100 THE NAUTILC8. 



for Havana I had the unexpected good-fortune to be on the first 

 regular train which passed over the sea-going extention of the Florida 

 East Coast Railway, completing the line from Knight's Key to Key 

 West. 



Shortly after my arrival in Havana, I met Dr. Carlos de la 

 Torre, Curator of the Zoological Department in the Academy of 

 Sciences, Havana, and Professor of Biology and Zoology in the 

 University of Havana, and before I could protest I found myself in 

 the toils of characteristic Cuban hospitality. The Doctor's contri- 

 butions to the literature of Cuban malacology are too well known to 

 readers of the NAUTILUS to need any reference here, but it may not 

 be so well known that he was the favorite pupil of Felipe Poey, the 

 most brilliant naturalist which Cuba has produced. 



To see his collection is worih the expense of a trip to the Antilles. 

 So far as the described Cuban fauna is concerned it is almost com- 

 plete. Here are specimens of nearly every species, and for the 

 display of a variable shell like Polymita picta, Born, or Coryda 

 alauda, Fer., many ample drawers are required. You may see 

 specimens of Licina percrassa (Wright) Pfr., rarest of Cuban mol- 

 lusks, and of which no living examples have ever been found. Its 

 habitat is Luis Lazo, Pinar del Rio Province, in one of the highest 

 peaks of the Sierra de Los Organos. 



In fact a drawer of Cuban shells calls up many a vivid scene and 

 many an honored name among the students of molluscan life. Poey 

 and Gundlach and Pfeiffer seem to spring out of the past, speaking 

 with such versatility that you give them respectful audience ; in 

 your imagination Wright and Arango are on the trail of a hundred 

 new species which unaccountably have been overlooked ; the Count 

 Morelet is on the high seas again exploring regions that no natur- 

 alist ever saw before him ; and F^russac is rampant with chagrin 

 that some oft-handled snail is crawling about with a name wholly 

 unworthy of its race. 



Once on Cuban soil, under the spell of matchless evening skies, 

 the dormant or overworked energies aroused by all that a tropical 

 winter can be, why should one sleep? A single rainy day at Ceiba 

 Mocha, at Rangel, or on any limestone mountain-side, and how shall 

 arid plains or denuded hillsides, where only shells of somber hue 

 and homely feature care to dwell, claim any longer a collector's 

 enthusiasm ? For here is life and color and health, not only in the 



