Pvn H,i I'UitlS

110 MYTILIDjE.
being at the time in spawn and therefore out of season.
A strange notion once prevailed that the poor little peacrab
was the author of all this mischief; and it was consequently
stigmatized as " malignant. "
Nor is it only as an article of food that these shell-fish
are of use to man. In Lister's time live mussels were
gathered and spread
over the fields in Lancashire for
manure. Fabricius mentions that the fish eaten raw is
an excellent remedy for sore eyes, and that the shell
serves as a razor to shave with. I should not like to
try the latter experiment on a frosty morning, or when
late for breakfast. Mohr says that mussels are not
eaten in Iceland, but that lime is made from their cal-
cined shells, and is much more binding and becomes
harder than mortar made from limestone. They are
also used extensively for bait in our long-line fisheries ;
and Asbjornsen has given, in his '
Christianiafjordens
Litoralfauna/ some interesting particulars of the mus-
sel-fishings on that part of the Norwegian coast, and
especially with regard to an epidemic that in the summer
of 1852 destroyed millions of them and caused great
distress to the poor fishermen. In Drummond's *
Letters
to a Young Naturalist' it is stated that mussels are
used at Bideford to fix by means of their byssus the
stones of a bridge, which is difficult to keep in repair
of the tide. The interstices of the
owing to the rapidity
bridge are filled with them, and it is said that only their
strong threads support the fabric and prevent its being
carried away. It is one of the instances of contrivance
enumerated by Paley in illustration of his chapter on
compensation, and to show that the works of the Deity
are known by expedients. He "
saj^s, A muscle, which
might seem, by its helplessness, to lie at the mercy of
every wave that went over it, has the singular power of