The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960 Page: 86
684 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
In go9 there were plenty of catfish and perch as well as turtles
and harmless alligators in Caddo Lake. There were also many
mussels. The fresh water mussel is a remarkable phenomenon
although it is a common object to those who probe the mud at
the bottoms of many streams and lakes. Within the two shells of
the mussel will be found a soft mass of flesh and muscle, a broad
flattened object which is called the foot, the flesh mantle which
secretes the shell material, powerful muscles for closing the shells,
a mouth, a gullet, and a stomach, but no head and, therefore, no
jaws and no tongue. The mussel protrudes its powerful muscular
foot, fills it with blood to make it swell, then pulls itself down
into or along the surface of the mud, with such little haste that
its best rate would take it only about fifteen feet in a night.3
The mussel opens its shells to obtain food and draws in water
by the rhythmical waving of a multitude of tiny hair-like cilia.
These cause a flow of water into the mussel, conveying oxygen
and food to the system.
The eggs of the fresh water mussel are incubated within the
female's body. They hatch in the gills of the female in tubular
cavities, and it is a little fellow in a triangular coat of shell
sharply pointed at both ends that leaves the mother for a plunge
in the water. To develop further, the larval mussel must attach
itself to the body of a fish. When a fish swims in the vicinity of
these little mussels the waves stimulate the mussels to open and
close their shells rapidly. If the shells happen to close on a part
of the body of the passing fish the young mussel remains attached
to the fish for some time. The flesh of the fish actually covers the
young mussel, and these little parasites appear as small black spots
which are sometimes called blackheads. At the end of that time
it is a perfect mussel in miniature and something happens to
rupture the cyst in which it is enclosed. Then it settles down to
the bottom of the water to follow the business of the perfect
bivalve. In contrast, the eggs of sea mussels are cast into the water
and are edible.4
Rivers and lakes of the United States yield many pearls en-
closed in the shells of fresh water mussels, but the finest examples
80. P. Breland to Katherine Williams, interview, June 16, 1959.
4Ibid.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960, periodical, 1960; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101186/m1/114/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.