10 THE NAUTILUS. 



And so the great story of life is narrated ; a story so wonderful, 

 so interesting, so full of suggestion of a great and wise Creator, that 

 I take up the burden of life once more, encouraged, instructed, 

 broadened, helped ! 



THE ANNUAL REPORTS PRESENT A VARIETY. As the mem- 

 bers of the Isaac Lea Chapter are found from Maine to San Diego, 

 Cal., and while some live on the sea coast, others dwell near lakes 

 and rivers, while others again reside far from any body of water, 

 the annual report of work done by each member is varied. Some 

 members have had years of experience, while others, perhaps, give 

 us their first years' experience in collecting and studying molluscan 

 forms of life; but each report is interesting, and, from month to 

 month, we hope to give one or two reports of the members of our 

 Chapter. This month our members will be interested in Professor 

 Keep's paper on fossil shells. After reading it, our juvenile mem- 

 bers will be glad to learn that Professor Agassiz, in his " Geologi- 

 cal Sketches," tells about the Silurian fossils of Cincinnati, Ohio, 

 and what he says about the fossil beds adds new interest to the re- 

 port of our President. 



University P. O., Los Angeles Co., Cal. 



AN UNDESCRIBED MERETRIX FROM FLORIDA. 



BY WM. H. DA 1. 1.. 



Meretrix simpsoni n.s. 



Shell small, plump, concentrically grooved, but somewhat irregu- 

 lar in sculpture, smoother toward the beaks; varying in color ex- 

 ternally from pure white to livid bluish overlaid with streaks or zig- 

 zag brown lines, the interior from pure white to deep bluish purple ; 

 the most common color variety much resembles Sowerby's figure of 

 C. hebrtea Lam. (Thesaurus.pl. 134, figs. 143-4), but with the pos- 

 terior end more rounded, the hinge teeth more compressed and 

 smaller, and with a well-developed pallial sinus reaching to the ver- 

 tical of the beaks; the lunule is smooth, long-ovate, marked off by 

 an incised line, but not differentiated by color or otherwise from the 

 adjacent parts of the shell ; the escutcheon is obscure. 



