Note 58 — Chapter 3 OF THE PLANTING OF MASTER WESTON’S COLONY AT WESSAGUSSET, AND OF SUNDRY EXCURSIONS AFTER CORN.

The common clam, (mya arenaria,) or perhaps the quahaug, (venus mercenaria). The English call the former the sand-gaper, the word clam not being in use among them, and not to be found in their dictionaries. And yet it is mentioned by Captain Smith, in his Description of New England, printed in 1616. Johnson, whose Wonderworking Providence was published in 1654, speaks of “clambanks, a fish as big as horse-muscles.” Morton too, in his New English Canaan, (1637) mentions them, and Josselyn, (1672) in his Rarities, p. 96, speaks of “clam, or clamp, a kind of shell-fish, a white muscle.” Wood says, ch. ix. “clams or clamps is a shellfish not much unlike a cockle; it lieth under the sand. These fishes be in great plenty. In some places of the country there be clams as big as a penny white-loaf.” See Mass. Hist. Col. iii. 224, viii. 193, xiii. 125, xxvi. 121, and Dr. Gould’s Report on the Mollusca of Mass. pp. 40-42, and 85,86.