— 32 - 



al)ly turned seaward. The testimony of the diggers, also, was to the 

 effect that the chim was turned crosswise of the beach. Whether this 

 l)Osition is related to the water supply or to wave action, there seems no 

 data on hand to decide, but the fact is clear. 



One should picture the Pismo clam, then, with its hea\y strong 

 shell shielding it from the blows of the surf, maintaining itself by 

 ceaseless activity in sand that, wave driven, flows day and night and 

 by means of its screened siphon tubes obtaining a stream of water 

 from which it strains organisms too small to see, yet which, in the 

 aggregate, form clam meat harvested yearly to the amount of hundreds 

 of tons. 



Though once present between tides in such immense numbers a digger 

 might obtain all he wanted dry shod at low tide, continued fishing has 



Fig. 20. Digging Pismo clams, Oceano. Diggers returning with clams. The 

 automobile in the distance gives some idea of the width and levelness of the beach. 



reduced these more easily reached individuals, and now the clammer 

 must get his supply almost wholly from the bars just mentioned. 

 Perhaps it may not be amiss to picture to the person who relishes the 

 Pismo clam in chowder or soup how it is obtained. At low tide the 

 clam digger in old clothes, slicker coat and pants and "sou'wester" 

 and armed with a potato fork wades out to the bars. Here, he "feels" 

 for the clams, thrusting the fork into the sand very much as in spading 

 with a spading fork though without "turning up" the sand. The 

 row of tines are usually turned across and not parallel with the water 

 line to avoid "straddling" the clam and when a shell is struck it is 

 lifted out. As the beaches are pure sand with very seldom a dead 

 shell or stone, anything struck is pretty sure to be a clam. In order 

 to leave the hands free, the clams are carried in a sack fastened to the 



