68 THE NAUTILUS. 



found many dead and broken Liguus along the shore in front 

 of it, some of them still well colored, probably washed out by 

 the exceedingly high tide which covered much of the floor of 

 the forest with sand and debris. At the time of my last visit I 

 spent the better part of a day carefully combing it over in the 

 hope of finding this snail alive, but in vain. My search only 

 brought to light a few dead, faded shells inhabited by hermit 

 crabs. 



This hammock although nearly ruined seems to be headquar- 

 ters for cacti on the Lower Keys. Chapman's "Flora of. the 

 Southeastern States ' ' only gives six species, two of which are 

 introduced, for the entire region covered by his book, but Dr. 

 Small lists no less than eight natives from this hammock alone. 

 Among them is a tall, columnar Cereus with trunks as large as 

 a man's body and twenty feet high, and another more slender 

 but erect form which I discovered on Lower Matecumbe Key 

 several years ago. One of the prickly pears (Opuntia) is nearly 

 prostate and has joints about the size and shape of an old- 

 fashioned hunting-case watch a most striking form. In fact 

 whatever time and attention one is not compelled, when in this 

 hammock, to give to fighting mosquitos and sand flies, must be 

 devoted to crawling through and avoiding cacti. 



A few days later I was joined by my friend Dr. Edward 

 Mercer, formerly of Philadelphia but now of Miami, who has 

 been with me on several recent trips. In the village of Big 

 Pine I was told of a man, who, not long before, had found 

 Liguus solidus in variety on the northeastern part of the island 

 where he had gathered a quantity and could have taken a 

 "hatful." That has become a stereotyped word, and every 

 time I visit the Lower Keys I am told of some one who could 

 have filled his hat with them. And when traced down it turns 

 out that he has perhaps gotten a few Oxystyla, which still 

 sparingly persists on some of these islands, or Drymaeus multi- 

 lineatus, a very abundant but much smaller form. In some 

 cases the bona fide sworn-to Liguus turns out to be Litorina 

 angulifera. I have come to believe that the spot where Liguus 

 solidus is abundant is either at the end of the rainbow or where 

 you pick up the will-o-the-wisp. One man volunteered for a 



