rans) 
~s 
REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 
threads to a mussel-shell and to stones. As Kellege pointed 
out, this capacity is of greatest advantage to the clams; for those 
which happen to set upon sea-weed, stakes, stones, ete., are able, 
with some degree of safety, to wander about until they find a 
suitable place in which to burrow, and those which are not satis- 
fied with the ground where they first burrow can come out and 
go to a new place, as they were actually seen to do. Of the 
ereatest utility, however, is the habit of anchoring themselves in 
the burrow so that they cannot be so easily washed out. 
~ While the rock-weed and other algz are of great service to the 
clams in furnishing them with a convenient temporary lodgment 
where they will not be smothered by the silt when they are very 
small, it is true also the clams set in great quantities and grow in 
some sandy beaches where there is no sea-weed. 
Some General Features of the Clam Set. 
By the first week in July, 1899, a great many clams had already 
found their way into the sand. At this time they were so small 
that they escaped general notice, ranging from a size at which 
they were hardly visible to 9 millimetres in length. (See Fig. 6). 
By the third week in July a great majority had burrowed, and then 
there were probably more of this year’s clams in the sand than at 
any other time during the year, for during the next few months 
they were destroyed in enormous quantities. Although the free- 
swimming young were, in their season, abundant at all times and 
at places in the water of the harbor (Wickford), the set of clams 
which was found buried in the sand was very unevenly distributed. 
The sandy shore in some places was literally filled with them from 
below low-water mark to about the half-tide mark. Here it would 
be impossible to pick up a handful of sand without taking up 
with it several clams. Within a few rods of these specially fertile 
areas however, in the same sort of soil, only a comparatively few 
clams were to be found—not one-thousandth as many as in the 
former places. 
