Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-12-19
BUTTERFLY BIYALVE
THE scALLoP's JOYOUS LITE UN-
 TIL CAUGHT FOR MARKET.
Interesting Particulars Regarding the she1lash, It's Importance
 as an Article of Com #s ',
 merce, Etc. &

merce, Etc. The hard-shell clam has figured as a Synonym of sluggish ease, but no such 'eproach may be laid to the scallop. In infancy it is as lively as minnow, and until its bulk gets too heavy for free mo- Hon it will often come to the surface of lhe water for an airing says the New York Sum-
 After the first season the scallops are :oo heavy for such excursions, and they Lie together among eel 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 l like oysters.
 The scallop is the butterfly of bivalves, and, like the Lepidoptera, has short and lively life. Three years is the limit somewhat larger than trade dollar The age is denoted by stripes across the shell, which tell the same story as the l "ings on tree stump. .v
 The; scaIlop shell is one of the pret- tiest and the commonest found on the sea coast from Long Island northWard, the profusion of the shells denoting how few of the many scallop beds are dis i covered 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 1 the oyster spawn, which attach them- selves to the corrugated surfaces. Scallop dredging begins in September II {S4 Tc10 4kI n&NYse but 1t is against the law to catch them in Rhode Island or Massachusetts until ' October. Boston and Providence, with the nearby towns, are great consumers t" of scallops, and, to satisfy the demand, thewholesale dealers of that region have branches at Greenport and bid for the Peconic bay catch.
 Ascallop catcherwill earn good money, except in a 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 bi- valves being of good size and plentiful. A Long Island scallop outfit, consisting of a sloop or cat-boat, two men and a dredge, will this year clear up from I $1l0OO to $1,200 worth of scallops be- tween September and the freezing up of the bays in the winter.
 l The fishermen devote their nights to opening the scallops, and one day 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 costs the fisherman five cents quart.
 Scallops are sold and bought by the liquid measure, the average of calcula- tiitn being about four bushels in the stell to the gallon of solid meat. The value varies with the supply and de- mand, but the average price to the fish, erman is .25 cents quart, and the re- tail price is usually 40 cents quart
 The fisherman sells the scallop just as 1t comes from the salt water. but re- tail 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 stew. or fried with bacon. the scallop is toothsome dish. To be enjoyed to perfection, they should be eaten on the scallop boat, when, in the noon hour; ;thecrew knocks off labor and cook mess fresh from the water 1, on the rusty, smoky stove In the cockpit
 They fry the scallops with salt pork and serve them on the centerboard trunk in tin plates, with hunks of bread and butter and coffee as incidentals The savers of the cooking are more titillat- Ing to the appetite than a cocktail and the crisp sea breeze, fragrant of the wide Atlantic, is a better tonic than wine to. aid digestion and make such meal g pleasant memory.
 The muscular center of the scallop is the only edible part, white jelly-like disk that suggests the heart of the oy- ster. The remainder, which correspond; to the body of the oyster, but lacks It's consistency, is cast aside with the shell.
 The big muscle enables the scallop tc move about quite rapidly in it's search for food by thes duickness with which it opens and shuts its she'll It makes as much fuss comparatively in tagIng in and ejecting water as a. stern-whee steamer.
 Along Cape Cod, when the tide is out and there is only a foot or two of wa ter over the eel grass, on a calm day the young scallops make the stir of schoo of little fish. They may be obseryet from a boat shooting about among thf eel grass and they are never still or the bottom, like clans oroysters.
 The marketable scallops are found if water of six or eight feet in depth, but they are never found in solid, compac groups. As consequence of their buoy ant nature, in storms of exceptional vio. fence great quantities of scallops arr sometimes cast up by the sea. sucr happening is as welcome to the folk: near by as shower of gold dollars, ant the entire community gathers with bar 7 rels and boxes to harvest the gift o % Neptune. 8t ss@n @ss
 An Ideal Town
 Tn fha village If Altanhi1rp on whose