62 THE NAUTILUS. 



SHELLS OF LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA. 



BY C. R. ORCUTT. 



My acquaintance with La Jolla dates back to 1879, when 

 there was not a human habitation on the coast from San 

 Dieguito on the north to the old lighthouse, 500 feet above the 

 beach, at the extremity of Point Loma at the entrance to San 

 Diego Bay. Now there are several flourishing towns along the 

 way, the delight of summer and winter tourists, among whom 

 not a few have been conchologists. 



Taking charge of Hotel Strand at La Jolla in July, 1918, I 

 have since busied myself quite as much with the molluscan 

 fauna of La Jolla as with the hotel business, with some inter- 

 esting results. 



Mr. Maxwell Smith has contributed a list of La Jolla shells 

 to THE NAUTILUS (volume 21, pages 55 and 65), and Mr. 

 Joshua L. Bailey, Jr., has contributed a supplementary list 

 (on page 92). A few additional notes may be of interest. 



Haliotis fidgens. In the spring of 1916 San Diego was visited 

 with great floods, and a great amount of silt was washed into 

 the ocean via San Diego and False Bay with the fresh water. 

 This proved to be fatal to many mollusks, and I am told that 

 many thousands of this shell were washed up along the shore 

 from False Bay to La Jolla. One gentleman told me that 

 a train of cars could have been filled with these shells which 

 were piled a foot deep on the beach in many places. Another 

 filled two sacks with the shells and nearly broke his back tug- 

 ging them to the top of the cliff at what in early days we called 

 Seal Rock, now named Bird Rock Beach. These he has finally 

 placed at my disposal, and I found the two sacks full chiefly of 

 this species. Haliotis cracherodii and H. rufescens were missing, 

 as well as H. assimilis. Out of the lot I found six specimens of 

 the following species and nine specimens of its variety. 



Haliotis corrugata. These were not very strongly corrugated, 

 but properly referable to the species. 



Haliotis corrugata diegoensis. This form differs in the entire 

 lack of the corrugations typical of the species, but otherwise 



