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Part III. — Seventh Annual Report 



With such a diversity of nomenclature as this, and the restriction to 

 the northern part of our island of the use of the term clam, if we really 

 must apply to the genus Pecten an English equivalent other than the 

 name pecten it would tend to lighten an already overburdened scientific 

 catalogue by using the more widely applied name 'scallop.' All English- 

 speaking naturalists know the term 'scallop,' but that of 'clam' is, 

 I fear, known to a comparatively limited number. Few Scotch 

 naturalists will have any difficulty in understanding what mollusc is 

 meant by the clam, but most would be perplexed if ' Frills,' or ' Queens,' or 

 ' Squinns ' were spoken of, yet ' Frills ' or 'Queens' of the South Devon man, 

 and ' Squinns ' of the Dorsetshire fishermen are the synonyms of ' clams ' or 

 ' scallops,' just as ' Yanneau ' and ' Olivette ' are the names given in the north 

 of France to the genus Pecten. 



Several well-marked species of the genus Pecten occur in British seas ; 

 but except the common scallop (P. opercularis), the variegated scallop 

 (P. warms), and the great scallop (P. maximus), they are not of much 

 economic importance to the fisheries. These three species are used for 

 baiting hooks, but I am not aware that either the variegated scallop or 

 the great scallop is so plentiful as to be continuously used as bait by 

 fishermen in any part of Scotland. The common scallop, however, occurs 

 in such abundance in the Firth of Forth, that an industry has been created, 

 in which the whole time of a large number of men and boys is employed 

 in dredging for clams, and on the continued supply of the species depends 

 the sustenance and comfort of several fishing communities. The boats 

 engaged in this way in dredging clams, for sale as bait to the larger smacks 

 that pursue the fishing to the seaward side of the Isle of May, along with 

 the smaller boats that combine dredging with long-line fishing, succeeded 

 in landing in 1887, upwards of 860 tons of clams. This represents a 

 value of at least £2300, and shows a marked advance on the quantity 

 obtained during the previous year, when only 400 tons were secured 

 as against 1033 tons in 1888 of the value of £2918. But the 

 money value which is placed on the quantity landed in 1887, does not 

 represent the value to the fishermen of the produce of the dredge, and it 

 is not unlikely, if a taste for this delicious bivalve could be created among 

 a shellfish-loving people, that the clams would yield a greatly increased 

 revenue to the dredgers. The abundance of the common scallop con- 

 sequently entitles it to more attention, and none the less because questions 

 iii reference to an adequate supply of bait are intimately connected with 

 the presence of it and other bivalves in our seas. Moreover, its cultivation 

 may afford a means of relief to those fishing districts where supplies of 

 mussels have to be obtained from the Clyde, Ireland, King's Linn, or other 

 mussel bearing areas. 



The common scallop, to the consideration of which this paper will be 

 restricted, is distributed throughout the Scottish seas, and generally at no 

 very great distance from land. Just as marine zoologists talk of the 

 Laminarian zone, so they also speak of Pecten ground. The general 

 character of the sea-bottom on which they are oftenest found is sandy 

 gravel, with an intermixture of mud and dead shells ; in some localities 

 the mud predominates. They associate together in great numbers in water 

 from 5 to 12 or 15 fathoms. Though they are most numerous between 

 these depths, yet they are to be found in shallower waters, and in water as 

 deep as 100 fathoms. The species is not confined to the British seas, but 

 its occurrence is chronicled* from places so far apart as Iceland (Steenstrup) 

 and Faroe (Mohr) in the north, and Algeria (Weiukauff), the iEgean 

 (Forbes), and Madeira (M '.Andrew) in the south. Its geological is nearly 

 * Jeffrey's British Conchology, vol. ii. p. 60, London, 1863. 



