"Mussel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mt. Vernon, Ind. From there we went in a Ford touring car without any top and only one rear fender and drove over nine miles of the worst roads I ever motored over to the Wabash river where we hired a motor driven mussel boat to take us four miles down the river. The remaining three miles we made on foot, reaching this grove about ten a. m., and searched until late in the afternoon without locating the tree. This day and trip I am sure Mr. C. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... most of the afternoon under water, coming up to breathe now and then at unexpected moments, with a stone in his mouth that he had picked up from the slimy bottom ten or twelve feet below—or a weed—or a dead mussel. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... too, Orion Latham showed plainly that he considered that he, as an older acquaintance of the girl, could presume upon that fact. He clung to her throughout the evening like a mussel to duck grass. Of all the Big Wreck Cove youth, he was the only one that she could not put ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... saddened look around; But he felt new joy his bosom swell, When glittering on the shadowed ground He saw a purple mussel-shell; Thither he ran, and he bent him low, He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand Till he came; to the verge of the haunted land. She was as lovely a pleasure-boat As ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the way of a thought was that he was different from his parents—that they couldn't see, nor hear, nor make a noise as he could. He could remember sitting comfortably in the mud at low tide and being convulsed with laughter at his mother's efforts to find a fat mussel that was within a few inches of her hand. He said that within a small radius his parents had made paths, by constant peregrinations in search of food, that had become so familiar to them that they could move hither and thither, hand in hand, with considerable precision ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... stand our friend in his own fashion, but he says they care not the value of an empty mussel-shell for the French, and no more for the Dey of Algiers than I do for the Elector of Hanover. He has told them that M. l'Abbe and Mademoiselle are brother and daughter to a great Bey—but it is little they care for that. Holy Virgin, they took Mademoiselle for a boy! ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she, holding to her lips some cordial which she had poured into a mussel shell, "It is buanaba, a very delicate restorative made in Turkey, pray try to take it, it will keep you ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... of their citadel has worked in the same direction, by focussing their interests upon the purely human. That inland sea, again: were it not an ideal breeding-place for shell-fish, the Tarentines would long ago have learnt to vary their diet. Thirty centuries of mussel-eating cannot but impair the physical ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... thirty-one inches, and the speed of the current two and one-tenth miles to the hour. The first four miles of the infant's course is swift and crooked, over a bed of red sand and gravel, thickly interspersed with mussel and other small shells, and bordered with reeds. Through these, at two points, we beat our way on foot, dragging the canoes through unmade channels. Indeed, nearly all of these first four miles demanded frequent leaps from the boats to direct their swift and crooked course, until we came ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the betel, the areca, and the pepper-tree. Malignant reptiles swarm in these marshy lands, and in the ancient forests, serpents, scorpions, and other venomous reptiles abounded. Unfortunately, they were not only to be found on land. A sailor in search of marteaux, a very rare kind of bivalve mussel, was stung by a serpent. The fearful suffering and violent convulsions which followed only subsided at the expiration of five or six hours, and at last, the theriac which was administered to him after the bite, effected a cure. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... walking there and gathering ferns, foxgloves, and primroses, which grew on the mossy banks of a little stream that ran into the sea. The bed of this stream or burn was thickly covered with the freshwater mussel, which I knew often contained pearls, but I did not like to kill the creatures to get ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... of this grass are tied to the two ends of a smaller bunch; the large one is then spread out to form the basket, while the smaller answers the purpose of a handle. Their apparent use is, to bring shell fish from the mud banks where they are to be collected. The large heaps of mussel shells that were found near each hut proclaimed the mud banks to be a principal source of food. The most scrupulous examination of their fire places discovered nothing, except a few bones of the opossum, a squirrel, and here and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... whenever we like, almost without going out of sight of our hut, besides a good supply of fish in the river; Murray cod, which in the Murray are said sometimes to weigh eighty pounds, but in our creeks generally run from two to twelve; also a kind of mussel, and a fish like a lobster, not quite so large, but good eating. [Footnote: Crawfish; the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... afore, Perfesser. You ez up to their ways ez a mus'rat to a mussel, er a kingfisher to a minner," exclaimed Tim admiringly, as he loosened the troll from a two-pound bass. "Hit's p'intedly a pity you're out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... it has been observed to descend to the shore at night time to feed upon mollusks, particularly upon the large Basket Mussel (Mytilus modiolus)." