IV CULTIVATION OF THE MUSSEL IN FRANCE II5 



many Mollusca, and it is more probable that a certain form of 

 slow decomposition in some shell-fish develops an alkaloid poison 

 which is more harmful to some people than to others, just as 

 some people can never digest any kind of shell-fish.^ These 

 alkaloid developments from putrescence are called ptomaines. 

 In confirmation of this view, reference may be made to a case, 

 taken from an Indian Scientific Journal, in which an officer, his 

 wife, and household ate safely of a basket of oysters for three 

 days at almost every meal. The basket then passed out of their 

 hands, not yet exhausted of its contents, and a man who had 

 already eaten of these oysters at the officer's table was after- 

 wards poisoned by some from the same basketful. 



The cultivation of the common mussel (^Mytilus edulis L.) is 

 not practised in this country, although it is used as food in the 

 natural state of growth all round our coasts. The French 

 appear to be the only nation who go in for extensive mussel 

 farming. The principal of these establishments is at a little 

 town called Esnaudes, not far from La Rochelle, and within 

 sight of the He de Re and its celebrated oyster parks. The 

 secret of the cultivation consists in the employment of 'bou- 

 chots,' or tall hurdles, which are planted in the mud of the 

 fore-shore, and upon which the mussel (la moule^ as the French 

 call it) grows. The method is said ^ to have been invented as 

 long ago as 1235 by a shipwrecked Irishman named Walton. 

 He used to hang a purse net to stakes, in the hope of capturing 

 sea birds. He found, however, that the mussels which attached 

 themselves to his stakes were a much more easily attainable 

 source of food, and he accordingly multiplied his stakes, out of 

 which the present ' bouchot ' system has developed. The shore 

 is simply a stretch of liquid mud, and the bouchots are arranged 

 in shape like a single or double V, with the opening looking 

 towards the sea. The fishermen, in visiting the bouchots, glide 

 about over the mud in piroques or light, flat-bottomed boats, 

 propelling them by shoving the mud with their feet. Each 

 bouchot is now about 450 yards long, standing 6 feet out of the 

 mud, making a strong wall of solid basket-work, and as there 

 are altogether at least 500 bouchots, the total mussel-bearing 

 length of wall is nearly 130 miles. 



1 This is the view of E. Ray Lankester, Quart. Journ. Micr. Sc. xxvi. 80. 



2 De Quatrefages, Rambles of a Naturalist 



