6 GEORGE V SESSIONAL -PAPER No. 38a A. 1916 



VI. 



A SUPPOSED DISEASE OF QUAHAUGS FEOM NEW BRUNSWICK. 

 By Philip Cox, Ph. D., University of New Brunswick. 



The Quahaugs, supposed to suffer from some affection or disease, were from Buc- 

 touche, N.B., and were studied chiefly at the Biological Station, St. Andrews, in 1914. 

 Buctouche, Kent county, is situated on the estuary of the Buctouche river, there about 

 200 feet wide, with an average depth of 20 feet at low water. The population is about 

 600. The town is not incorporated, but has a board of health which does not allow 

 waste nor objectionable matter to be dumped into the stream nor on the ice in winter. 

 There is no sewerage system, and only two or three private drains enter the river, 

 hence no pollution of the water seems possible in a stream of its volume with a rise and 

 fall of tide of from 2^ to 4 feet. 



Above the town there are extensive marshes, overgrown with weeds and grass, and 

 laid bare generally at low water, and hence much decaying organic matter is swept 

 seaward, rendering the stream quite turbid. The temperature of the flow is apt to run 

 high, for the water, spread out for hours over the marshy flats, has had time to become 

 warmed, especially during midsummer when from 68° to Y0° F. cannot be unusual; 

 indeed, when tested at 3 p.m. on July 24, it stood at 70°. Owing to the quantity of 

 fresh water entering the estuary from the upper river and its branches, the salinity is 

 apt to be low, especially at low water and during the spring and early summer when 

 the fresh water is at its maximum. 



MANNER OF STORING. 



The hard-shell clams or quahaugs are confined in floating trays 18 feet by 14 feet 

 by 18 inches, made of boards from 4 inches to 6 inches wide with ^-inch spaces, and 

 moored end to end along the shore in several tiers or ranges. This close arrangement, 

 and the very narrow slots, often overgrown and clogged with algae, are not favourable 

 to a rapid change of water; indeed the force of the tide either way as a factor aiding 

 the change can be barely perceptible beyond the second tray tidewards, and although a 

 slow interchange is always going on, it must be entirely inadequate to the vital needs of 

 such an immense number of shell-fish crowded together in the manner described. An 

 unobstructed flow of water is still more required to offset the injurious effects of the 

 low salinity and high temperature to which they are exposed, often for several months 

 before shipment. This prolonged period of confinement under abnormal conditions 

 must sap the vitality of the animal and render it less resistant to the still more 

 unnatural and trying conditions of transportation and marketing, particularly if the 

 quahaugs were taken from the beds in May before they had recruited after a long 

 winter of inactivity. 



The trays are usually filled to the depth of from 6 inches to 15 inches, but when 

 arrivals from the fishing grounds are large, and space limited, they are filled to their 

 utmost capacity and readjusted as soon as extra space is available. Three or four 

 days after, they are turned, if the trays are up to their full capacity, with forks of 8 or 

 9 tines with chisel points, and broken or dead ones are thrown out; but no close exam- 

 ination is made ; whatever happens to be seen is rejected, and, as a matter of fact, dead 

 clams and broken shells were more or less in evidence. It was noticed, moreover, that 

 the middle trays — those farthest removed from the effects of the tide either way — 

 contained the most dead quahaugs, which fact may be regarded as a result, at least 



