26 THE NAUTILUS. 



of the shell ; lines of growth very delicate, suture deep ; aperture 

 oval, longer than wide, outer lip acute ; inner lip subreflexed. 



Length |, breadth i of an inch. 



Habitat : Fish Spring, Nevada. 



I collected a few specimens of this interesting shell in the mouth 

 of June, 1868, at this locality, after a long and hard day's ride of 40 

 miles horseback. Another long ride next day of 50 miles to water, 

 compelled an early start and thus the opportunity to secure more 

 specimens was lost. 

 Limnaea stagnalis var. occidentalis Hemiihill. 



Shell large, globose, very thin and fragile ; of a light horn-color ; 

 whorls five, the last rapidly increasing in size and constituting about 

 three-quarters the entire length of the shell and generally covered 

 Avith revolving malleations separated b}^ obtuse, irregular lines more 

 or less conspicuous ; lines of growth somewhat irregular and con- 

 spicuous ; spire short, sharp and acute, consisting of three obliquely 

 twisted whorls and the nucleus ; suture well impressed ; aperture 

 globosely oval, longer than wide ; outer lip thin, sharp, acute, sub- 

 reflexed near its junction with the columella ; inner lip sinuous 

 and well defined, columellar strongly twisted. 



Length of the largest specimen If inch, breadth 1 inch. 



Habitat : Lake Whatcom, Whatcom Co., Washington. 



There is considerable distortion in the fifteen or twenty specimens 

 of this interesting variety that I found on the shores of the above 

 lake in November, 1889. This shell would probably be considered 

 new by many conchologists, but I regard this as simply a telescoped, 

 so to speak, variety of the metropolitan stagnalis. It might be called 

 with propriety the L. auricularia of America, and occupies a posi- 

 tion midway between L. stagnalis and L. auricularia and creates a 

 suspicion in my mind that the latter after all is but a form of the 

 former species. I found two living specimens in the lake. These 

 I intended to have preserved in spirit, but not having a large 

 mouthed bottle at hand I placed them in a box with some living 

 Selenites Vancouverensis, intending to remove them before night ; 

 this I neglected to do and the next morning when I opened the box, 

 I was horrified to find two of the largest Selenites, had their long 

 white bodies inserted into the shells of their acjuatic cousins and all 

 that remained of the soft parts of my new-found treasures, was the 

 tip end of their bodies in the last Avhorl of the spires of their shells. 



