380 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [May, 



NOTES UPON SOME LOWEK CALIFORNIAN HELICES. 

 BY HENRY A. PILSBRY. 



The receipt of some Helices collected on Cerros (Cedros) Island, 

 Lower California, by Mr. H. N. Lowe, has been made the occasion 

 for giving plates illustrating the Micrariontas of Lower California 

 and offering some notes upon the characters, variation, distribution, 

 and type localities of the several forms. Information upon the 

 habitats and stations of several species may be found in an article 

 by Mr. Lowe in the Nautilus for July, 1913. 



The only recent work of an exact nature upon these snails is in. a 

 paper published by Doctor W. H. Dall in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 

 Phila. for 1900, in which several new forms are defined. The fauna 

 stands much in need of investigation by some one who can study the 

 snails on the ground; who will look into the limits and characteristics 

 of the snail colonies, locate them exactly, and keep the snails of 

 different colonies separate. At present we have little knowledge of 

 the association of forms or the range of variation within a colony. 



The first Helices from the Lower Californian coast seem to have 

 been collected by Dr. Hinds, who accompanied Capt. Belcher as 

 surgeon of H. M. S. Sulphur. The Sulphur was engaged in work 

 of survey and exploration along the West Coast in 1839, and oppor- 

 tunity for land collecting was had at San Diego and various points 

 northward, San Quintin, Cerros Island, Turtle (San Bartolome) 

 Bay, and Magdalena Bay. Two species collected by Hinds were 

 described by Pfeiffer in 1845, Helix levis and H. areolata, both re- 

 ported, in the original descriptions, as from "California," whether 

 Lower or Upper not specified ; moreover, at the time of the Sulphur 

 voyage the differentiation of the Californias seemed a small matter 

 to Europeans, both being equally savage and remote. 



During 1846 the Herald and Pandora surveyed parts of the coast — 

 Victoria, Esquimalt Harbor, Port Discovery, Port Townsend, San 

 Francisco Bay, San Nicolas, S. Clemente, San Diego Bay, Los 

 Coronados, San Quintin, Cerros Island, Magdalena Bay.^ A number 



^Narrative of the Voyage of H. M. S. Herald during the years 1845-51, by 

 Berthold Seemann, 1853. 



