GIANT SCALLOP FISHERY OF MAINE. 
315 
Prof. William H. Dali, the honorary curator of the department of mollusks in 
the U. S. National Museum, in his “Catalogue of the Shell-bearing Marine Mollusks 
and Brachiopods of the Southeastern Coast of the United States,”* gives preference 
to the designation of Lamarck, and, under date of October 22, 1890, in reply to an 
inquiry, writes : 
The name Pecten magellanicua is by far the oldest, and, in the uncertainty as to the standing of 
several fossils which have been referred to the species in question, is the one I have adopted. 
2.— GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE. 
Professor Verrill, in his “Eeport upon the Invertebrate Animals of Vineyard 
Sound,”! gives the range of the giant scallop as extending from Labrador to New 
Jersey. He states that it is rare or local south of Cape Cod. Later explorations have 
disclosed the fact that the species occurs as far south as Cape Hatteras, and is abun- 
dant in many places off the southern coast of New England. 
Locally it has been found in the waters of Labrador, Nova Scotia, Bay of Fundy, 
Passamaquoddy Bay, Frenchman’s Bay, Penobscot Bay, Bagaduce Eiver, Sheepscot 
Eiver, Casco Bay, Massachusetts Bay, George’s Bank, Block Island, Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina. The mollusk is thought to be most 
abundant in the Gulf of Maine, off“ the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, where 
several thousand specimens have been brought up from deep water at a single haul 
of the beam-trawl on the U. S. Fish Commission exploring steamers Albatross and 
Fish Hawk. 
3.— BATHYMETRICAL RANGE. 
The depth at which the scallop has been ascertained to occur varies with the local- 
ity, but generally speaking may be said to range from 1 to 150 fathoms for living speci- 
mens ; dead shells have been dredged at a depth of 400 fathoms. Verrill cites the 
depth in different sections as follows : Labrador, 2 to 15 fathoms ; Frenchman’s Bay, 3 
to 10 fathoms; Passamaquoddy Bay and Bay of Fundy, 1 to 109 fathoms; Massachu- 
setts and Casco Bays, 4 to 80 fathoms ; George’s Bank, 45 fathoms. Detailed figures 
showing the depth of the numerous beds of scallops on the coast of Maine that have 
been operated by the fishermen are given further on under the head of “Fishing 
Grounds.” 
4.— DESCRIPTION OP THE SCALLOP. 
Dr. E. E. C. Stearns, of the Smithsonian Institution, is to be credited with the 
following graphic account of the anatomy of the scallop; although it applies more 
strictly to the species with crenated valves, the description is no doubt almost equally 
appropriate to the one under consideration : 
The animal of the fan-shells is exceedingly beautiful. The mantle or thin outer edge, which is 
the part nearest the rim or edge of the valves, conforms to the internal structure of the latter, and 
presents the appearance of a delicately pointed rufde or frill. This mantle is a thin and almost trans- 
parent membrane, adorned with a delicate fringe of slender, thread-like processes or filaments, and 
furnished with glands which secrete a coloring matter of the same tint as the shell ; the valves 
increase in size in harmony with the growth of the soft parts by the deposition around and upon the 
edges of membranous matter from the fringed edge of the mantle which secretes it. This cover is 
Bull. 37 U. S. Nat. Mus., 1889. 
i Report U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-72, pp. 295-747. 
