30 



AFFORD USEFUL BAITS. 



conclusion of the season, purchase from the Americans the 

 remaining portions of their bait, in order that they may the 

 more speedily complete their cargo. Bellanger, who ascer- 

 tained this fact, and who is well versed in Conchology, ex- 

 amined this Mya carefully, and found that it was a species 



Fig 4 



(M. arenaria) met with abundantly on the coasts of the French 

 channel. * But the most valuable of the Mollusca in their 

 present view is certainly the Loligo piscatorum (Fig. 4), a 

 species of Calamary, or as it is called by our fishermen, a 



* Edin. New Phil. Journ. viii. 204. Audouin et M. Edwards' Hist. Nat. 

 du Lit. de la France, i. 296. Dr. Gould says: " The clam (Mya arenaria) 

 is still more important, in an economical point of view, than the oyster. It 

 is extremely prolific ; and its exhaustless banks are every day accessible 

 during twelve of the twenty-four hours." It is used for food as well as for 

 bait. About five thousand bushels of clams are annually brought to Boston 

 market. Immense numbers are salted for the bank fisheries not less than 

 five thousand barrels every year. " Seven bushels of clams make about one 

 barrel of bait ; so that thirty or forty thousand bushels are used in this pre- 

 pared state, and perhaps as many more are used from the shell. The value of 

 the clam-bait is six or seven dollars per barrel." Invert. Massachus. p. 359. 



