Loomis and Young — Shell Heaps of Maine. '61 



of great size, one being enough to have fed a camp for a day. 

 However as the fish do not occur in schools so far to the north, 

 they must have been difficult to capture with the means at 

 hand. Presumably they were caught in nets. 



A few times the horny, first, rays of the dorsal fins of dog- 

 fishes were found, but everything about the skeleton of a dog- 

 fish is so perishable, and the form is so annoyingly abundant 

 at the present time, that it is only fair to assume, that goodly 

 numbers were caught by the shell heap Indians. 



The soft shelled clam (Mya arenaria Linneus) was the 

 dominant and characteristic shell of each heap, making usually 

 the major part of the material from which heaps were built. 

 The Damariscotta heap, however, is made entirely of oyster 

 shells. There does not seem to have been any marked change 

 in the shape or character of the soft shelled clam, from shell 

 heap days to the present time. As noted on page 19 there 

 was a layer of ashes under the shell heaps, evidence that the 

 camps were originally for fishing and hunting. When other 

 food was plenty, it is to be presumed that it was eaten, and 

 that the clams were the reserve and sure supply, as they must 

 have been, at times, the major portion of the supply, as seen, 

 when a foot or more of solid shells was accumulated. 



The quahog, or hard shelled clam (Venus mercenaria Linneus) 

 was found in a few heaps, noticeably at the bottom of the heap 

 on White Island, where they formed a layer of three or four 

 inches, while on Birch Island there was a small heap about a 

 foot thick made up of these shells. In this neighborhood the 

 clams first eaten were of this species, later the soft shelled 

 variety. This is further evidence that the heaps were 

 developed more or less independently and derived their charac- 

 ter very largely from the fauna of the locality. 



Blue mussels (My til us edulis Linneus) occurred in most of 

 the heaps in greater or less numbers, usually found as bands of 

 much decayed shells. These shells did not seem to withstand 

 the weathering as well as other kinds, so that they were usually 

 found as layers of bluish powder. As these molluscs occurred 

 in great masses, attached to the rocks below tide level, they 

 must have always been available, and seem to have been used 

 only when other food failed, so these bands were, or are, indi- 

 cations of times of famine. They occurred in great frequency 

 in the heaps in Frenchman's Bay, which may be due to the 

 greater vicissitudes of the weather there, or to the greater 

 abundance of the molluscs. 



Oysters (Ostrea borealis Lamarck) were found regularly near 

 the bottom of the heap on White Island, along with the quahog 

 shells. They make up the entire Damariscotta heap, having 

 been piled up there in a mass 25 or more feet deep, and cover- 



