136 THE NAUTILUS. 



On this Texas journey we went up the Rio Grande as far as Rio 

 Grande City. In Louisiana I visited Mr. L. S. Frierson and saw 

 his collection of Uniones with great profit. I heard the story of Dr. 

 W. S. Strode of my own State, barefooted, attempting to kick down 

 a cypress knee in Lake St. Charles. These knees in color sometimes 

 do look like a toadstool of tropical growth. 



I also learned that Mr. Frierson was well supplied with Anodonta 

 suborbiculata Say. He found a fragment of that rare queen of the 

 Anodontas at the edge of a pond near his village and employed a gen- 

 tleman of color to gather them at a nickel per clam. Two days later 

 the black imp of darkness drove up to his house with a two-horse 

 team, the wagon box full of A. suborbiculata. 



I did not find Rev. H. E. Wheeler at Arkadelphia, Ark. These 

 Methodist conchologists move too often. 



CUBAN COLLECTING ; SAN DIEGO DE LOS BANDS. 



BY JOHN B. HENDERSON. 



Mr. Charles T. Simpson and the writer recently made a collecting 

 trip to San Diego de los Banos. This old and very dilapidated 

 Cuban town is about seventy five miles west of Havana and lies just 

 at the entrance to a pass through the southern range of the Sierra 

 de los Organos and is an admirable starting point for daily collecting 

 excursions into the mountains. This is given as the type locality of 

 a number of species and judging from its frequent reference in Cuban 

 lists it must have been a favorite field for the older collectors who 

 first made known Cuba's remarkable land snail fauna. The actual 

 town itself lies in the lowlands and therefore offers nothing to the 

 collector for Cuba's level plains and valleys are almost destitute of 

 shells. On account of this fact Cuba still maintains three quite dis- 

 tinct land shell faunas, each inhabiting its own mountain system. 

 These three systems were once separated by the sea and developed 

 their own island faunas, but now that a general elevation of the 

 whole region has connected them all by dry land a mingling of the 

 three faunas might naturally be expected. Such, however, is the 

 case only to a very slight extent. The connecting land areas are 



lowlands, the tobacco fields, the cane fields and cattle ranges of 



the island. With a very few exceptions the Cuban land shells can- 



