BIVALVE MOLLUSCA. 361 
remarked that those which inhabit the upper rows of the wicker-work 
are of a mellower flavour than those on the lower ranks, and that the 
intermediate rows are an improvement on those which are buried in 
the mud, although éven these are preferable to mussels gathered on 
the sea-shore i in a state of nature. 
M. Coste gives a graphic description of the manner in which this 
industry is carried on. ‘‘ Having supplied the neighbouring villages,” 
he says, “for the purpose of supplying the more distant cities, the 
bouchotiers land their punts, filled with mussels, which their wives 
carry into grottoes hollowed out of the cliffs, where they clean and 
pack them in hampers, baskets, and panniers, for conveyance by 
carts or pack-horses. They depart on their respective journeys at 
night, so as to reach their markets at La Rochelle, Rochefort, 
Surgeres, Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Angouléme, Niort, Poitiers, Tours, 
Angers, and Saumur, at an early hour. A hundred and forty horses 
and ninety carts make upwards of 33,000 journeys annually to 
these cities. Besides this, forty or fifty boats come from Bordeaux, 
the isles of Ré and Oleron, and from the sands of Olonne, 
making an aggregate of 750 voyages per annum, distributing the 
harvest of the little bay at places where horses could not serve 
the purpose. 
“A bouchot, well furnished, supplies annually, according to the 
length of its wings, from 400 to 500 charges. The charge is 150 
kilogrammes (over 300 pounds), and sells for five francs; a single 
bouchot thus carries a harvest equal in weight to 130,000 to 140,000 
pounds, equal in value to A100; the whole bay probably yielding a 
gross revenue of £480,000, ‘This figure, and the abundant harvest 
which produces it, gives only a slight idea of the elementary resources 
of the sea-shore; and every part of the coast, properly adapted for 
the purpose, could be turned to equal advantage. In the meantime, 
the Bay of Aiguillon remains a monument of what one man may 
accomplish.” 
While commending the mussel as an important article of food, we 
must not conceal the fact that it has produced in certain persons 
very grave effects, showing that for them its flesh has the effects of 
poison. The symptoms, commonly observed two or three hours 
after the repast, are weakness or torpor, constriction of the throat and 
swelling of the head, accompanied by great thirst, nausea, frequent 
vomitings, and eruption of the skin and severe itching. 
The cause of these attacks is not very well ascertained ; they have 
in turn been ascribed to the presence of the coppery pyrites in the 
neighbourhood of the mussel; to certain small crabs which lodge 
