XX. A TRIP TO ISLANDS IX LAKE ERIE. 

 By Calvin Goodrich. 



Some of the older American collections contain land-shells of peculiar 

 form and pattern, the locality for which is given as "Strontian Island, 

 Lake Erie." There is reference to the island in Binney & Bland, 

 page 153, and in Binney's Manual, pages 480 and 492. 



Mr. George H. Clapp, failing to find Strontian Island on available 

 maps, wrote me in the winter of 1914-15 for information regarding it, 

 suggesting that it might be a local name, which had failed to get 

 recognition from the official chart-makers and, that, as I lived in the 

 region, I might know, or might learn, what the true name was. It 

 happened that I could give the information. The correspondence 

 led to a proposal for a visit to Strontian Island, now Green Island, as 

 well as for the exploration of other bodies of land in the lake. Dr. 

 Bryant Walker was sounded and he gladly agreed to become a third 

 member of the expedition. Mr. Lucas Beecher of Toledo volunteered 

 as "navigating ofificer", and the powerboat "La France," Captain 

 Woodruff, was chartered. 



The party left Toledo the afternoon of July 2, 1915, and made 

 West Sister Island at twilight, collecting being deferred until the next 

 morning. The island is inhabited only by the lightkeeper, his wife, 

 and a helper. In the sixty and more years during which the light 

 has been maintained, the island has been grazed over by many gen- 

 erations of cows and fed over by untold flocks of chickens and turkeys. 

 On our visit we scared numbers of Belgian hares from the undergrowth. 

 West Sister must have had an enormous molluscan population at one 

 time, as the "bones" carpeted the ground. But snails are now very 

 scarce, being confined mostly to "small stuff" and to two or three 

 of the larger species, which, living under the bigger logs or deep in 

 the humus, have escaped extinction. There is even a noticeable 

 decrease since a visit I made to the island in 1913. Our collecting 

 here, as well as our breathing and eating, was made difficult by the 

 Ephemeridce, then just past the climax of their swarming. West 

 Sister is a jewel in a ring of sounding wa\es, but because of the May- 

 flies we were glad to leave it. 



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