Do you like to eat clams? There are many people to whom the very idea is quite unappetizing. And it must have been this way for thousands of years. Nobody in Europe ever thought of eating this creature until the white man came over to America and saw the Indians doing it!

Clams have a boneless, soft body which is protected by two hard shells that close over it like the covers of a book. There are two chief kinds of clams, the long, or soft-shelled clam, and the round, or hard shelled clam.

The soft-shelled clam lives in the ocean mud in a peculiar way. It “stands” imbedded in the mud on end like a book in a bookcase. The upper end is the more pointed. From it, when the shell is open, comes a long siphon which people call the “neck.” This siphon squirts out water when some shock makes the clam pull in its neck and close its shell.

Hard-shelled clams are larger than the soft-shelled clam. They lie on the ocean bottom near the shore, more or less buried in sand or mud. Very young hard-shelled clams used for food are called “little-neck” clams. Those not quite so small are sometimes called “cherry stones.”

What do clams eat? Their food consists of the tiniest animal life in the sea, and is taken in through the neck. Clams are able to move about: Between the free edges of the two shells of the clam is a foot which the dam uses for burrowing in the mud or pushing itself along the ocean bottom.

The biggest clam of all, the giant clam, has a shell that weighs 180 to 225 kilograms. It lives in the coral reefs of the East Indies.