M. Coste gives a graphic description of the manner in which this industry is carried on. "Having supplied the neighbouring villages," he says, "for the purpose of supplying the more distant cities, the bouchotiers land their punts, filled with mussels, which their wives carry into grottoes hollowed out of the cliffs; where they clean and pack them in hampers, baskets, and panniers, for conveyance by carts or pack-horses. They depart on their respective journeys at night, so as to reach their markets at La Rochelle, Rochefort, Surgéres, Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Angoulême, Niort, Poictiers, Tours, Angers, and Saumur, at an early hour. A hundred and forty horses and ninety carts make upwards of thirty-three thousand journeys annually to these cities. Besides this, forty or fifty boats come from Bordeaux, the isles of Ré and Oleron, and from the sands of Olonne, making an aggregate of seven hundred and fifty voyages per annum, distributing the harvest of the little bay at places where horses could not serve the purpose. "A bouchot, well furnished, supplies annually, according to the length of its wings, from four to five hundred charges. The charge is a hundred and fifty kilogrammes (over three hundred pounds), and sells for five francs; a single bouchot thus carries a harvest equal in weight to a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty thousand pounds, equal in value to £100; the whole bay probably yielding a gross revenue of £480,000. This figure, and the abundant harvest which produces it, gives only a slight idea of the alimentary resources of the sea shore; and every part of the coast, properly adapted for the purpose, could be turned to equal advantage. In the mean time, the Bay of Aiguillon remains a monument of what one man may accomplish." While commending the mussel as an important article of food, we must not conceal the fact, that it has produced in certain persons very grave effects, showing that for them its flesh has the effects of poison. The symptoms, commonly observed two or three hours after the repast, are weakness or torpor, constriction of the throat and swelling of the head, accompanied by great thirst, nausea, frequent vomitings, and eruption of the skin and severe itching. The cause of these attacks is not very well ascertained; they have in turn been ascribed to the presence of copper pyrites in the neighbourhood of the mussel; to certain small crabs which lodge themselves as parasites in the shell of the mussel; to the spawn of star-fishes or medusæ that the mussel may have swallowed. But, probably, the true cause of this kind of poisoning resides in the predisposition of individuals. The remedy is very simple: an emetic, accompanied by drinking plentifully of slightly acidulated beverages. [Illustration: Fig. 162. Malleus alba (Lamarck).] [Illustration: Fig. 163. Malleus vulgaris (Lamarck).]