THE CLAM FISHERIES. 595 



(&) FI8HEBY FOB QTJAHAUGS. 

 11. NATURAL HISTORY OF VENUS MERCENARIA. . 



Next to the Mya arenaria in commercial importance stands the quahaug. 



Its scientific name is Venus mercenaria, derived from the use of its shell as material for coining 

 their money by many Indian coast-tribes, and its Indian names have been preserved and studied 

 with care by Mr. J. H. Trumbull, of Hartford, Conn., who kindly writes to me as follows concern- 

 ing them: 



" For the spelling and derivation of the common name, quahaug, in the last edition of Webster, 

 I am, I believe, responsible. The pronunciation there given is that of Eastern Connecticut and 

 Rhode Island kwawhSg. I have occasionally heard the name reduced to a monosyllable 

 qnaw'g ; and, farther east, it is often made pooquaw.* 



" In a note to my edition of Roger Williams's Indian Key (Narragansett Club Publication, Vol. 

 I, p. 140) 1 gave two or three other dialectic forms of the Indian name. As you may not have the 

 volume within reach, I copy the note: 'Pequot, p'quaughhaug. Pres. Stiles, MS. Abanaki, pekwe, 

 pi. pekicahak, 'huitres' Rale. The signification appears to be either 'thick shell' or 'tightly 

 closed shell.' The Delaware equivalent is as Zeisberger wrote it pooque-u, a mussel. I have 

 now no doubt that the second meaning given above, ' tightly closed,' is the true one, distinguish- 

 ing the V. mercenaria from the more common Mya, or gaping clam. Strachey's Virginia Vocabulary 

 (about 1612) gives cawaih for ' oysters,' which is, I have no doubt, another form of the same name, 

 p'caicaih.' The vocabularies mentioned are the only ones I now remember in which the name is 

 found." 



The shape of the quahaug is well defined in the accompanying figure (see plate), and is familiar 

 to all eastern people. Like all of the genus Venus, the shells are chalky, roundish, somewhat 

 globose, ornamented with concentric ribs, the " heel " or beaks pointing far forward, with a deeply- 

 curved indentation in front, which the fishermen on the south shore of Long Island call "the point 

 of a clam." The color varies from brownish-white to smoke-tint, sometimes painted with waving 

 lines and zigzags of red and brown, there being so much difference between varieties from different 

 localities and depths that many have been described as distinct species. The posterior end of the 

 shell (i. 6., farthest from the beaks) terminates in a blunt point. The surface is covered with con- 

 centric grooves and ridges, the ridges being crowded and rising into thin sharp plates most con- 

 spicuous at the ends ; the central portion is nearly smooth. There are also minute lines radiating 

 from the beaks to the margin, where they form a lattice-work with the concentric lines; this is an 

 important character helping to distinguish this shell from the Cyprina islandica and other allied spe- 

 cies. Within, the color of the shells is white, with sometimes a dirty yellow tinge in aged specimens. 

 The impressions marking the attachments of the large adductor muscles, and usually called the 

 "eyes" by the clam-diggers, are deep and united by a well-marked line defining the edge of the 

 mantle. These impressions and the interior margin are a beautiful dark violet color. The general 

 length and breadth are about 3 by 2 inches. 



The quahaug is very abundant along the coast from Cape Cod to Florida ; north of Cape Cod 

 it is comparatively rare and local. It does not occur on the coast of Maine or in the Bay of Fundy, 

 except in a few special localities, in small, sheltered bays, where the water is shallow and warm, 

 as at Quahog Bay, near Portland ; but in the southern parts of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, as 

 about Prince Edward's Island and the opposite coast of Nova Scotia, where the water is shallow 



" The writer of an account of Martha's Vineyard, about 1807, makes the common name poquau. E. I. 



