The suburban citizen., 1900-10-06
CAREER OF THE CLAM.
AN ENTHUSIASTIC SAILOR AND rRAv.
ELER IN HIS YOUTH.

MOuusk-lt IL hhpiuly Being Exter-
minated-rhe starfish Its Great Enemy
Most folk look upon the clam as a
very commonplace, plebeian creature
--one whose intimate acquaintance is
rather to be avoided, and who is to
be tolerated only during the summer
months when his aristocratie cousin,
the oyster, is enjoying his long vaca.
ton. In fact his very name has been
a synonym for obloquy, and only late
ly the lobster, which also deserved
better treatment from the human fam
lily, came to share this melancholy
distinction with him.
Great public services of the clam
have been long forgotten. Hardly any
one nowadays ever recalls the fact
that during the darkest days of old
Plymouth Colony he flung himself into
the breach to save the Pilgrim fore
fathers from great prlyations, if not
from actual starvation, yet now their
descendants have given him the cold
shoulder in favor of the oyster, whose
greatest accomplishment is that, I'm.
der favorable circumstances, he can
turn over without assistance in his ma
tive element, and even this is denied
by some who have made a study Of
his habits.
Now at last a sturdy champion has
come forward to plead the cause Of
the abused mollusk He is James J..
kellogg, and he writes from the bio
logical laboratory of the United States
Fish Commission at Woods Hole,
Mass, for the United States Fish
Commission Bulletin, under the title
Of observations of the Life History
of the Common Clam-Mya Arenaria."
He shows that, so far from being an
unintelligent entity, happy only when
dreaming his life away beneath the
rushing waters of the incoming tide
the clam in his youthful days is an en-
thusiastic sailor, going from one little
port to another in his graceful double
hulled craft, and when Overtaken by
storms throwing out lines to secure
moOrlngs and riding out the tempest.
When the gale has passed he casts
off his tiny hawsers and sails on to his
destination. His cables possess adj
vantages over those of hemp, for they
are elastic and therefore seldom snap
under any strain to which they can be
subjected, but should one part it is
the work of only a few minutes for
the clam to construct another, some
what as the spider spins his web.
The CLAIMS rope walk is in little
sack at the base of his foot. The Sc
erection there discharged hardens al.
most Immediately into a fine filament,
and Nj. Kellogg with a fine needle
has drawn from baby mya, by pull
ing gently but steadily, a cord two
inches long in fifteen minutes. AS
this little clam measures less than a
quarter Of an inch across, this was as
much Of an undertaking as If Mr. KEEL
logg himself had spun a rope seventy
feet long in the same time.
The little foot, in the shape Of a
plowshare, is another marvellous mem
Der, 1t serves to carry the clam from
place to place over the solid ground
and then may be used as a shovel with
which he can bury himself deep from
prying eyes. Even the smallest clans
will try to bury themselves upon occa-
slons. They will try it when only a
little larger than the grains of sand
they are trying to displace. Mr.. Kel-
logg has watched baby CLANS keep at
it persistently until at last as a re-
ward he has transferred them to sand
Of a finer grade, into which they
promptly sink from view CLANS of
from one to two inches long bury
themselves in from thirty-five to forty
minutes in ordinary sand, but it takes
them much longer period to reach
their usual depth Of several inches
The little clans have a jolly time
in summer, too for they spend the
greater part of their time in June,
July and August attached by their
byssus threads to floating seaweed,
with which they drift through the cool
salt water. Millions of them perish
at this period, however for they cast
loose in deep water, sink to the bot
tom, and drown, for CLAIMS best
chance Of living to fulfill his higher
destiny in a fritter or stewpan is to
take his abode for the period Of ma
turity somewhere between the high
and low water marks, where he Is al
ternately covered and left dry by the
overlooking water Of the ocean. Still
there are exceptions to this rule. and
as them Mr. Kellogg cites Salt Pond,
at Wakefield, II. l., from which good
clans have been taken in considerable
quantities, which have never known
the motion Of the tides.
The clam, too, has the same enemies
as the oyster. Many Of his race die
to glut the hunger Of the rapacious
starfish, and the oyster drill occasion.
ally, but not so often, innicts NOR.
tai wound by boring through his
shell. In the Kickemuit River, in
Rhode Island, countless millions of
the young clans were found drifting
about in the seaweed and eelgrass, in
which were great numbers Of the ami
mated stars waiting only to get hun
CRY to claim their victims.