42 THE NAUTILUS. 



follow. In one colony of large Sonorellas about one in ten was 

 an albino, beautifully modeled and with yellow lips. We 

 worked here into a bank of clay and broken stone until we had 

 a face to our mine high as our heads. The Sonorellas dwelt in 

 the spaces between the clay and stone and at twenty feet in live 

 Sonorellas were found. It was then dark and I had undermined 

 a large Ocotillo that rolled me over and left a bump on my head 

 for this summer. Again we had trouble in finding Sonorella 

 dalli Bartsch, at Garden Canyon (Tanner's) in the Huachucas. 

 Here we followed a wide crevice in the limestone filled with 

 soil. At a depth of about two feet we followed crevices a couple 

 of times and found over seventy alive. The sixty Sonorellas at 

 Duquesne and as many red Sonorellas in Miller Canyon were 

 found in like manner. In Brown Canyon at the foot of a high 

 cliff of limestone dead shells were abundant. Accidentally a 

 scale of the cliff was torn off, and here was the live Sonorella 

 granulatissima latior, we were looking for, with Oreohelix and 

 Ashmunellas. 



About this time we admired our skill. After these many 

 years, one of us said, we have become 100 per cent, shell 

 collectors. On my first journey to Arizona I had raked over the 

 leaves and turned logs and stones lying on the soil. I walked 

 through the grand Tanner Canyon disdainfully past these rich 

 Sonorella mines. 



But to follow this mutual admiration convention, we did not 

 find live Oreohelix in the Mustangs though dead shells covered 

 the ground and crowded the rock slides. Here however the 

 limestone cliffs did not scale. They were cracked apparently 

 from one side to the middle, or the other side. 



We made two trips to the Whetstones before finding a shell 

 of any kind. We thought we knew whether a mountain had 

 shells or not by merely looking at it. On the third trip a long 

 slide facing east was discovered. This had a great abundance 

 of the most delicate and artistically constructed Sonorella so far 

 identified. All were dead except a few less than half grown. 

 The colony had been destroyed by some insect that had evi- 

 dently dissolved the lime with some of its juices, making a 

 hole in the shell large enough to crawl in and eat 'em up. The 



