356 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
The mussels, like the oysters, are gregarious, and widely diffused 
over all European seas. They abound on both sides the Channel, 
their lower price having procured for them the name of “the poor 
man’s oyster ;” but it is infinitely less digestible and savoury than its 
congener. 
Many of our readers may think that mussels are found on the 
shore in a state of nature, of good size, well flavoured, and fit for the 
table. Nothing of the kind! Detached from the rocks and cliffs of 
Fig. 157.—Byssus, mantle, and oviduct of Mytilus. 
A, tight lobe of the mantle; p, rectum; G, branchia ; H, foot ; J, posterior muscle; L, superiar 
tube; 0, heart; p, ventricle; Q, auricle; x, pericardium; 4, tentacles; d, byssus; ¢, gland of 
the byssus ; g, retractile muscle of the foot ; %, valves of the mantle; z, oviduct ; 7, orifice of the 
excretory organ ; &, internal ditto. : 
the sea, where it has been growing in a natural state, itis lean, small, 
acrid, and unwholesome food; and it is only when human industry 
intervenes to ameliorate this child of Nature that it becomes palatable 
and wholesome food. In order to trace the ameliorative process by 
which the leathery flesh of the mussel is rendered tender, fat, and 
even savoury, we must conduct the reader back into the middle ages. 
Some time in 1236 a barque, freighted with sheep and manned 
by three Irishmen, struck upon the rocks in the creek of Aiguillon, 
a few miles distant from Rochelle. The neighbouring fishermen 
who came to the relief of the crew succeeded with great difficulty in 
saving the life of the master, a man named Walton. Exiled upon 
