2 



MUSSELS OF CENTKAL AND NOKTHERN MINNESOTA. 



ST. CROIX DRAINAGE. 



Fish carrying mussels find a free passage from the Mississippi up 

 the St. Croix and into its various tributaries. One of these, the 

 Snake River, in Pine County, is full of fine mussels, as are also Cross 

 Lake and Pokegama Lake, through which it flows. There are found 

 here in great abundance the fat or grass mucket, the pocketbook, the 

 butterfly, the three-ridge and the warty-back. The fat muckets are 

 remarkably thick shelled and have a fine luster. In the latter part 

 of July there were about two carloads of shells on each lake awaiting 

 shipment. Although this locality has been reported as exhausted, 

 the fishermen at work there had no difficulty in obtaining from 400 

 to 600 pounds of shells a day. It is also an exceptional region for 

 pearls, many large and valuable ones having been obtained. Rush, 

 Bald Eagle, White Bear, and Forest Lakes, in the same drainage, 

 contain no mussels of commercial value. 



There is a small blank factory in Pine City which uses most of 

 the odd lots of shells obtained from the two lakes and Snake River. 



RED-RIVER-Or-THE-NORTH DRAINAGE. 



When the great ice sheet melted, a large lake was formed which 

 filled the Red River Valley as far north as Lake Winnipeg. Its 

 outlet was through Traverse and Big Stone Lakes, down the valley 

 of the Minnesota River into the Mississippi. This lake is estimated 

 to have lasted about a thousand years, and during that period the 

 mussels had ample opportunity to migrate from the Mississippi up 

 into the Red River. The latter was examined above and below 

 Fergus Falls, at the outlets of West Lost and Ottertail Lakes, be- 

 tween Pine and Rush Lakes, between Little Pine and Pine Lakes, 

 and at the inlet to Little Pine Lake. An abundance of good button 

 shells was found at each of these places except the last. They in- 

 cluded the fat or grass mucket, the pocketbook, the Wabash pig-toe 

 {Quadrula ruhiginosa) ^ and the round pig-toe {Q. coccinea). A 

 carload of these shells was shipped from Fergus Falls two years ago 

 and proved to be good material. There are many more carloads 

 available in the long stretches of river between the lakes of Otter- 

 tail County, and they are easily gathered, since the water in the 

 river is nowhere very deep. The conditions in this river and in most 

 of the lakes through which it flows are very favorable for com- 

 mercial species of mussels. And there is every probability that other 

 and more valuable species would thrive well if introduced here. For 

 example, there are plenty of sand bars for the yellow sand-shell, 

 gravel beds and running water for the common mucket, and excellent 

 situations for the washboard, the niggerhead, the butterfly, and the 

 pig- toes. 



