10 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSC A. 



(of the United States Commission) gave some interest- 

 ing details at one of the Conferences held in connection 

 with the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 

 1883, respecting the extent to which My a arenaria is 

 used in the United States. He says, " In the State 

 of Maine 318,000 bushels, or 1,000,000 Ibs. of this 

 mollusk were used for bait and for food. In Massa- 

 chusetts an equal quantity, if not more, and in the 

 Middle States 406,000 bushels, making in all over 

 ] ,000,000 bushels, having a value to fishermen of 

 458,000 dollars. He had not the statistics for Con- 

 necticut, Rhode Island, and some of the other States 

 where these shellfish were also used in considerable 

 quantities, but including them it might be said that 

 over a million and a quarter bushels, valued at probably 

 not less than 600,000 dollars, were used on the Atlantic 



sea-board Some fishermen on the coast confined 



themselves to the quarrying, as it was called, of these 

 shellfish, for they had the habit of burying themselves 

 two or three inches deep in the mud or sand of the 

 shallow bays along the shore. This industry afforded 

 employment to a large number of fishermen at a time 

 when nothing else could be done. Some of the smaller 

 vessels, not considered safe to encounter the winter 

 gales, were taken into the shallow waters, and served 

 as hotels and work-houses for the men engaged in 

 quarrying the clams. These men spent two or three 

 months in gathering a vessel-load, shelling them and 

 salting them, to be sold in the early spring to the 

 vessels engaged in the great ocean cod fisheries ; 

 whilst large numbers were also engaged during the 

 entire summer gathering them to be sold in the larger 

 markets for food, where they were prized very highly 



