Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1892-07-29
SUBMARINE SILKWORMS.
Mollusks Which Weave Wonder
full Threads Of Silk.
An Interesting Chapter on the Habits and
Uses of Strange Submarine Crea-
lures - Queer Methods Of
Propagating Nfussels.

"The mussel may well be called the
spinner of the sea-" said a conchologist
70 a Washington Star writer ut
makes and weaves its silken threads
very much as the spider does An i'm
portant part of its anatomy is a
slender and very muscular foot of
triangular shape, under and be-
hind which is a gland that secretes a
viscid and half-liquid fluid. This fluid
runs into a groove in the foot, where it
quickly sets and becomes firm thread.
The thread is pulled out by the with
drawing of the foot, another thread is
formed, and so on until the mussel has
tied itself securely by ever so many
strong cords.
1T is very interesting to see how the
mussel manages to climb up the perpen-
dicular sides Of rocks or piles by means
OF these threads, which are stretched
out and attached by the foot, one after
another, in the direction in which the
animal wishes to climb, each one being
fastened little higher up than the last.
Thus the heavy shell is drawn up grad
ually in much the same manner as that
employed by some spiders when sus-
pending an unusually large victim. You
would hardly imagine that so small
creature could be a helpful servant to
man, and yet the spinning and weaving
of this humble mollusk have been
turned to a most valuable account At
the town of Bi,leford, in Dcvonshire, is
long bridge of twenty-four arches,
crossing the Torridge river The tides
Ary ~
that no mortar will hold the masonry
of the arches. But the corporation of
the town keeps boats for the purpose of
bringing mussels from a distance, which
are applied to every interstice of the
stone work The masonry is entirely
supported and held together 10y the
strong threads these bivalves spin, and
the law makes it crime, punishable
by transportation, to remove any of
them.
Having spent the first few days of
their existence as free-swimming ami
mails, after being Matched from the
eggs, mussels usually fasten themselves
together and to common object. SO as
to form large clusters. Thus, by means
of a multiplied system of ropes, they
secure SO firm an anchorage as to be
able to resist the most violent storms!
However, they can let go when they
want to, and creep about until they find
better resting place. Their closely
knitted colonies do much to prevent
wear and tear by the waves on certain
portions of the sea coast. Like oysters
they entertain small parasitic crabs,
which make their homes in the shells of
the living mollusks These little crusta-
cean boarders are of different species
from the oyster crabs. Young seals de-
pend largely for food upon the big arc
tic mussels, which are plentiful as far
north as Point Barrow, in the Arctic
ocean On the coast of Alaska and as
far south as Puget sound mussels con-
stitute the only molluscan supply, there
being no oysters and very few CLANS in
that region, and the native women and
children are constantly gathering them.
''The Alaskan method of cooking
mussels is to boil them. A bunch of
ten, twenty, or perhaps forty pounds
weight is put into a pot and when the
shells cape the water is poured off, the
people gathering around and picking
times the bivalves are roasted also
They are very little priced as an article
OF diet on the Atlantic coast, partly be-
cause such a wealth of oysters and
clans is at hand, but the aboriginal In
dams were very fond of them and con-
sumed them in great quantities, as is
proved by the mounds of shells compos-
ing the debris of ancient feasts, which
remain to this day. The Delawares, and
doubtless other tribes, employed mussel
shells, the edges of which were sharp
ened on the gritty rock, for pincers to
pull out their boards with.
"Mussels are much used abroad as
food. They are bred in France in in
closures of sea water, frames and hang
ing ropes being submerged for them to
attach themselves to. At intervals
these ropes or frames are hauled up and
made to yield their crop. For the same
purpose parks, as they are called, are
planted in the shadows of the North
sea. Trees, from which all but the
larger branches have been cut, are
stuck into the bottom at such distance
from shore that the upper portions of
them shall be laid bare at lower water
After four or FIVE years they are raised,
stripped and replaced with others. In
the bay Of Keil, Germany, one thousand
tons of mussels are raised in a similar
fashion yearly. Mussels are propagated
in the Adriatic on ropes extended be-
tween poles rammcd into the ground
The ropes are stripped once in eight
months. The mussel beds of Great
Britain are worth hundreds of thou
sands of dollars annually.
''The mollusk, which has been poetic |
ally called the 'silkworm of the sea- is
a mussel of the Mediterranean, known
to science as the pima 1t spins kind |
of thread so beautiful and fine that in
Sicily the material is woven into gloves
and stockings. These articles are very
costly, and have not been thought IN
worthy presents for pope"
An English Parrot Story.
The following parrot story comes from