THE CLAM. 191 



dogs, and what they leave some lower form of 

 animal life manages to consume. Nothing eat- 

 able that is once brought in is ever by any 

 chance swept, or carried, out again, and either 

 becomes some other form of life, or, decompos- 

 ing, assumes its elemental condition. 



An old settler once told me a story, as we 

 were hunting together, and I think I can vouch 

 for the truth of what he related, of having 

 seen a duck trapped by a clam : ' You see, sir, 

 as I was a-cruising down these flats about 

 sun-up, the tide jist at the nip, as it is now, I 

 see a whole pile of shoveller ducks snabbling in 

 the mud, and busy as dogfish in herring-time ; 

 so I creeps down, and slap I lets 'em have it : 

 six on 'em turned over, and off went the pack 

 gallows-scared, and quacking like mad. Down 

 I runs to pick up the dead uns, when I see an 

 old mallard a-playing up all kinds o' antics, 

 jumping, backing, flapping, but fast by the head, 

 as if he had his nose in a steel trap ; and when I 

 comes up to him, blest if a large clam hadn't 

 hold of him, hard and fast, by the beak. The 

 old mallard might a' tried his darndest, but may 

 I never bait a martin-trap again if that clam 

 wouldn't a' held him agin any odds 'til the tide 

 run in, and then he'd a' been a gone shoveller 



