Dickie Monarres, age 10, of Tucson, Arizona,
Do baby clams cry?
Dickie gathered a bucket of clams and during the night he heard sad, sorrowful sounds coming from the pile of little captives. There were sighs and moans and even tears. This is enough to upset any tender hearted person, For no one would want to eat a juicy little clam when he sobs perhaps because he is taken away from his loving parents.
But Andy says this is not so at all. Clams, even baby clams, cannot cry. They have no feelings for their parents for they do not even know who their parents were. The juicy little fellows do not even know that they are captives or that you plan to eat them. They go on acting as if they were still buried in the mud or sand and this is what makes the sobbing sounds.
The clams juicy little body is encased in a house of two shells# which also acts as a coat of armor. For added protection, the clam buries himself in the sand or mud. His only contact with the outside world is a syphon, a fleshy neck which pokes out from between the two shells.
The syphon is actually two tubes side by side. One tube lets in the water which carries dissolved oxygen and scraps of food, The other tube is a sort of garbage chute. It squirts up water carrying dissolved carbon dioxide and other waste materials.
Suppose our clam lives buried on a sandy beach where the tide washes up and down. When the tide is in, the clamts syphon comes up to the surface and starts to operate. One tube takes down water bearing food and oxygen. The other tube squirts up water bearing waste materials, We cannot see the squirt because it is under water.
When the tide runs out, the clam pulls down his syphon. But there are still a few squirts to be sent up through the garbage shoot. Little bubbles and fountains appear on the sandy beach and they give away the clams hiding place. We see these squirts of water coming up through the sand but if our ears were sharper we would also heard them.
Sensitive microphones let down into the sea reveal that all kinds of noises go on under the water. Shrimps and lobsters crack their claws, making noises that sound like angry marching armies. Porpoises make noises that sound like giggles. And the water going in and out of the clams syphon makes sobbing and sighing sounds.
Clams are very low on the animal scale. They have no sensitive feelings as we understand them. Higher animalsp such as the porpoise may have feelings. The porpoise is a jolly character and he may sometimes feel like giggling. But Dickie's little captive clams were just letting water in and out of their syphons. They do not feel glad, mad or even sad.