574 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



attention was directed to a form of collector which I had not seen previously. It consisted of 

 cockle shells strung closely together upon a wire, a hole being made in the shell near the hinge ; 

 the wire is run through, and when strung they are placed at the proper time in situations favor- 

 able for catching spat. They are kept about 3 inches above the mud by means of pegs placed at 

 intervals, to which the wire is attached, and they appeared to me to succeed admirably." 



The Long Islanders are famous for the extent to which they utilize dead fish (menhaden or 

 mossbunkers) and other marine organisms as manure. It is not strange, therefore, to find that 

 they economize the offal of the scallop opening, which is mixed in the compost heap with the sea- 

 weed of the beach and makes a grand manure for the enriching of the growing corn, the fertilizer 

 being placed iu the hill instead of being sown broadcast on the land. I presume the same utili 

 zation of the refuse is practiced in Rhode Island, though I did not learn the facts there so 

 specifically. 



" This multitude of scallops," says a recent writer, " attracts to the waters of Peconic Bay 

 thousands of water fowl. Black ducks, geese, loons, and the common non edible ducks, such as 

 coots, old squaws, and whistlers, are in immense numbers, while the gulls fairly whiten the sand 

 bars when the receding tide leaves the sands bare. Robin's Island has at its north and south 

 ends two sand bars, which are bare at low water for half a mile. On these bars, therefore, are 

 left scallops, razor-fish, five-fingers, and all the minute Crustacea that make up marine life. 

 Where food is abundant there will be found something to feed upon it. Hence the crowds of 

 birds on these points at low water reminds one of the fabulous anecdotes regarding bird life 

 related iu the stories of a Jules Verne 1 ." 



But these birds are not the only enemies of scallops. They form the favorite food of many 

 fishes, especially the cod, and its congeners. The small boring mollusks attack them more 

 commonly even than the oyster, whenever they can catch a scallop quiet long enough to get a fair 

 hold upon him ; and for the same reason, namely, because their shells are more fragile than the 

 oyster's, many species of star-fish, including some small ai.d weak ones and some living only iu 

 deep water, are accustomed to seize upon and devour them. The scallop is very quick-sighted 

 (if not exactly in eye-sight, at least by some other means of apprehension) and active in avoiding 

 his enemies, so that it is able to escape many times when a more sluggish mollusk, no better 

 armored than he, would perish. The compensation for his thin, easily crushed, or quickly bored 

 shells, then, is his sharpness of wit and swiftness of locomotion, and so he is able to hold his own 

 in the fight for existence, which is ever going on among the denizens of the deep, as well as those 

 of the upper world. 



4. EXTENT OF THE SCALLOP FISHERY. 



A statistical view of the annual production of scallops, so far as I have been able to come at 

 it, remains to be given. 



SCALLOP FISHING AT CAPE COD AND BUZZARD'S BAY. As the common scallop (Pecten 

 irradians) is found only in a " rare and local " way north of Cape Cod, we must look to the south- 

 ward of that great dividing point for any commercial fishery of them. The most northerly locality 

 at which such a fishery exists, as far as I am informed, is at Hyannis, Mass., and during the winter 

 of 1877 many persons of all ages and conditions were employed in it there. One firm fitted up a 

 large house expressly for the business, and employed a large number of openers. Skiffs, cat rigged 

 yawl-boats, dories, and punts, two hundred iu number, and of every size, shape, form, and color 

 were used; most of them were flat bottomed, shaped like a flat-iron, and therefore very " tender" 

 when afloat. Each boat carried two dredges, locally termed " drags." In that year accorduig 



