138 THE NAUTILUS. 



to genera they can tell but little, indeed, they can only confuse the 

 student. The names Chondropoma, Choanopoma, Colobostylus, 

 Tudora, etc., mean nothing applied indiscriminately as they are. 



When Simpson and I first attacked the mountains about San Diego 

 our first impression was that we were gathering the very same species 

 taken before many miles west at Vinales, Sumidero etc., and it was 

 easy to fancy ourselves back in our old haunts of two years ago. 

 We were, however, deceived by the similarity only of the species of 

 the two localities. The majority are different species, especially, as 

 one might anticipate, among the Urocoptids. It is only the genera 

 and the sections that are the same. 



The delights of mogote collecting are hard to exaggerate, and 

 there are many mogotes all about San Diego de los Banos. Each is 

 a little treasure trove full of life and a bower of tropical luxuriance 

 and we worked them all within a distance of several miles of the 

 town. A day spent on La Guida, a splendid mountain of the main 

 range, will give perhaps a good example of our daily work while at 

 San Diego. An early morning walk of about six miles brings us to 

 the "sacred presence " and we leave the so-called road to ford a 

 river and plunge into the fearful jungle at the base of the mountain. 

 There are no shells in this jungle, but upon reaching the actual base 

 of the mountain great rocks are first met and among them the dead 

 shells give an index to what we may expect when we get up a little 

 higher. Traveling is most difficult here until the first line of rocks 

 is passed and the steep sides are reached. Then somebody picks a 

 Cepolis parraiana off a tree and we begin to look sharp for Liguus. 

 Then we reach a region of huge masses of limestone broken off and 

 fallen from the great cliffs above, all smothered in vegetation. Here 

 we discover on the rocks and the trees Urocoptis irrorata and in the 

 smaller crevices Urocoptis guirensis, sazosa and one or two closely 

 allied species. Simpson calls out that he has a Macroceramus 

 (elegans), and then we grub for a time in the soil about the bases of 

 the rocks and turn out Megalomastoma mani and that splendid 

 Alcadia (Emoda) sagraiana, and there are also here many smaller 

 things as Lyobasis angustata, Pichardiella acuticostata and its curious 

 variety korrida of Pilsbry. Climbing still higher we reach the foot 

 of the great perpendicular wall towering naked above us for several 

 hundred feet, and new conditions are at once met. Eutrochatella 

 regina is very common and we cease even to gather it. An occa- 



