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"Yes," spoke up Toby, who was watching this action with signs of disapproval, for he believed he would be compelled to complete his meal with crackers and cheese; "we k-k-know now there are p-pearls in some of these b-b-blessed old m-m-m" whistle "mussels, there!" "But don't let's get too big notions, fellows," Owen thought fit to put in just then.
They were very busy, and what they were doing was so interesting to the children that at first they did not even wonder where the Amulet had brought them. And the crew seemed too busy to notice the children. They were fastening rush baskets to a long rope with a great piece of cork at the end, and in each basket they put mussels or little frogs.
There are also in many places plenty of these kinds which follow: Sea crabs, such as we have in England. Oysters, some very great, and some small; some round and some of a long shape. They are found both in salt water and brackish, and those that we had out of salt water are far better than the other as in our own country. Also mussels, scallops, periwinkles and crevises.
These birds have rather short, conical beaks, and red-rimmed eyelids; they can be knocked over with little difficulty. As for the vegetable kingdom in the New South Orkneys, it is represented only by grey lichen and some scanty seaweeds. Mussels are found in great abundance all along the rocks; of these we procured an ample supply.
"Must be something in the water that prevents mussels from breeding in the Elder," Owen replied; and so great was the confidence those fellows placed in the knowledge of their bookworm chum that not one of them dreamed of disputing his theory. "Go on, please," Steve remarked. "You had it on your tongue to say something more, didn't you, Owen?" "Only this.
From a rent low down in the side of one of them a black stream of big mussels was trickling. Florent and Claude had now to pause at every step. The fish was arriving and one after another the drays of the railway companies drove up laden with wooden cages full of the hampers and baskets that had come by train from the sea coast.
But at first they could not raise any-thing to eat. They had brought flour and oat-meal from England. But they found that it was not enough to last till they could raise corn on their new ground. Win-throp sent a ship to get more food for them. The ship was gone a long time. The people ate up all their food. They were hungry. They went to the sea-shore, and found clams and mussels.
They obtain the mussel eggs, and when they are hatched place them in the pools with the fish from the overflowed lands. The tiny mussel larvæ attach themselves to the fish and are carried to the rivers and ponds with the fish. Soon they are ready to drop to the bottom and find food for themselves. In this way 25,000,000 mussels were carried last year to streams where mussels are known to thrive.
They are very skilful divers, and now and then find pearls in the mussels which they bring up, which, however, they throw away as useless things."
"Branch of molluscs," said Conseil. "Precisely so, my learned Conseil; and, amongst these testacea the earshell, the tridacnae, the turbots, in a word, all those which secrete mother-of-pearl, that is, the blue, bluish, violet, or white substance which lines the interior of their shells, are capable of producing pearls." "Mussels too?" asked the Canadian.
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