SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 
2a 
evening's meal, prepared with buttered crumbs of bread. 
The boiling should be done with as little water as possible, 
adding little or no salt, as the valves contain in themselves 
a sufficient quantity of saline liquid. The soup thus obtained 
is of a most delicious kind, being largely impregnated with 
the phosphorescent substance shellfish are known to so 
abundantly possess. It is of great value to delicate people, 
and can be partaken of with very much advantage by those 
afflicted with bronchial and chest diseases. 
This, of course, is characteristic of all the edible shellfish 
of our shores, and the soup obtained, even from a promiscuous 
gathering, in the hands of one skilled in cookery, will be 
found to be of a most agreeable and palatable nature. 
POISON IN SHELLFISH. 
As an article of food, however, great care should be 
taken ia the gathering of shellfish. Some writers declare 
the mussel to be poisonous at particular periods of the 
year. I cannot, however, agree with the assertion. Like 
the finny tribes in their spawning seasons, all classes of 
shellfish get out of order and become somewhat unhealthy. 
In the months of May, June, July, and August — or as 
old fishermen say, the months that have no R " in their 
spelling — there is a greater quantity of the edible shellfish 
of our shores consumed as food than during the other 
eight put together. Yet in these very months they are 
spawning, and generally out of order, and not in good 
condition for eating. Still it is seldom we hear of the 
bad efi'ects of the extensive indulgence of their use as an 
article of food during that period. Poisoning from the 
eating of shellfish has undoubtedly occurred, and many 
cases of dangerous illness, particularly amongst children, 
during the watering or coast season in our seaboard towns, 
