278 AIGUILLON. 



matters are managed in France, and how they may ohviate the 

 labour and expense connected with bait buying or gathering, by 

 growing such a crop of mussels as would not only suflSce for an 

 abundant supply of bait, but produce a large quantity for sale 

 as well 



It is no exaggeration to say that, although the British 

 people are shy of eating the mussel, except when it is cooked 

 for sauce — and a very excellent sauce it makes — countless 

 millions are annually required by our fishermen for bait. There 

 is one little fishing-village in Scotland which I know, from 

 personal investigation, uses for its own share, for the baiting of 

 the deep-sea lines required in the cod and haddock fishery, 

 close on five millions of these molluscs, which have all to be 

 sought and gathered from the natural beds, the men, and the 

 women as well, having frequently to go long distances to obtain 

 them. These figures will not be thought to be exaggerated 

 when I say that each deep-sea line requires about twelve 

 hundred mussels to bait it ; and as many of the boats carry 

 «ight or ten lines, it is easy to check the calculation. The 

 fishermen, it is hoped, may by and by come to grow their own 

 mussels, as do the industrious men of Aiguillon ; and if they do 

 not turn mussel-farmers after what I have to tell them, they 

 will have themselves to blame for the ultimate extinction of 

 the mussel, for the natural scalps are giving way under- the 

 present increasing demand for bait. 



"Where is Aiguillon?" was naturally enough the first 

 question I had to answer, after determining to visit the great 

 French mussel-farm ; but no one could answer it. I asked 

 many who are interested in fishery matters, but none of them 

 had heard of the mussel-farm. Aiguillon, they said, was 

 mentioned in Murray's Guide, and doubtless the site of the 

 fishery would be there. But the mussel-farm is not at the 

 Aiguillon mentioned by Murray, which is a town, of nearly J;wo 

 thousand inhabitants, on the left bank of the Lot, about a mile 

 above its influx into the Garonne. My Aiguillon, indeed, is not 

 even on the same line of railway, although it is at an equally 

 great distance from Pall Mall. In fact, Murray contains 

 nothing at all about my Aiguillon. Murray has a soul above 

 mussels, and, to speak the truth, doesn't even seem to care 

 much about oysters, seeing that he sometimes neglects to 

 mention localities where they are grown in the greatest pro- 



