135 



Family Carditidce. 

 Venekicardia borealis (Conrad). 



Cardita borealis, Conrad (1831) ; and Gould (1841, 1870). 

 Actinobolus borealis, H. and A. Adams (1858). 

 Venericardia borealis, Carpenter (1863). 

 Ci/clocardia borealis, Verrill (1873). 



Generally distributed from Connecticut to Hudson Strait. It has been 

 dredged at many localities in the Bay of Fundy, Atlantic coast of Nova 

 Scotia, and Gulf and mouth of the River St. Lawrence, in depths of from 3 

 to 50 fathoms. Stimpson says that at Duck Island, Grand Manan, it is 

 found " at low water, under stones, attached by a minute byssus." Fine 

 large specimens of this shell, in the Museum of the Survey, were dredged at 

 Ashe Inlet, Hudson Strait, by Dr. R. Bell in 1884. The species has long 

 been known to occur on the Pacific coast of North America, as far south as 

 Catalina Island, California, and it has been dredged at several localities in 

 the Queen Charlotte Islands by Dr. G. M. Dawson. According to Verrill,* 

 the Actinobolus \Cyclocardia) Kovanylice. of Morse, appears to be only an 

 inconstant variety of the common V. borealis, and has a range coextensive 

 with the latter. 



In a fossil state V. borealis has been obtained from the Pleistocene beds 

 of the Labrador coast, by Packard in 1864. 



Family Veneridce. 

 Venus mercenaria, L. 



Venus mercenaria, L. (1767); et avict. 

 Mercenaria violacea, Schumacher (1817). 

 Mercenaria mercenaria, Chenu (1862). 

 Crassivenus mercenaria, Perkins (1869). 



One of the most characteristic shallow water species of the southern and 

 warmer areas of the region under consideration, with a very similar range to 

 that of the common oyster of eastern Canada. According to Willis, J. M. 

 Jonrs and others, V. mercenaria is common at Sable Island and on the 

 Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. Verkruzen says it is "pretty abundant" at 

 St. Mary's Bay, on the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy, and it is 

 known to occur tliroughout Northumberland Strait, as far to the north- 

 westward as Bathurst, on the south shore of the Bale des Chaleurs, where it 

 was collected by Mr. R. Chalmers in 1878. 



* Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. v., p. 572. 



