278 Our Food Mollusks 



with it on the south, miles of flats are exposed at low 

 tide, and one may stand at Plymouth and look north- 

 ward toward Duxbury on to a flat that stretches away for 

 nearly seven miles, and is approximately four and a half 

 miles wide. 



Only a few decades ago, a very large part of these 

 immense areas bore clams. Many are still taken near 

 Newburyport on the Merrimac, and near Boston, but 

 the famous Duxbury and Plymouth flat is practically un- 

 productive. Less extensive areas, that formerly pro- 

 duced clams, are now barren almost without exception. 



For several years the same has been true of Con- 

 necticut and Rhode Island, and the market has depended 

 on the state of Maine for its supply. Here the shore is 

 high and rocky, and beaches and flats where clams may 

 grow are comparatively few and small. As the Maine 

 clam beds had been little dug until recently, they produced 

 a large supply for a few seasons, but now are far on the 

 way to destruction. Neither ice and the extreme cold 

 of the long winter, nor the close season during the three 

 summer months, that has been in force for a number of 

 years, has prevented the rapid decline of the industry in 

 Maine. 



Outside of New England, on the Atlantic coast, the 

 soft clam has never been very abundant, though many 

 were found about Long Island and in the New Jersey 

 bays. It is essentially a cold water form, and the south- 

 ern limit of its range is the coast of South Carolina. It 

 is found in parts of Chesapeake Bay, but is there used as 

 food only by the poorer residents of the shore. From 

 Maine it extends northward to the Arctic Ocean, where 

 the seal, walrus, and polar bear sometimes feed on it. It 

 is also found on the northern coasts of Europe and Asia. 