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... fear of these exotic maladies, the forlorn voyagers of the Mayflower had sickness enough to contend with. At their first landing at Cape Cod, gaunt and hungry and longing for fresh food, they found upon the sandy shore "great mussel's, and very fat and full of sea-pearl." Sailors and passengers indulged in the treacherous delicacy; which seems to have been the sea-clam; and found that these mollusks, like the shell the poet tells of, remembered their august abode, and ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... (i.e. creatures of the mussel, cockle, and oyster class, which receive their name from the body being protected by a double shell, one valve of which is placed on each side) have their two shells united by one or two powerful muscles, which pass directly ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... on the shore. There he stood thinking and wondering what he could do, when all of a sudden he saw three fishes swimming along, and recognised them as the very same whose lives he had saved. The middle fish held a mussel in its mouth, which it laid at the young man's feet, and when he picked it up and opened it, there was the ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... scavengers by nature and according to recent researches it appears that they are not altogether safe articles of diet. Many cases of severe and extensive sickness have been traced to the use of clams and oysters. Investigations made to ascertain the cause show the poisonous part of the mussel to be the liver. Rabbits and other small animals inoculated with the poison died in one or two minutes. Not all mussels are thus poisonous, but inasmuch as there is an abundance of wholesome food, it would certainly seem the part of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... nearly related to them partook. Before the dinner proper came sea-hedgehogs; fresh oysters as many as the guests wished; large mussels; sphondyli; fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel pasties; black and white sea-acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides; sea-nettles; becaficoes; roe-ribs; boar's-ribs; fowls dressed with flour; becaficoes; purple shell-fish of two sorts. The dinner itself consisted of sow's udder; boar's-head; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... For this reason, if no other, the colour of a room should never be arbitrarily prescribed or settled for the one who is to be its occupant. It should be as much a matter of nature as the lining of a shell is to the mussel, or as the colour of the ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... running up close to the creek, turned its course up to the north, and in two or three miles it ran into a most picturesque and romantic glen, which had now a rushing torrent roaring through its centre. Here no doubt some permanent water exists, as we not only saw great quantities of mussel shells at deserted native camps, but Alec Ross saw a large rocky water reservoir in the glen, in which were quantities of good-sized fish. The camels could not pass through this glen, it was too rocky; they ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... ate and rested till the sun began to pass its meridian, when once more they started on their pilgrimage. That night, after a day wherein they had met no other sign of life than gulls and crows ravaging the mussel-beds, they slept on piles of sun-dried kelp which they heaped into some crevices under an overhanging brow of low cliffs on a rocky point. And dawn found them again, traveling steadily eastward, battle-axes swinging, hopes high, in perfect ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... fastened a limpet to the end of their lines, and, heaving it into deep water, the fish readily gorges it; when, before he can bring it up again, they pull him out, and thus they get their fish without losing their mussel. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Protococcus, a common mould, a Chara, a fern, and some flowering plant; among animals we examine such things as an Amoeba, a Vorticella, and a fresh-water polype. We dissect a star-fish, an earth-worm, a snail, a squid, and a fresh-water mussel. We examine a lobster and a cray-fish, and a black beetle. We go on to a common skate, a cod-fish, a frog, a tortoise, a pigeon, and a rabbit, and that takes us about all the time we have to give. The purpose of this course is not ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... edges, and thick in the centre, with a slightly curved, round handle, about six inches long. They were made of very hard wood, and were much too heavy to wield with one hand. I also found a number of fishing lines, made from grass, with hooks attached of various sizes, made from mussel shells. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... and showed them to the wise man. He said: "Of the three great pearls one is a divine wishing-pearl of the third class, and two are black dragon-pearls of medium quality. Of the seven smaller pearls two are serpent-pearls, and five are mussel-pearls. The remaining pearls are in part sea-crane pearls, in part snail and oyster-pearls. They do not approach the great pearls in value, and yet few will be found to ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... equally tame, but that the former, although eating everything offered them, became miserably poor in a comparatively short time. The only denizen of the pool that I actually saw was a lobster, who came out from under a stone as I approached, in the hope, I was told, that I was going to give him a mussel. ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... creek trending north-west. Water was now abundant and formed large pools, and at 11.15 camped on the right bank of the creek at a pool a quarter of a mile long and fifty yards wide. This spot seemed to be much frequented by the natives, and large quantities of mussel-shells lay around their fires. The plain traversed this morning was well grassed; the soil a stiff clay loam; this plain extended three to six miles on each side of the track, and was bounded by a low-wooded country, which, in some parts, rose nearly 100 feet above the plain. ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... way you cook 'em. I want you to bale out the boat and we'll go up to the head of the bar and drop the grab-hooks along in shoal water and after we get a good dozen, small broilin' size, I'm goin' to show you how to cook 'em. A mussel, my boy, is a sort of lefthanded cousin to an oyster, only he lacks the salt water and a good many of the finer points; a right smart like a good many men, and I want to tell you another thing—one of the finest pearls that sold in a jewelry store in Cincinnati for ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... very frequently meet with fossils in the state of "casts" or moulds of the original organic body. What occurs in this case will be readily understood if we imagine any common bivalve shell, as an Oyster, or Mussel, or Cockle, embedded in clay or mud. If the clay were sufficiently soft and fluid, the first thing would be that it would gain access to the interior of the shell, and would completely fill up the space between the valves. The pressure, ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... thrown across it prevented the escape of the waters, which filled the reservoir more or less completely according to the season. It never became empty, and several species of shellfish flourished in it—among others, a kind of large mussel which the inhabitants generally used as food, which with dates, milk, oil, coarse bread, a few vegetables, and from time to time a fowl or a joint of meat, made up their scanty fare. Other things were ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a band of sapphire that