Herbert Kaul, age 9, of Portland, Ore

How do clams multiply?

Clams are stodgy stay‑at‑homes who spend their lives buried or half buried in sand or mud. Their short bodies are encased in hard shells that tend to‑shut them away from the rest of the world. Flowing water serves oxygen and scraps of food through their partly opened~ shells. Surely dating among the clams is a problem and if yon‑mot that tie lazy do‑nothings are careless parents, you are correct.

Some clams make their homes along the banks of muddy rivers, by lake shores and muddy streams, They are the fresh‑water clams. Other clams live along the shallow shores of the tide‑ tossed ocean. They are the salt‑.water clams. Where you find one clam, there are usually more of them close by. In same clam beds, the little fellows are crowded side by side. There is no more room and each batc of babies must travel to find homes for themselves.

There are male and female clams, A baby clam is formed from . from each parent. A new generation of salt‑water clams begins, when papa sheds a cloud of tiny sperm cells into the water. The ra clam sheds a clod of egg cells. A sperm and an,egg cell must meet and fertilize before a new clam can begin to form.

In the first few hours, thousands of them air off in the water and become tiny larvae. It takes about 300 of these midgets to measure one Finch and most of them are quickly gobbled by hungry fishes.

Those that escape sink to the floor, they soon must start traveling, for they must find a fish and fix themselves to his gills. There they live for a while, looking like tiny white beads.