MUSSEL FAUNA OF MAUMEE KIVEB. 



19 



The manager of the boathouse at Robinson Park told us of having 

 seen a good bed of mussels here during clear low water. He also 

 reported that where he used to live on the Ohio River they ate the 

 " small sweet mussel," but the larger kinds were too tough for food, 

 except that they could be used for flavoring soup. 



Station E. Feeder canal from Rohinson Park to Fort Wayne. — In 

 the days of the Wabash and Erie Canal, the dam mentioned above 

 was built across the St. Joseph River just below what is now Robin- 

 son Park, and a feeder canal was dug to convey the water from 

 above the dam to the main canal at Fort Wayne. After the main 

 canal had fallen into disuse this feeder was still used as a source of 

 power for mills at the outskirts of the city, and the water was turned 

 back into the St. Joseph River. 



When Robinson Park was established the canal formed a charm- 

 ing water lane leading from the city out to it. About the summer 

 of 1906 or 1907, however, the dam in the river broke and let the 

 water out of the canal. 



The dry canal bed offered one of the most remarkable opportuni- 

 ties possible for the study of mussel distribution within a small area. 

 It was 6 miles in length and, with the exception of a few places be- 

 low the general level, it dried up so quickly that the mussels are still 

 left in their original positions in the mud on the bottom of the canal. 

 The shells are half to two-thirds buried in the dried mud, the great 

 majority of them with the posterior end directed northward — that is. 

 against the current when the canal was full of water — and with the 

 valves nearly closed, just as the animals died. 



This region had been visited and preliminary studies made in the 

 autumn of 1907, and it presented the same features that it did early 

 in the summer of 1908 — a long, dry, and cracked mud flat forming a 

 vista of projecting shells, the short tracks the mussels had made 

 during life being still distinct. In the canal bed it was possible to 

 study all the species that had lived there, their abundance, distribu- 

 tion, and the like. Many of the young shells of Lampsilis hdeolus 

 exhibited brilliant rays; they appear to have been exceptionally 

 highly colored. 



Toward the upper end of the canal, in a place where the bottom 

 was 15 feet wide, the mussels were counted for a stretch of 10 feet 

 along the canal bed and the following species noted : Quadrula rubi- 

 ginosa^ 11; Q. cylindrical 1; Q. undulata^ 86; Anodonta grandis^ 6; 

 Ptychohranchm phaseolus^ 1 ; Lampsilis ligamentinus, 5 ; Z. luteolus, 

 6. The width taken was the total width of the bottom of the canal 

 and was considerably wider than the space occupied by the mussels. 



About a mile farther down the canal a space 10 feet square was 

 measured off in the bottom of the canal and the following species 



