SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 159 
produced good mussels in the past, is now almost entirely 
destroyed by the alteration of the channel. The bed was 
formed on the edge of the channel leading to the pier 
belonging to the North Lonsdale Iron Company. This 
channel was much used by small steam vessels coming to 
load pig iron, and a good deal of fresh and other water 
from Ulverston found its way by it to the sea. The 
channel is now filled up by the shifting sands of the Bay, 
and the steamer traffic ended. The silting up of the 
Priory bed is not a great misfortune, as Dr. Johnstone 
has shown in one of his reports that 1t was contaminated 
by sewage. It was not very desirable, therefore, that 
the mussels should be used as food. The Bardsea bed on 
the edge of the same channel that formerly flowed past 
the Priory bed is about a mile further West. It is 
covered with a good supply of small mussels, but there 
are very few that are much over 2 inches long. There 
is little prospect of a fishery during the present season. 
The bed is not quite beyond the reach of sewage, and 
the mussels may occasionally be slightly contaminated. 
When we visited the Bardsea bed our attention was 
drawn to a flock of gulls which were feeding on the 
adjacent sands, and to the excreta evacuated by them. 
These excreta consisted of well-defined heaps of white, 
pale pink and dark shells. The white shells proved to 
be fragments of barnacles, which the birds had obviously 
broken away from stones, mussel shells, etc. The pink 
heaps represented the shells of ‘‘henpens’”’ (Yellina 
balthica), which live close to the surface of the sandy 
mud between tide marks. The dark heaps consisted of com- 
minuted mussel shells. The heaps were practically pure, 
showing that the gulls had applied themselves to one kind 
of food at a time. The barnacles, ‘‘ henpens,’’ and most 
of the mussels had obviously passed right through the 
alimentary canal, and were very fragmentary. In some 
