122 PEARLS ANI> PEARLING 



purses, traps, wires and pieces of harness are only a few 

 of the hundreds of articles that are brought out of the 

 water in the work of "crow- footing." The hooks get 

 practically everything which happens to be on the bottom 

 of the river. 



One part of the boat should be cleared to allow a space 

 to throw the mussels as they are taken from the hooks. 

 Some old dead shells are caught and should not be 

 thrown back into the water, but should be put in one end 

 of the boat and later emptied on the shore. 



Where a number of crow r -foot mussel boats are at 

 work the mussels are disturbed so often that they close 

 their shells and are therefore not ready to "bite," and so 

 there are less taken for awhile. In such cases the best 

 time to catch them is very early in the morning after they 

 have had a quiet rest and are feeding again. The first 

 ones who drag their dredges over them get the most 

 shells. 



In using the dredges the boat should be moved to the 

 upper portion of the mussel bed and turned crosswise 

 with the river, and the dredge should be placed slowly 

 into the water parallel with the gunwales of the boat, then 

 lowered to the river bottom. This method causes the 

 bar to drag properly. Then let out a sufficient amount 

 of rope to allow all the hooks to drag freely on the bot- 

 tom and tie the rope to the front of the boat, and put the 

 mule to work at the rear of the boat. 



It is sometimes possible to ascertain as to whether the 

 hooks are dragging over the mussel bed by reaching ovef 

 the end of the boat and holding the hauling rope in one 



