THE NAUTILUS. 
71 
GENERAL NOTES. 
With the cooler weather of autumn conchologists will find in¬ 
door operations once more agreeable, and all who have availed 
themselves of the past season for adding to their knowledge of mol- 
lusk life or to their cabinets of specimens should try to share their 
harvests with others by telling of the interesting experiences in the 
field, of the occurrence of uncommon species or varieties, or the 
turning up of well known ones in new localities. Frequently ran¬ 
dom observations on the life habits of one or a few species are valu¬ 
able. Who knows where most of our marine or laud snails lay their 
eggs, how many there are, their form and size? And yet this is a 
vital point in the life of the species; and there are hundreds of 
others, some of which are sure to come to the knowledge of every 
collector. The difficulty is that such facts are too often esteemed of 
less worth than a fine lot of shells, and so are forgotten and left half 
seen or unrecorded. A collector’s note-book should be as valuable 
as his cabinet, especially if the knack of sketching living animals, 
etc., is cultivated. 
We hope that each of our readers will give us some fart, or ob¬ 
servation which has been made his or her own, during the past 
summer. Short notes dealing with single topics are always wel¬ 
come, and have the advantage of being published promptly. Such 
a magazine as this one is always co-operative, and the more each 
gives, the more each receives. If anything you have seen interests 
you it is likely to be of value to others : but being interested one’s 
self is a good test of what makes good reading. Meantime the edi¬ 
tors will try do their part. In future, more attention will be given to 
notices of current literature of conchology than has been our custom 
in the past; and it is of course understood that our pages are freely 
open to all opinions, entirely regardless of those held by ourselves. 
The Junior Editor of the Nautilus will be away from Phila¬ 
delphia for some time after the middle of October, as he contem¬ 
plates a palaeontological trip to Alabama. 
Note on Helix gossei. —As the identity of this species is some¬ 
what obscure, it may be well to clear it up in this place. Helix 
gossei was first described by Pfeiffer in the Proc. Zook Soc. Loud., 
for 1846, p. 37, the description being repeated in Monographia, I, 
p. 30. In the later Conchylien Cabinet, Helix, p. 219, Pfeiffer de- 
