3.6 THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSCA OF ACADIA. 



Drill {Buccinum cinereum), which is present upon our own 

 North Shore. This Mollusc does great damage in the United 

 States, but little on our oyster-beds. Indeed, as elsewhere 

 pointed out, the chief oyster enemies of the United States are 

 either absent altogether from our waters, or do but little 

 damage — a circumstance of great advantage to future cultur- 

 ists. Other indirectly injurious Molluscs are the Squids,which 

 destroy large number of herring and other small fish. It will 



• of course be evident that an animal may be, at different 

 times and in different ways, both beneficial and injurious. 



Is it not remarkable that the first attempt at mollusc-culture 

 in Acadian waters was contemporaneous with its first settlement 

 in 1604? It was so, though in a rudimentary form. Lescar- 

 bot, in describing DeMont's settlement at St. Croix Island 

 (Dochet Island of to-day), says: '"' There is also a little chapel 

 built after the fashion of the savages, at the foot of which 

 there is such a store of mussels as is wonderful, which may 

 be gathered at low tide, but they are small. I believe that 

 Monsieur DeMont's people did not forget to choose and take 

 the biggest and left there but the small ones to grow and 

 increase." Thus was one of the axioms of modern mollusc- 



• culture observed by the first settlers on the shores of Acadia. 

 Nothing more, even of this simple kind, seems to have been 

 done until the experiments of Hon. Mr. MacFarlane, in Nova 

 Scotia, and Hon. Mr. Pope, in Prince Edward Island, to be 

 spoken of in connection with the Oyster. 



The need of mollusc-culture for the present time in Acadia, 

 resolves itself into the need of oyster-culture. No other 

 Mollusc on our shores is fished to anywhere near its limit of 

 natural productiveness, much less beyond it. But as our 

 food-molluscs came to be extensively used, as they ultimately 

 must, regulations of the fishery should be enforced from 

 the first, and not after the supply verges on exhaustion. 

 In the case of the Oyster, there is need of immediate and 

 vigorous government interference, not only for the protection 

 of the present beds, but for the encouragement of the plant- 

 ing of new ones. To culturists there must be given not only 



