284 - PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Nov.—Dec., 
about 7,000 or 8,000 feet, granite or other igneous rock prevailing, 
and with but a little timber. A few ledges of sharp-pointed limestone, 
dolomite probably, had no attraction for the snails. The entire 
region at present is inaccessible except to horsemen and pedestrians 
and these should carry their own food and shelter. We did, and 
lived like kings before the war. 
One of us (Ferriss) collected a few days, less than a week, in the 
Santa Catalinas, Mount Lemon and Soldier Camp, in 1910; again 
much of the time from May to October in 1913, on the southern 
slope, around Mount Lemon, Soldier Camp, Marble Peak and on the 
northern mesa, about Brush Corral. Again a month was spent in 
1917, at Sabino Basin, Bear Creek, and Brush Corral, the Rincon 
Peaks and the Galiuros. The guide, Frank Cole, on a hunting trip, 
brought in Sonorellas from the Tortillitas and from the Cafiada del 
Oro section of the Santa Catalinas. Many inviting prospects in 
these mountains remain neglected. They surely contain species 
still unknown. 
Life is rapid in snaildom, decay a slow process in an arid climate; 
and possibly these fat cemeteries in the basements of Sonorella 
slides merely represent the natural death rate of many years. It 
may be that one living inhabitant to one hundred skeletons is the 
right proportion. However an impression grows upon the collector 
as he digs in the arid foothills, that in earlier times there were periods 
or seasons more favorable to snail life—seasons with more moisture, 
more vegetation, and a deeper humus. The steep mountain gulches. 
with walls on either side thrown above the surrounding surface quite 
plainly speak of days when the floods were greater than any known 
in modern times. These boulder bulwarks contain potsherds and 
other evidence of human occupation; also Sonorellas. As collecting 
grounds they are often preferable to the large slides farther up the 
mountain. Among these boulders, in the hot sunlight, we found 
the largest Sonorella. Measured crudely in the field it had a diameter 
of 33 millimeters. 
In collecting Sonorellas and Oreohelices from arid to humid zones. 
in the same canyon or mountain, one gets the impression that the 
differences of size are mainly a matter of the breed; that they are 
racial, rather than due to length of growing season, supply of food or 
climatic comforts. We naturally search ideal environments of 
food, shade and shelter for robust races, and expect to meet the 
pigmy forms in hot, dry and barren places. Often what we find is 
the reverse of this. On one climb in 1918, at Kitt’s Peak, a large 
OE 
