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lights to Jive in the iiiiinB.liute vicinity of water, bib it is not, as some 

 think, amphibious. If phiced in an aquarium it lies motionless on the 

 bottom for a tima and then tries to reach the sides of the glass and 

 climb above the water. On old logs in wet places it is often very 

 common. In Nepean Biy, just bayond the Union Station, a great 

 many large pieces of boom timber were lying in 1833, and doubtless 

 from many years previous ; and on this timber, just above the water 

 line, in July and August of that year I observed S. ov:dls in countless 

 thousands of every size. They were conspicuously absent from sticks of 

 square timber cut the preceding winter, and on which the ahjce on 

 ■which they feed had not then begun to grow. This locality is 

 now almost completely destroyed, having been filled in with refuse 

 from the mills, and in 1884 afforded me neither this shell nor that 

 which I chiefly sought there — Sphreriuni truncatum, Linslei/, — a species 

 I have not found elsewhere. The muddy banks of the brook in the 

 Hull beaver meadow are the most pioliSc collecting ground for >S'. 

 ovalis in this vicinity, and the shells found there are large and of a 

 rich amber color. Wlien collecting there in 18S3, IVTr. Harrington, 

 who was beating for insects in alders along the brook, was surprised 

 to find in his net a number of young shells of this species, which 

 had climbed the alders to a height of ten feet. 



On June 1st, 1884, I observed this shell in considerable numbers 

 — many in coitu — on moss in a swamp near Sparks' Mills. They were 

 .slightly smaller than the Hull shells, which average 11 "5 mm. in length 

 by G mm. in diameter. Near the same place, but on the banks of the 

 Ottawa L tound later in the same year two remarkably large shells, 

 which I refer to this species. Tlie larger measures 17G by 8j mm 

 and the smaller 15'3 b}'- 8 mm. 



While cami)ing with a few friends on an Island in Heatli's Bay, 

 County Pontiac, I saw «S'. ovalis api)ear in great nuniliei-s under very 

 peculiar circumstances. One of our party, to whom had fallen in turn 

 the tedious lot of taking care of the camp in the absence of his com- 

 panions, found that fishing alone in the bay was wretched sport, and 

 paddling his canoe near to the shore, begin, in order to while away the 

 time, to s])lash the water inland as far as he could with the paddle. To 

 his infinite surprise and wonder the shore was soon c3vero 1 with these 



