T1IK NAUTILUS. 125 



THE LAND SHELLS OF CALHOUN FALLS, S. C. 



BY A. C. BILLUPS, LA WRENCEBURO, 1ND. 



Local lists of shells, no matter how incomplete they may be, are 

 always useful to those interested in the study of geographical distri- 

 bution, and without them no work could be done in that branch to 

 any degree of satisfaction. 



Many collectors fail to make these lists because they deem them 

 of little special interest, and because they feel they can give no ac- 

 count of any new thing. These lists of themselves form no article 

 of great interest when taken singly, but when a large number of 

 them, covering a large area of country, are brought together, they 

 form a most valuable source of information to the specialist. It 

 should be the aim of every naturalist to add his share to the sum of 

 general knowledge, no matter how small that share may be, and for 

 these reasons I feel it not wasted time to give the result of one day's 

 hunt, in what most likely is an unworked locality. 



This day's work took place at a bad time of year, on a cold, bright 

 morning on the 9th of December, 1900, at a place known on the map 

 as Calhoun Falls. I say on the map, as the Falls proper are a long 

 three miles from the hotel, general store and saw mill bearing that 

 name. They treated me well, however, at the hotel, as some sports- 

 men had spent the day there and had added a quantity of delicious 

 game to the usual southern country fare of " hog and hominy." 

 Between the combined resources of hotel and sportsmen, I put away 

 one of the best dinners I ever sat down to, and one which I shall 

 long remember. 



Calhoun Falls, S. C., is in Abbey ville county, on the Sea Board 

 Air Line, about twenty-five miles southwest of Greenwood, South 

 Carolina, and fifty miles east of Athens, Georgia. 



The country two miles back from the river is of a very sandy soil, 

 interspersed with red clay, and the timber principally pine. The 

 creeks are all small, sandy and swift, running over a bottom com- 

 posed only of sand, and occasionally a few yards of bare rock buried 

 in sand ; they contain no molluscan life whatever, and time spent in 

 their investigation is wasted. 



The Savannah River, at a point about half a mile below the rail- 

 road bridge, breaks into a series of falls, or rather rapids, full of small 



