia, Vol. iv. p. 291. 



