NATURAL HISTORY. 



THREE LARGE SHELLS. 



C. M. DRAKE. 



No more delightful recreation than shell 

 hunting can be found for those who love 

 to wander along the sea shore. Shells are 

 the admiration of the savage and the 

 learned, and one can learn something new 

 of them every day. 



Let us go down to the water of Puget 

 sound, at low tide; and fortunately the best 

 tides come here, in summer, in the day- 

 time. Owing to the peculiar shape of the 

 sound the tides fall nearly 20 feet, in places, 

 but a fourth less than that near Tacoma, 

 the head of deep sea navigation. 



Puget sound is one of the most wonder- 

 ful inland seas in the world. It has more 

 than a thousand miles of coast, many beau- 

 tiful islands and* sheltered bays, and sur- 

 rounding hills covered with magnificent fir 

 trees. Last, but not least, for the pleasure 

 hunter, there is scarcely a rod of the shore 

 on which some shells cannot be found. 



Perhaps the most valuable of these 

 are the clams, which are abundant, in 

 places, and of fine flavor. You can find 

 them of all sizes, from the almost micro- 

 scopic up to huge fellows weighing many 

 pounds. The most curious of these is what 

 is known as the goeduck {Glycimeris 

 generosa) which is buried one to 2 feet in 

 the ground. 



Far down in his sandy bed the goeduck 

 (not geoduck, as Webster has it) rests se- 

 cure from all enemies except man. His 

 long neck contains two siphonal tubes, one 

 to take in his food, from the water, and one 

 to spout out what he rejects. Unlike near- 

 ly all other clams his shell does not begin 

 to cover his body, and, in the place of the 

 foot with which most clams dig, there is 

 a hole through which water can be forced 

 to enable the goeduck to sink. 



From the neck around the front to the 

 hinge is a strip of tender meat, sometimes 

 2 pounds in weight, which can be cooked 

 like beefsteak. It is delicious eating, though 

 quite sweet and a little bitter, as its name, 

 Glycimeris, signifies. But, indeed, after you 

 clean out the large stomach, all the meat 

 of the goeduck is eatable, even the rather 

 tough neck making good chowder. 



The shells are handsome, the inside look- 

 ing like porcelain. 



.Almost as big as the goeduck is the great 

 Washington clam (Schizothaerus Nuttallii), 

 which, like the goeduck, thrusts a long 

 neck up through a hole in the sand. Their 

 shells are the largest and heaviest of any 

 mollusk here, often weighing one or 2 

 pounds. 



They do not burrow as deep as the goe- 

 duck, seldom going beyond a foot deep, 

 and the Siwash Indian women dig them 



out by the hundreds, with sharp sticks. 

 The Indians eat only the gills and mantle. 



Our common commercial clams are car- 

 pet shells (Tapes staminea) and several spe- 

 cies of Saxidomus (rock-house). These 

 clams are dug by the ton, mostly for local 

 markets, though many are exported. Some 

 of the carpet shells are quite handsome, be- 

 ing curiously marked, on their white shells, 

 with patches of brown. 



Larger around even than the great Wash- 

 ington clam is a member of the Pecten 

 family which is called the large fan-shell 

 (Amusium caurinum) ; but this big fellow is 

 not so thick as the others, being quite flat 

 though almost a foot across, in the very 

 largest specimens. 



The Pectens are very pretty shells — al- 

 most the prettiest on our coast; and this 

 big member of the family is handsome, 

 too, though not so pretty as the smaller fan 

 shell (Pecten hastatus) found here. 



Their common family name is scallop 

 and all the scallops are edible. Generally, 

 only the large muscle, which pulls the 

 shells together, is eaten; but the whole of 

 this giant is good eating, of course except- 

 ing the shells. Unlike most bivalves, the. 

 Pectens are good swimmers, and dart 

 through the water, or leap from the 

 ground, by opening . and shutting their 

 shells. 



While young they weave themselves fast 

 to sticks, stones, or old shells, with coarse 

 threads called a byssus. This shell lives 

 in 20 or 30 feet of water, and prefers the 

 upper edge of a steep bank, so it can jump 

 into still deeper water when danger comes. 



Although quite flat, the shells are 

 strengthened by a score of strong ribs and 

 are not easily broken, except on their 

 knife-like edges. 



Barnacles often grow on the upper valve, 

 as they also do on what we may call the 

 nose of the great Washington clam. The 

 shells of the large fan, and of the goeduck, 

 are not common, and even here they sell 

 for 25 to 50 cents a pair. 



THE BUFFALO-HEAD QUESTION. 



Evidently my note of protest against 

 judging buffalo heads by their horns alone 

 has roused the ire of the owner of the 

 sheared head shown on the cover of Rec- 

 reation for May. Mr. Sheard say c that 

 head " has extremely long hair! " Will the 

 reader please refer to the picture, and thus 

 get the correct measure of Mr. Sheard as a 

 judge of hair'. For my part, I am amazed 

 at the man's audacity in making such a. 

 statement. 



Instead of meeting argument with argu- 

 ment, he beclouds the real issue by throw- 

 ing a shower of mud at my " bad-lands 



502 



