134 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



The logical end of all local studies in Natural History is the pre- 

 paration of a complete Natural History of the Province. The char- 

 acteristics of such a work I have elsewhere tried to sketch (in 

 Educational Review, v, 141). 



21. — Bibliography of the Freshwater Pearl Fishery in 

 New Brunswick. 



(Read February 7th, 1899.) 



Pearls of considerable, and often great, value are occasionally found 

 in the freshwater clams or mussels occurring abundantly in the brooks 

 and rivers of North America, and there are periodical revivals of interest 

 in the search for them. The latest Bulletin of the United States Fish 

 Commission (Vol. XV IT) contains a most valuable article upon this 

 subject by George F. Kunz, entitled " The Freshwater Pearls and 

 Pearl Fisheries of the United States," and to this the future pearl 

 fisher will do well to turn. The work contains, however, but a single 

 reference (on page 395) to New Brunswick. Additional data for this 

 province are to be found in this Society's Bulletin, No. VIII, page 85, 

 and in the St John Sun for October 26, 1889, and for November 2, 

 1889. Of some interest, too, is an article "On the Pearl," by J. 

 Hunter Duvar, in Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute, II, 86, 

 87, and a brief despatch probably exaggerated in the St. John Telegraph 

 for November 15, 1898. 



22. — Wind — Effects on Vegetation on the Isthmus of Chignecto. 



(Read February 7th, 1899.) 

 Every field botanist is familiar with the effects produced upon 

 plants by winds blowing much in one direction, but these phenomena 

 arc shown upon an unusually large scale and in extreme degree upon 

 the Isthmus of Chignecto. As one travels along the ridges in that 

 district, he observes the trees bent strongly to the northeast with 

 their branches trailing off in the same direction. This is of course 

 best seen in the most exposed places, but is also well marked in many 

 orchards; and where the wind has a clear sweep over a wide marsh, as 

 at Sunken Island, the effects are particularly plain. Three exam pies, 

 well marked though not extreme cases, are shown on the accompanying 

 cuts, which are exactly traced from photographs taken along the Fori 

 Cumberland Ridge between Point de Bute and Baie Verte. Of the 

 three a is a yellow birch, b is a spruce, and c a hackmatack. 



