BIVALVE MOLLUSCA. 359 
covered with similiar bouchots. At the present time these lines of 
hurdles form a perfect forest in the little creek. About 230,000 piles 
support 125,000 fascines, which, according to M. Coste, “ bend all 
the year under a harvest which a squadron of ships of the line would 
fail to float.” There are about 500 of these bouchots in the bay, 
each from 200 to 250 yards in length and six feet high. 
The isolated piles are without palisades, and are uncovered only 
at spring tides. In the months of February and March the spat 
collected on them scarcely equals in size a grain of linseed; by the 
Fig. 159.—Isolated Piles covered with the Spawn of Mussels. 
month of May it will be about the size of a split pea; in July, a 
small haricot bean: this is the moment for its transplantation. In 
this month the douchotiers—as the men occupied in this culture are 
called—launch their punts, and proceed to the part of the bay where 
these piles are driven. They detach with a hook the agglomerated 
masses of young mussels, which they gather in baskets, and carry 
them to their bouchots. These bouchots, that is to say, the piles 
covered with fascines and branches, are of four different heights, 
forming, so to speak, four stages, according to the age and growth of 
the mussel. Each stage receives the mollusc suitable to it. In the 
first stage of its existence the mussel cannot endure exposure to the 
