February, 1920] 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



31 



Agassiz on the expedition to Lake Superior. It is 

 supposed to be identical with a Sphaerium now 

 found in the Upper Mississippi Valley, in Illinois, 

 Iowa, South Dakota, and as far east as North- 

 western Ohio. Such shells are generally light to 

 dark corneous or greyish. As it occurs near Ottawa 

 it conforms more closely to Prime's description, and 

 is "bright golden" or "greenish-yellow." Like S. 

 crassum it has been found here in but one station 

 Moore's Creek in Hull. It is not a common shell, 

 but is least rare in a pool about a hundred yards 

 north of the Aylmer Road, near the abrupt turn of 

 the stream southward, after a short westerly course. 

 It is smaller than S. sulcatum, and larger than the 

 recently described 5. torsum, which are found asso- 

 ciated with it in Moore's Creek. 



A single representative of each of the three genera 

 of Unionidae found in Canada occurs in the same 

 stream Unio compressus Lea, Margaritana undu- 

 lata Say, and Anodonta ferussaciana, var. subc^lin- 

 dracea Lea the latter bemg the only anodon occur- 

 ing also in the creeks at Stittville and Britannia 

 Highlands. 



Mr. C. W. Johnson of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, has compared specimens of S. 

 aureuru from Hull with shells believed to be Prime's 

 types, and is satisfied of the corectness of the identi- 

 fication, which Dr. Sterki confirms. 



A single shell, shorter and much more inflated 

 almost sphaencal in fact from Moore's creek, is 

 doubtfully referable to this species. It might be re- 

 garded as merely abnormal if another shell, iden- 

 tical in size and shape, had not been found in the 

 outlet of Meach Lake. If additional specimens 

 should be found, the shell may be entitled to specific 

 rank. 



4. Sphaerium FLAVUM Prime is another of the 

 shells described from specimens found on the Agassiz 

 Expedition, and was described as from Sault Ste. 

 Marie. Dr. Sterki states its habitat to be "the 

 region of the Great Lakes." Whiteaves' records 

 it as collected by Mr. Mclnnis in the Root and 

 English rivers, near Lac Seul, in north-western 

 Ontario. 



My first specimens were imperfect separate valves 

 obtained in the early eighties in the mill pond of 

 Pattee & Perley, at the Chaudiere, which happened 

 at the time to be empty. They were sent for inden- 

 tification to Tryon of the Philadelphia Academy, 

 who marked them "S, striatinum}" It was not until 

 long afterward, one day in late summer, when the 

 river was very low, that the shell was found living 

 about a mile higher up the Ottawa. I was picking 

 my steps along the remains of the dam that once led 

 a portion of the waters of the Little Chaudiere to the 



pioneer mills of Nicholas Sparks.^ As the crib 

 work of the dam decayed the filling of stones and 

 gravel was in places pressed outwards into the 

 rapids. In the centre of a runnel in one of the 

 breaches so formed I observed what seemed like a 

 number of golden beads. Closer inspection proved 

 the attractive little objects to b^ bright yellow 

 sphaeriums unlike any form of siriatinum known to 

 me. Large numbers were collected in this and other 

 similar places along the dam, and good sets dis- 

 tributed among my correspondents. The shell was 

 so uniformly regarded as S. fiavum of Prime that 

 I have little doubt of the correctness of the identi- 

 fication. 



Although the dam has since been swept com- 

 pletely away, the shell is, I am sure, still to be found 

 in the depressions in the rapids where eddies form 

 and fragments of reck accumulate. However the 

 current is usually so strong that wading would be 

 seldom unattended with danger. One locality for 

 this species is accessible without risk when the river 

 is low. It is in the old mill race itself. Along the 

 shore line, and from fifty to a hundred feet above 

 the dead water in the "Snye," lies a narrow talus, 

 covered in late summer with not mare than a few 

 inches of water. On moving the larger stones and 

 raking among the smaller ones, many specimens of 

 this shell may be easily found. 



5. fiavum is smaller than any of the shells pre- 

 viously mentioned. At Ottawa it rarely exceeds 10 

 mm. in length. Its color is brighter than that of any 

 of our sphaeriums except the much larger S. aureum 

 and certain of the less inflated 5. occidentale. As 

 no other shell of the family has been observed in 



rReport Bureau of Mines, 1912, p. 138. 



sit may be of interest to note that Captain Le 

 Breton'.s "mills at Britannia were of a still earlier 

 date. They were begun in 1818 to serve the military 

 settlement.s established in that year at Richmond 

 and March, and were the first built on the Upper 

 Canada shore of the Grand river (as the old name 

 of the Ottawa was then commonly abbreviated) 

 above the Long Sault, where Hawkesbury now is. 

 Robert Randall's ambitious projects to develop water 

 power and establish mills and iron works to smelt 

 the Hull ores on his four hundred acre property, 

 purchased in 1809, and extending (in present-day 

 nomenclature) from Bronson avenue to Booth 

 avenue and from Carting avenue to the Ottawa (but 

 not including the islands), were frustrated by the 

 persecution to which he was subjected by members 

 of the Family Compact, his seven years' imprison- 

 ment at Montreal, and the scheme devised and suc- 

 cessfully carried out by Le Breton and Levi us 

 Peters Sherwood, assisted by Sherwood's brothers- 

 in-law, John Stuart and Henry John Boulton, by 

 whicli Stuart, as sheriff of Brockville, at the in- 

 stance of Boulton, and without notice to Randall, 

 for whom Boulton had acted as counsel, sold to Le 

 Breton on December 11. 1820, all Randall's lands in 

 what is now the heart of Ottawa. On the next day 

 the captain, as no doubt in duty bound, conveyed an 

 undivided half-interest in the property to Sher- 

 wood. The story of this nefarious transaction, 

 which was held nevertheless by a judicial member 

 of the Compact to be within the law, is told at 

 length in Appendix (S.S.S.S.) to the Journals of the 

 Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada for 18.53. 



The destruction of Sparks' mills is among the 

 faintest of early memories. Of these mills as of 

 Troy it may be truly said thateven the ruins have 

 perished. 



