

THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 51 



blood; hence it has acquired the name of bloody 

 clam. 



A visit to the muscle-shoals, which are to be 

 found on the borders of salt marshes, or where 

 along inlets the muddy bottom is exposed for some 

 time during low water, cannot but prove interest- 

 ing and instructive. Two forms of muscle will 

 very generally be found here, aggregated in large 

 numbers and clusters. One of these, pointed and 

 wedge-shaped in outline, with a dark blue epi- 

 dermis and a purplish or horn-colored shell, is the 

 edible muscle {Mytilus edulis), a common form of 

 both the American and 

 European coasts, and per- 

 haps the most widely dis- 

 tributed of all known 

 Mollusca. It occurs in 

 great clusters, matted to- Edible siuscle. 



gether by byssus, which also attaches it to stones, 

 piles, wrecks, and floating bodies of all sorts. 

 Although more commonly an inhabitant of the 

 tidal zone, it is also found in depths ranging to 300 

 feet or more. This species has been put to little 

 economical use in this country — although by many 

 considered to excel in flavor the ordinary clam 

 — but in various parts of Northern Europe it is 

 esteemed a very desirable article of food. The 

 annual muscle-consumption in the markets of 

 Edinburgh and Leith is estimated at 400 bushels 

 (about 400,000 muscles). In some of the German 

 waters the muscle-fishery is conducted by placing 

 boughs of trees in the shallows inhabited by the 



