The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-06
BUTTERFLY OF sIvALvEs.
Joyous Life of the Scallop Until
 Caught for the Market.

From the New York Sun.
 The hard shell clam has figured as synonym of sluggish ease, but no such reproach may be laid to the scallop. In infancy 1t as lively as a minnow, and until it's bulk gets too heavy for free mo- tion it will often come to the surface Of the water for an airing.
 After the first season the scallops are too heavy for such excursions, and they lie together among ell grass or where the bottom is covered with tiny shells. The location of the scallop beds shifts each season, and they cannot be raised from spawn and kept on private beds like oysters.
 The scallou is the butterfly of bivalves, and. like the lepidopetra has short and lively life. Three years is the limit of existence, and then the scallop shell is somewhat larger than a trade dollar The age is denoted by stripes across the shell, which tell the same story as the rings on q tree stump
 The scallop shell Is one of the prettiest and the commonest found on the sea coast from Long Island northward, the profusion ol the shells denoting how few of the many scallop beds are discovered by the fishermen. The latter do not throw away the shells. Instead they sell the shells to oyster planters, who scatter them on their preserves with the oyster spawn, which attach themselves to the corrugated surfaces.
 Scallop dredging begins in September in Long Island and Connecticut waters but is against the law to catch them in Rhode island or Massachusetts until October. Boston and Providence. with the nearby towns, are great consumers of seallops, and to satisfy the demand the wholesale dealers of that region have branches atGreenport and bid for the Peconic Bay catch.
 A scallop catcher will earn good money except in season when the beds are hard to locate and light in quantity. This season has been a fine one so far, the beds not having shifted from where they were expected to be, and the bivalves be- ing of good size and plentiful Long Island seallop outfit consisting of a sloop or catboat, two men and dredge, will this year clear up from $l.0OO to $l,20O worth of scallops between September l and the freezing up of the bays in the winter.
 The fishermen devote their nights to opening the scallops, and one days catch will be delivered to the local buyers or sent off by express the morning after. All the family usually join in to open and clean the scallops, but when this work has to be paid for It cosots the fisherman five cents q quart.
  liquid measure the average of calculation being about four bushels in the shell to the gallon of solid meat. The value va ries with the supply and demand, but the average price to the fishermen is 20 cents a qua1t, and the retail price is usually 40 cents a quart.
 The fishermen sell the scallop just as it comes from the salt water, but retail dealers are said to increase the size and improve the color to suit city buyers, and incidentally enhance the ratio of profit; by soaking the scallops in fresh water
 Whether served as a stew or fried with bacon the scallop is a toothsome dish To be enjoyed to perfection they should be eaten on the scallop boat, when in the noon hour the crew knock off labor and cook mess fresh from the water on the rusty smoky stove in the cockpit
 They fry the scallops with salt pork and serve them on the centreboard trunk in tin plates with hunks of bread and butter and coffee as incidentais Ihe savers of the cooking are more ttula- ting to the appetite than cocktail, ana the crisp sea breeze fragrant or ehe "iue Atlantic is a better tonic than wine to aid digestion and make such meal pleasant memory.
 The muscular centre of the scallop Is the only edible part, a white, Jellynke disk that suggests the heart of the oys- ter The remainder, which corresponds to the body of the oyster, but lacks It's consistency, IS cast aside with the she'll
 The big muscle enables the scallop to move about quite rapidly in it's search for food by the quickness with which it opens and shuts the she'll, It makes as much fuss comparatively, in taking in and ejecting water as stern wheel steamer.
 Along Cape Cod. when the tide is out and there Is only a foot or two of water oyer the eel grass, on a calm day the young scallops make the stir of school of little fish They may be observed from a boat shooting about among the eel grass, and they are never still on the bottom, like clans or oysters.
 The marketable scallops are found in water of six or eight feet in depth, but they are never found in solid, compact groups. As a consequence of their buoy ant nature, in storms of exceptional vi- olence great quantities of scallops are sometimes cast up by the sea- Such a happening IS as welcome to the folks near by as a shower of gold dollars, and the entire community gathers with bar rels and boxes to harvest the gift from Neptune.