36 THE NAUTILI'S. 



PROF. H. E. SARGENT has left Woodville, Ala., to spend the sum- 

 mer in Clearwater, Minnesota. 



PROFESSOR THOMAS H. HUXLEY, the most famous of English 

 biologists, died at 3.35 P. M., June 29, at the age of seventy years. 



Dr. W. D. HARTMAN, of West Chester, is publishing an Illustra- 

 ted Catalogue of the Molhisks of Chester Co., Pa., in The Village 

 Record, West Chester. 



PLANORBIS SAMPSONI Ancey, described from Sedalia, Mo., and 

 hitherto recorded from no other locality, is in the collection of the 

 Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., from Athens, Illinois, collected by E. Hall. 

 PLANORBIS CENTERyiLLENSis Tryon. This very distinct species 

 seems to be quite widely diffused on the Pacific slope, but most west- 

 ern collectors call it vermicularis Gld., judging from the labels of 

 numerous lots before us. It is a small, brown shell, with high 

 whorls, flat top, concave in the middle, and narrow umbilicus, while 

 the true vermicularis is a flat, corneous shell, very similar to purvus 

 or small deflectus, and doubtfully distinct from eastern forms. 



MR. 8. N. RHOADS has returned from a collecting trip through 

 Tennessee, from the Mississippi to Roan Mountain. Land shells, 

 i'nionUhi' and Pleuroceratidce were found abundant. Jo spinosa was 

 rather scarce in the Tennessee, Nolachucky and Holston Rivers 

 under boulders ill swift water. Vitrinizonites was taken at Roan 

 Mountain, as well as Polygyra andrewsce and major, with other fine 

 and local species. Helieina occnlta Say also turned up in east Ten- 

 nessee. Mammals were scarce throughout the State, except at Roan 

 Mountain. 



MOLLUSKS AS PURIFIERS OF WATER. Charles Hedley, in the 

 Journal of Malacology, says: "A use, novel to me, of pond snails by 

 the Chinese silk-growers, is described in an official work which 

 caught my eye by chance. This waif of malacological information 

 is so certain to escape recorders that I transcribe the passage : ' The 

 water used for reeling silk is taken from mountain streams, as being 

 the cleanest ; the water from wells is never used, and if mountain 

 water cannot be had, river water is taken, which is cleaned by put- 

 ting a pint of live shell-fish to one jar of water. There is a special 

 kind of shell-fish, called the pure-water shell-fish (probably Viripur/i 

 chlnen&is Gray), found everywhere in ponds, wells and creeks. 

 They first of all sink to the bottom of the jar, and then by degrees 

 make their way up its sides, consuming gradually all impurities in 

 the water within half a day or so. After the clean water has been 

 drawn from the jar, the shell-fish are cleansed and put to the same 

 duty again.' " 



