816 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Whatever may be the value of soft clams as a means of sustenance 

 for the people along the coasts, they are still more important to the 

 fisheries of the country. The Americans have for a long time been aware 

 of the marked predilection which many fish, particularly those of the 

 cod species, manifest for the flesh of clams, under whatever form pre- 

 sented to them. Before this fact was proved by experiment the sea. 

 men of the banks of Newfoundland and Saint George had frequently 

 observed that cod-fish relied to a great degree for their nourishment 

 upon bivalves similar to the coast clam, called in natural history Mya 

 truncata, and which is frequently found in the stomachs of these fish. 



Clams are used for bait, either alive or salted, according as the fishery 

 is on the coast or out at sea. In the first instance they are enveloped 

 in pieces of net, and kept in the wells with which the coasting-vessels 

 are generally provided. When they do not possess this convenience, 

 they can still be preserved for several days by keeping them in a cool 

 place. In the second instance, after they are taken from the shell, they 

 are salted and then carefully packed in barrels, and are sold to the own- 

 ers of vessels engaged in the cod-fisheries off the banks of Newfound- 

 land and Sable Island. 



Dr. Gould estimated that in 1840, 40,000 bushels of clams were con- 

 sumed in the preparation of salt bait, in addition to large quantities 

 used in a natural condition by the coast fisheries. 



Salted clams are also used with success in the mackerel-fisheries, in 

 which they are employed like the roe of the animal to attract the fish. 



Bound clam (Venus mercenaria.)* — The round clam is a species of 

 edible Venus, almost as abundant upon the coast as the Mya armaria, 

 and rivals that mollusk as an article of food, although it is of far less 

 importance as bait for the fisheries. 



In some i>laces it has retained its ancient name of quahog, by which 

 it was known to the aborigines of North America. The Indians man- 

 ufactured out of the violet part of the shell colored beads called wam- 

 pum, which served them as money. The mollusks which they used 

 came for the most part from Long Island, called, in the picturesque lan- 

 guage of the Mohicans, " tbe Island of Shells." 



The round clam has a regular, thick shell, very convex, with crenu- 

 lated margins, and three cardinal teeth in each valve. The exterior sur- 

 face presents numerous concentric lines, and a few more prominent ones. 

 The part near the umbones is always more or less worn. The ligament, 

 of a brown color, is large and very apparent ; the lunule is oval ; the ex- 

 terior surface is ordinarily of a dirty white color, and sometimes bluish, 

 according to the nature of the ground inhabited by the animal. There 

 are two muscular impressions, and the interior edges of the valves are 



*The " round clam, " or simply " clam," as it is called along the coast of the Middle 

 and Southern States, differs in several important characters, especially the armature 

 of the hinge, from the typical species of Venus, and iB therefore now generally regarded 

 as the representative of a distinct genus, and accordingly called Mercenaria vioJacea. 



