54 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY 



essentially a northern form where it was formerly found in enormous 

 numbers. It spends most of its time buried in the sand or mud, some- 

 times to a depth of a foot. Its long siphons (neck) reach to the surface 

 of the sand and are withdrawn when the sand is left bare by the re- 

 treating tide, leaving the characteristic hole that reveals the presence 

 of the hidden clam, Fig. 36. The clams are obtained by digging them 

 a low tide with a sort of short-handled, long-tined rake, shown in 

 Fig. 36. The number of clams obtained under favorable conditions 

 from a given area is sometimes astonishing, Fig. 37. The shells being 

 thin (soft), they are often broken in digging them out of the sand. 



FIG. 36. Beach showing very numerous holes of long-neck clams. Clam 

 rake in foreground. {After J. L. Kellogg, Shellfish Industries, from Report of Mass. 

 Fish and Game Commission by Belding.) 



Clam Culture. Although the conditions suitable for the culture of 

 soft clams are quite different from those noted above for oysters, they 

 are not unusual and are fairly well understood; it is estimated that 

 400 bushels per acre, at a profit of 75 cents per bushel, could be 

 raised. The chief difficulty in the way of successful clam culture is 

 that the laws of some States make the clam bottoms public lands, so 

 that the man who cultivates clams has no legal right to protect his 

 plantings against trespass and theft. This clam has been transplanted 

 to the Pacific coast where it apparently thrives and may become an 

 important source of food for that region. 



Hard or little neck clam, quahog, Venus mercenaria, Fig. 38. This 

 clam is common along the entire Atlantic coast, but for some'rea- 



