1912] The Ottawa Naturalist. 189 



NOTES CONCHOLOGICAL AND OTHERWISE. 



In the January Nautilus, Dr. Sterki describes a new species 

 of mussel, under the name Musculium dcclive. A number of 

 the specimens upon which the species is based were obtained in 

 the County of Renfrew; the others were found in Michigan. 

 The Renfrew shells were discovered in September, 1911, in a 

 lake about a mile west of Brudenell, known locally as Lake 

 Gorman. It is a beautiful sheet of water set among the Opeongo 

 Hills which though depleted of the pine still preserves on all 

 sides of the lake the aspect of the primeval forest. About ten 

 years ago when charged inter alia with the administration of 

 the Fish and Game Department of Ontario, I arranged for the 

 seining at Long Point, Lake Erie, of large numbers of adult 

 small-mouthed black bass, and the distribution of them in suit- 

 able localities barren or depleted throughout the province. 

 At the request of my old friend, the Rev. F. J. French, of Brude- 

 nell, I sent him about fifty fish to stock Lake Gorman, which 

 contained no game fish. Manv died en route between the rail- 

 way at Killaloe and the lake. Probably not more than twenty 

 w T ere living when placed in its water. The few, however, found 

 their new home so congenial that they increased and multiplied 

 to such an extent that the lake now fairly swarms with this 

 gamiest of inland fishes. I have in common with my good 

 friend a regard for these bass which is almost paternal; yet 

 when an opportunity presented itself last September of accepting 

 his oft repeated invitation to revisit Brudenell, neither he nor 

 I allowed our interest in the bass to interfere at least for a 

 time with our more primitive instincts. The sport was glori- 

 ous. Every fish was a fighter, leaping repeatedly from his 

 element into ours. It would have been sinful to catch more 

 than w r e had use for, and we refrained from any excess. It 

 then occurred to me that the lake might yield other specimens 

 than M icrapterous dolomion. I looked for and found shells 

 in abundance. The only large mussel was Unio complanatus. 

 A fine Physa, probably P. sayii Tappan, spotted the rocks near 

 the boathouse, and with it was a remarkably beautiful, pearly 

 form of Planorbis bicarinatus. On the sandy beach at the 

 northern end of the lake occurred a large, and, I think, unde- 

 scribed, Sphoerium. It differed widely from the other large 

 Sphiria, S. sulcatum and 5. crassum. Many were collected and 

 cleaned. They were regarded as particularly precious, and 

 were put away with that excessive care which, like ambition, 

 sometimes "o'erleaps itself and falls on t'other side." They 

 have not yet been found. 



The surprise of the day for me was the finding of another 