became silver to the west; it met the silver shining sands in one delicate breathing edge of intensely white foam. Remote to the west, very small and black and clear against the afternoon sky, was a cart, and about it was a score or so of mussel-gatherers. A little nearer, on an apparently empty stretch of shining wet sand, a multitude of gulls was mysteriously busy. These two groups of activities and Eleanor's flitting translucent movements did but set off and emphasize the immense and ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... all carried a mussel shell in their hands to eat with. The food was put on large trays and the children all gathered around and ate, dipping up their food with their mussel shells which they used for spoons. Those who refused to eat or those who were ailing in any way had to come back to the great house for their meals ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... that beautiful collection of the hawthorn family and its affinities, which flourish on the north side of Kensington Gardens.] were voted delicious, and the pure water most refreshing, that they drank, for lack of better cups, from a large mussel-shell which Catharine had picked up among the weeds and ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... most offhand and informal character. As a boy of fifteen he had carried her, a girl of eleven, over many a snowbank their first winter of school in the Prairie Home school district. They had herded cattle together, waded the shallow ponds and hunted for mussel shells, and until this year they had seen each other daily. This year Luther had taken a man's place in the fields and the girl had seen him at rare intervals. She was not conscious of the change which this year of dawning adolescence had brought ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... by being plunged for a little time in dilute nitric acid, then rubbed down with sand paper or fine emery and oil, finished with "Water-Ayr" or "Snake-stone," and finally polished with putty-powder and oil. A mussel-shell treated in this manner makes a most beautiful object, coming out purple, with streaks of lighter blue ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Bay and York Road, lies Mussel Bay, where there is very good anchorage with a westerly wind. There is also a bay, with good anchorage, opposite to York Road, and another to the eastward of Cape Cross-tide, but this will hold only a single ship. Between Cape Cross and Saint David's Head, lies Saint David's ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... festivals, and was on this occasion decked out in the most beautiful manner. In the middle, upon a molehill prettily covered with small pebbles, stood the throne for the good King and his fair daughter; it was made of snail-shells and mussel-shells, and cushioned with feathers. A long alley of lilies-of-the-valley, six deep, led up to the throne; and when the royal procession galloped up on squirrels, all the little lily-bells rang with a lovely melody; for at each lily was stationed a spider, to pull ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... and finding no unwary bird that he could seize he picked up a few mussel-shells from the beach, cracked them neatly ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... encamped beside a small watercourse near Mussel Brook, the thermometer at four P.M. being as high as 95 degrees. In the evening, the burning grass became rather alarming, especially as we had a small stock of ammunition in one of the carts. I had established our camp to the windward of the burning ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... wings of a butterfly, the two wings of a fly, and the two wings with the elytra of a beetle. Bivalve shells are made to open and shut, but on what a number of patterns is the hinge constructed, from the long row of neatly interlocking teeth in a Nucula to the simple ligament of a Mussel! Seeds are disseminated by their minuteness, by their capsule being converted into a light balloon-like envelope, by being embedded in pulp or flesh, formed of the most diverse parts, and rendered nutritious, as well ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Robinson went hunting and shot a rabbit, but the meat would not keep. At home they would have put it in the cellar. If only he had a cellar! He saw near his cave a hole in the rock. He dug it out a little with his mussel shell and found that it led ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... young man, but they went, and left him alone by the sea. As he was standing on the shore and thinking of what he should do, there came three fishes swimming by, none other than those he had set free. The middle one had a mussel in his mouth, and he laid it on the strand at the young man's feet; and when he took it up and opened it there was the gold ring inside! Full of joy he carried it to the King, and expected the promised reward; but the King's daughter, proud of her high birth, despised him, and set ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... comin down de riber, and we had to fite de Injuns long time at de place dey calls Mussel Shoals. Some ob de boats got on de ground, and one on em we had to leave wid de hogs on it. De bullets come from the Injuns so hot dat we all had to get out into de water and go to anudder boat and get away from dar. Dem was the wust Injuns I ebber seed. But we got away and we runned ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a man at least six feet tall, wearing old yellow tarpaulins, came around the side of the house of the three sails with a large basket on each arm. He sat down on a rock in front of the house and began lifting mussel and oyster shells out of one of his baskets. He would peer at them earnestly before throwing them over to one side. He was a giant of a man, past middle age. His face was so weather-beaten that his skin was like leather. His eyes were blue as only a sailor's eyes can be. On one of the man's ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... seashore everybody knows the mussel (Mytilus: see Fig. 5), the soft clam, the round clam, and the oyster, as these are sought for food; but there is a multitude of smaller bivalves which are not so well known. The sea-snails best ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... coast was clear, and put me on my car, with minute directions for finding my new home.... It is easy and comforting to believe that there is, literally, no place like home, no other place. I shall call my landlady Mrs. Mussel,—it suits her so perfectly, the way she clings to her drab background, and closes up with a snap at every approach. I daresay she means well. It is necessary to believe that she does. She states that she sets only a plain home table ... and there is a sort of atmospheric menu card—coming events ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell |
