445 



7) Lydekker, The "Wild Sheep of the Upper Hi and Yana Valleys. Proc. Zool, 



Soc. London. 1902. II. p. 80—85. PI. VII and VIII. 



8) Allen, Historical and Nomenclatorial Notes on North American Sheep. Bull. 



Amer. Mus. Vol. XXXI. p. 1—29. 



9) Rothschild, Descriptions of a new Species and two new Sub-Species of Ante- 



lopes and a new Sheep. Proc. Zool. Soc. London. 1907. I. p. 237 — 238. 



3. On a Peculiar Mode of Locomotion of a Clam, Meretrix meretrix L. 



By Kamakichi Kishinouye, College of Agriculture, Komaba, Tokyo. 



eingeg. 18. Dezember 1912. 



A kind of clam, generally known by the name of "Hamaguri", li- 

 terally meaning the sea-chestnut is identified as Meretrix meretrix L. . 

 It is a hardy bivalve inhabiting sandy flats, especially abundant in a bay, 

 near the mouth of a river and is one of the very useful shellfish, deli- 

 cate in flavour. It is however difficult to be reared in a limited area, 

 because it migrates rather extensively. 



Some years before I was told by a friend of mine that many fisher- 

 men believe in the floating of the clam and its drifting to and settling 

 in the deeper, offshore part of the sea. Many times I have tried to ob- 

 serve it myself but without effect. Last spring I have fortunately suc- 

 ceeded to confirm it through the kindness of Mr. Saichi Mi y au chi, 

 who told me that it would be tedious to wait in a boat simply to see the 

 drifting of the clam and he invited me to try the angling for Sillago, a 

 very interesting and curious mode of angling. Early on the misty morn- 

 ing of May 18 th a fisherman, Mr. Miyauchi and myself were seated 

 respectively on a very high wooden seat, temporarily put into water 

 from our boat near the mouth of River Sumida. The benefit of these 

 high seats out of water is not to frighten aw T ay the sensitive fish, which 

 is often scared even by the noise of waves beating against the boat. 

 Later we observed some trings of mucus drifting in the muddy ebbing 

 water. They are said to be the token of floating clams, so that we stop- 

 ped angling and were received into our boat again, taking in the seats 

 one by one. At that time we found a small clam, 46 mm long hanging 

 down from one of the cross-bars of a seat with a string of mucus of 

 about 60 cm long and 1cm thick, colorless, transparent and homo- 

 geneous. The cross-bar was separated from the bottom about 20 cm 

 and the water where the seat was located was about one metre deep, 

 being near the margin of a small channel. On that day we found the 

 floating clam no more , but from the clam that hung from the seat we 

 can fairly conjecture a very peculiar mode of locomotion, probably not 

 yet known to science. Fishermen call this remarkable mode of loco- 

 motion "nukeru" or the slipping. The position of the bivalve suspended 

 in water is nearly the same as in the sea-bottom. The shell is almost 



