THE CLAM. 137 
are one of the staple articles of winter food on 
which all Indian tribes in a great measure de- 
pend who inhabit the north-west coast of America. 
The clam to the Indians is a sort of molluscous 
cereal, that they gather and garner during the 
summer months; and an outline sketch of this 
giant bivalve’s habits and style of living, how 
captured, and what becomes of it after being 
made a prisoner, may be interesting; its habits, 
and the uses to which, if not designed, it is at 
least appropriated, being generally less known 
than its minute anatomy. Clams attain an im- 
mense size; I have measured shells eight inches 
from the hinge to the edge of the valve. We 
used them as soap-dishes at our head-quarters 
on Vancouver Island. 
The clam has a very wide range, and is thickly 
distributed along the mainland and Vancouver 
Island coasts; his favourite haunts are the great 
sandbanks, that run out sometimes over a mile 
from the shore. The rise and fall of the tide 
is from thirty to forty feet, so that at low-water 
immense flats or beaches, consisting of mud and 
sand, are laid bare. 
There is nothing poetical about the clam, and 
its habits are anything but clean; grovelling in 
the mud, and feeding on the veriest filth it can 
