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Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 1889
The Giant Scallop Fishery of Maine (Excerpts)
A Introduction
B Natural history
C.The Fishery
D. The Uses of the Giant Scallop
E. Preparation of Products, Markets, Etc.
F. Statistics of the Fishery
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 313 The Giant Scallop Fishery of Maine.
A. Introduction.
Although the industry gives employment to several hundred persons; has considerable capital devoted to it; yields large quantities of a highly esteemed and valuable food product; and is capable of great improvement and development, it appears to have received little attention, and the first investigation of its nature and extent was undertaken by the U S. Fish Commission in 1889. As an illustration of the paucity of information on the subject, the writer would quote a well known authority on mollusks. Speaking of the scallop which is the object the fishery in Maine, Winslow says: "The species is not abundant nor of commercial importance. It is available for food, however, and occasionally used as such." (1) This may be said to represent all that has been published on the giant scallop viewed from a commercial standpoint. At the time at which Winslow wrote, the foregoing statement was no doubt substantially correct. But conditions have changed; it is the province of this paper to show that in many localities the species is very abundant and of great and growing economic value; and the fishery is thought to be of sufficient magnitude and importance to warrant the detailed discussion which follows. The writer is indebted to the following-named persons for valuable data based on original observations on scallops and the scallop fishery adjacent to their homes: Messers L. F. Gott, of Tremont; F. W. Lunt of West Tremont; W. W. A. Heath, of Seal Cove; S. D. Gray, of Cape Rosier; J. M. Vogell, of Castine; and John E. Kelly, of North Boothbay. Acknowledgment of the courtesies extended by these gentlemen is hereby tendered. Footnote: (1) London Fisheries Exhibition, 1883. Catalogue of the Economic Molluscs, by Lieut. Francis U. S. Navy, Washington, 1883. ----------------------------------------------------- Page 326 From Section C, Part 10 Fishing Grounds (e) Shape and character of the beds. Data relative to the shape and thickness of the scallop beds are not so abundant or conclusive as could be desired. In general it may be stated that the areas covered by scallops are usually irregularly oval in out- line and the proportional length of long and short diameters appears to depend entirely on the strength and direction of the current, the major axis in all cases being in the line of the current. This is very noticeable in the Bagaduce River and the beds around Bartlett's Island, for instance, where the feature can be directly traced to the action of the water. The fishermen in some localities think that the scallops are sometimes disposed in a shape approximating a broad-based cone, and when not so placed that they lie one upon the other in several layers, most thickly aggregated towards the center of the bed.The opinion also prevails that some beds at least are raised a foot or more above the level of the surrounding bottom. However this may be, it is known that the mollusks lie thickly on the bottom, and that ten or twelve successive hauls may often be made over the same spot before the scallops appear to be seriously diminished. Mr. James E. Benedict, for some years the naturalist on board the U. S. Fish Com- mission exploring steamer Albatross, informs the writer that in many localities off our coast the scallops lie very thickly on the bottom, and are so closely matted together by the sponges and worm-tubes that locomotion is impossible. Under such conditions the working of the beds would probably be promotive of the growth and improvement in the quality of the individual animals and the expansion of the beds, by breaking up the masses of mollusks and giving them an opportunity to exercise their locomotive faculties in search of new feeding grounds. (d) Nature of the bottom. Scallops can not be said to prefer any particular kind of bottom, and their presence in a given locality is rather to be attributed to favorable conditions of salinity and temperature than to the character of the bottom. In certain places the mollusks may be found on a rocky bottom, for instance, to the exclusion of other kinds, while in an adjoining section they may occur only on soft sticky mud. Off Mount Desert Island the greatest variety of bottom is found. The beds adjacent to the northern and eastern sides of Bartlett's Island and off Hardwood Island are on soft bottom, as ascertained by the U. S. Coast Survey. The bed at the southern end of Bartlett's Island is on rocky bottom. Sticky mud predominates off Moose Island. Mr. Heath remarks that the scallops in that vicinity occur on bottoms of rock, reddish gravel, hard clay, and dead shells. Mr. Gray has found that the numerous beds in the Penobscot Bay, between Eagle Island and Dice's Head, occur mostly on the hard, rocky bottoms, some of them so rugged that a dredge can not be used thereon. The large bed near the Islesborough shore appears to be chiefly on clay and mud. In the Bagaduce River the bottom is mostly rocky. Mr. Vogell states that the scallops do not there occur on soft bottom, but seem to prefer hard, smooth areas, covered with free rocks from the size of pebbles to stones so large that a dredge is some. lines caught behind them and lost. In the Sheepscot River, black and gray sand and mud appear to be the predomi- nant farms of bottom. (End of section) |