ApraL 1, 1865.} 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



79 



ABOUT THE OTTER' S-SHELL. 



[Lutraria maxima?) 



BY J. K. LORD, ]?.Z.S. 



THE Otter's-sliell, or, as it is more frequently 

 styled in the iiorth-west, the Clam, has a some- 

 what wide geographical range. It is found in great 

 abundance on the coast of Yaucouver Island, as 

 well as on the mainland fore-shore from the Bay of 

 San Erancisco to Sitka, 53° N. lat. 



This mollusc attains an immense size, and to the 

 coast Indians is most valuable as an article of diet, 

 either fresh or dried for winter use in the smoke of 

 the lodge-fires. There are several monster speci- 

 mens in the British Museum shell-room — brought by 

 myself from Yancouver Island — visible to all who 

 may be curious in Clams after reading the following 

 episode on their manners and customs. 



This bivalve spends the greater part of its time 

 buried ui the mud, about two feet deep, the long 

 syphon reaching the surface discloses his place of 

 concealment by constantly squirting up small jets 

 of water. The rise and fall of the tide on these 

 coasts, often from thirty to forty feet, exposes at low 

 water great muddy flat banks that run out some- 

 times over a mile from shore. Here he lives ; there 

 is nothing about him poetical or romantic— grovelling 

 in the mud, and feeding on the veriest filth he can 

 find, constitute the great pleasures of his life. It is 

 almost superfluous to remark that the Otter's-shell 

 belongs to the family Madridce, some of the larger 

 ones measuring eight inches from hinge to valve ; 

 shell oblong and open at both ends, cartilage-plate 

 prominent, two small teeth in each valve, foot large, 

 syphons united. 



As soon as the tide is off the flats, numbers of 

 Indian women (squaws) may be seen hastening to- 

 wards the mud-banks, guiltless of clothing, with the 

 exception of a small bit of skin tied round the 

 waist. They wade into the mud, a basket in one 

 hand, and in the other a bent stick, about four feet 

 long; and, thus equipped, commence digging up 

 the mud-houses of the Clam, guided by the jets of 

 water that disclose his residence. Pushing down 

 the bent stick, and getting it well under him, they 

 place a stone, as a fulcrum, behind the lever, against 

 which the squaw fixes her foot firmly, then lifts 

 away, and, as a skilful dentist whips out a tooth ere 

 you know the instrument is near it, so the bivalve is 

 hoisted from its mud-house, thence transformed into 

 the Indian's basket ere he knows it. The basket 

 filled, they trudge back again to the lodge. 



And now to open him — 



He is not a 7iative that an oyster-knife is likely to 

 astonish. The wily Hed-skin, if he never heard the 

 fable of the wind, the stm, and the traveller, prac- 

 tises the same principle on the luckless Clam as the 



sun found so effectual on the obstinate pedestrian. 

 What force fails to do, a genial warmth accom- 

 plishes — more persuasive, perhaps, than pleasant — 

 to induce the Clam to open his shell. 



The Indians hollow out a circle in the ground, 

 about eight inches deep, then fill it with heated 

 stones, on which they place the hivahe martyr. 

 The heat finds its way through his walls, and 

 his mansion soon gets too hot to Jiold him • so he 

 opens his door for a mouthful of fresh an- ; fully en- 

 joying the luxurj'-, he incautiously opens it wider 

 and wider. 



Slily watching his movements sits a squaw, grim 

 and dirty, armed with a long sharp stick ; hotter 

 and more thirsty grows the poor Clam ; gradually 

 the shelly portals are stretched apart, then down 

 upon him the savage pounces, and astonishes his 

 heated senses by thrusting the spear, with aU her 

 force, through the quivering tissues. His chance is 

 over. Jerked off the heated stones, pitilessly his 

 stronghold is forced open ; ropes, hinges, fastenings, 

 crack like thread, and the Clam is ruthlessly dragged 

 out, naked and lifeless. 



I venture to give a story, told by an old hunter 

 (as we were wandering by the beach), of having 

 seen a duck trapped by an Otter's-shell. And thus 

 he told it : — 



" You see I was a cruising down these flats, jist 

 dead low water as it is now, when I see a big flock 

 of shoveller ducks busy as a dog-fish ia herring- 

 time. So down I creeps, and slap I fires in among 

 'em. Sis. on 'em turned over, and away went the 

 rest, gallows skeert, quacking like mad, making 

 pretty tall travelliag to pick up the dead iius. I 

 spied an old mallard a playin' up all manner o' 

 antics, jumpin', .hackin', flappin', but fast by the 

 head tho', as if he had his nose in a steel trap. 



" What do you think had fixed him ? I'll be dog 

 gone, if a big Clam hadn't nailed him fast by the 

 beak. The mallard might a tried his darndest, but, 

 may I never trap another martin, if the Clam 

 wouldn't a held him agin all odds till the tide run 

 in, and he'd a been a gone shoveller, you bet your 

 boots?" 



THE STUDY OE MOSSES. 



THE study of mosses offers two great advan- 

 tages to persons whose time is much occupied 

 in business : 1st, that the year round every month 

 will afford numbers of new specimens— some dying 

 off as others come into fruit : and 2ndly, that the 

 specimens gathered can be examined at any future 

 time, four or five years after ; for, by merely placing 

 them into a little water, they will immediately re- 

 sume their life-like appearance. Having Avorked 

 this department of natural science for some time, I 



