570 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES, 



and other tints, darting about in the clear water, up, down, here, there, everywhere. In their 

 flight-like movements, vertical, horizontal, east, west, north, and south, they are more suggestive 

 of a flock of winged animals than of bivalves of which to make a meal." 



Lack of a knowledge of this vagabondish trait in the scallop once cost a French merchant 

 dear. Having purchased several thousands of scallops in England, he laid them down in his pare 

 at Port-en-Bassin, but found them all gone next tide, for when the water came in they all shot off 

 sternforemost, like pieurres. "Why, I was shrimping down in the bay there once," said a South 

 of England dredgerman, when he heard of this story "and I seen something a shootin' along a, 

 front o' me what I'd never sin afore; 'u giv chacc to 'n; and he to shoot again, and sich like, on 

 and on why, for thirty fathoms 'n more, till at last, when he'd a got deeper'u I cared fur to follor 

 'n, I seen it were a scallop. Aye, they shoots, jist like that, I can tell 'ee; but oysters," said he, 

 "disn't." 



It is asserted that they will now and then leap to a small distance above the water. Refer- 

 ring to this jumping power, Mr. Say relates the following: "Mr. Lesson lias immersed a basket 

 of Pectens in the water of the sea, within about 6 inches of its rim. The individuals, he says, 

 which formed the superior layer, constrained in their movements by those that were beneath, 

 after many fruitless efforts, succeeded in leaping from their prison. * *" * In this way all the 

 contents of the basket disappeared within fifteen minutes. Smellie repeats from Pliny that 'when 

 the sea is calm troops or little fleets of scallops are often observed swimming on the surface. They 

 raise one valve of their shell above the surface, which becomes a kind of sail, while the other 

 remains under the water and answers the purpose of an anchor by steadying the animal and pre- 

 venting its being overset. When an enemy approaches they instantly shut their shells, plunge to 

 the bottom, and the whole deet disappears.' We have not heard that this remarkable flotilla has 

 been observed since the time of Pliny." 



The young scallops are much more active and swift in all these movements than the adults. 

 Not all scallops possess the activity of our common Atlantic coast species and of some foreign ones. 

 Many of them have a sort of beard (byssw), at least when young, by which they attach themselves 

 to rocks, seaweeds, and other marine bodies, as do the mussels, which are also bearded; having 

 anchored thus, they are fixed forever. In general, the youngsters are more active than the older 

 ones. 



In the case of our common Pecten irradians, I have already given a sketch of the doings of 

 the young. In the autumn there seems to be a migration towards the shallow water of the shore 

 by the older scallops, and then the fishing begins. The grounds where scallops are now dredged 

 are open tracts of sandy bottom, or else places where a thin layer of mud overlies the sand. 

 Keefs of rocks and very soft bottom are both avoided by this mollusk. The same holds goo<l in 

 New York Bay, on the New Jersey coast, and in every locality where these mollusks abound. In- 

 formation is scanty as to the depth to which they might be found, but it is no doubt considerable. 

 The great bulk of those taken now, however, are dredged in less than a dozen feet of water. 



The scallopers will tell you everywhere that the more they are raked the more abundant they 

 become. I heard this from many dredgers myself, and the reports of others contain the same 

 assertion. Raking, they say, scatters the young, and keeps them from crowding one another; in 

 short, it lets them grow. Yet in each locality they will tell you that the yield there now does 

 not compare in quantity with ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago. The splendid large Pecten Islandi- 

 cus, which formerly abounded on the coast of Maine and in the Bay of Fnndy, is now so nearly 

 extinct that it has become a prize to the couchologit. This came about entirely through an ex- 

 cessive raking and dredging for them. Long Island Sound has now been depopulated of its seal- 



