90 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
from a curio dealer in Bridgetown is at once identifiable with 
the Texan type and agrees with specimens in the Rev. Dr. Wat- 
son’s collection taken from the muddy bottom of the dredged 
inner harbor of Bridgetown. The apparently curious distribution 
shown by Brazil, Barbados and Matagorda, Texas, is not unique 
for the faunal relationships of the mainland coast (including 
Barbados, the small islands along the Caribbean coast of South 
and Central America) even to the mouth of the Mississippi are 
closer than at first appears. 
A third rather startling species of the inshore waters of 
Barbados is the fine Scala pernobilis F. and B. Specimens are 
taken occasionally in the fish-pots. Unlike the last two species 
it possesses a more general Antillean distribution being taken 
from the Gulf Stream even to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, but 
the species is exceedingly rare. It is an extraordinarily fine 
shell that belongs to a group apparently better represented in 
Tertiary than in modern seas. 
Certainly the most interesting mollusks of Barbadian waters 
and the ones we most eagerly sought are the two pleurotomarias, 
P. quoyana and P. adansoniana. The four known living species 
of this very ancient genus or family are distributed, one in 
Barbados and Yucatan, one in Barbados and Guadeloupe, one 
in the Moluccas and one in Japan. Such a distribution ean only 
be accounted for by the fact that these are but the last surviv- 
ing remnants of a once almost universally distributed group 
dating back even to the Carboniferous. Of the finer of the two 
species (adansoniana) we took but a fragment off the Lazaretto 
mn 90 to 100 fathoms, and of the other we obtained a fairly good 
example off the Spring Gardens in 100 ‘fathoms, and a fragment 
off the Lazaretto in 100 fathoms. It is quite probable that these 
mollusks live among the rocks of dead and submerged coral reefs 
about the 100 fathom line and are therefore very hard to get ina 
dredge. Their curious anatomical features, their very ancient 
lineage, their very local occurrence in a world-wide distribution 
and finally their odd appearance and beauty of shell, make them 
great prizes to the collector and student. We are told that the 
fishermen occasionally capture a specimen in their fish-pots and 
sell it for a very large price. 
Our dredging was all done between Hastings and Holetown. 
