34 South Beach. 



times in the midst of the ferns and woodland vegetation, 

 when you least expect to find a denizen of the sea, you 

 come upon the empty valves of a soft-shell clam. An 

 interesting feature connected with the life-history of this 

 clam is the effect which the character of the beach exerts 

 upon the shells. On the sandy shore, where the resistance 

 is not great and about equal in all directions, the shells are 

 thin and evenly developed, and are often very beautiful in 

 form and color; but on the rocky shores of the island, 

 where the conditions are not so favorable, the shells are 

 distorted to fit the apertures in which they have grown. 

 On the peat they are even more deformed than on the 

 stony shore, and there are also many of a rounded form, 

 the peat acting as a hard-pan, preventing them from 

 burying deeply, and the constant scraping along its surface 

 of drift material breaks the upper ends of the shells. The 

 ribbed mussel also abounds in places on the peat, and I 

 have sometimes found it difficult to secure perfect speci- 

 mens, owing to the shells being broken on the edges from 

 the cause already mentioned. 



In several places on the surface of the peat there are 

 evidences of ditches having been dug in years agone; 

 perhaps most of them were made when the shore was a 

 portion of the meadow. In a few instances they may be 

 property lines, and not originally constructed for the more 

 ordinary purpose of drainage. Now they are washed by 

 the waves, the " property " is gradually being devoured, 

 and they serve as channels wherein the sea may swash 

 and swirl in that menacing playfulness that is often its 

 mood. 





