70 



RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 



limbs, usually striking out from the trunk 

 and eacli other in sharp angles. The bark 

 is notabl}- smooth, even up the main stem, 

 until the tree is twenty-five, or more, j-ears 

 old. The color is generally greenish gra}', 

 varying with age and location. It becomes 

 furrowed upon old trees, but is less rough 

 than that of most oaks. 



The foliage varies greatly upon different 

 trees, but the characteristic leaf is oblong, 

 wider towards the end and narrowed at the 

 base. There are five or six sinuses on each 

 side, rounded, but not deepl}' cut, giving 

 rise to as man}^ lobes, each terminated by 

 a bristly point. 



The fruit need not be mistaken. It is 

 the largest of that of any native oak. It is 

 placed in a wide, shallow cup covering very 

 little of the acorn. The acorn is extremely 

 bitter, but is readih' eaten b}'^ swine. 



The wood is so porous and brittle as to 

 be of little value for most timber work. It 

 is extremely diflficult to dry out the sap of 

 the wood ; hence, the woodmen say that it 

 will never season. But for chair work, 

 especially for artificial steam-bending, it is 

 in high repute, and for that purpose and for 

 barrel staves, the forests are being culled 

 of this tree. 



It is a tree of very rapid growth and well 

 adapted for a shade tree. The leaves are 

 of a bright, shining green all summer, and 

 change to fine tinges of red in the autumn. 

 It is alwa3's a clean, healthful-looking tree, 

 and rarely harbors disagreeable insects. It 

 is a difficult tree to transplant, as are most 

 nut-bearing trees, and for resetting the trees 

 should be started in a nursery, and there 

 treated to tap-root pruning. 



Tlie tree varies so much in Rhode Island 

 as to give rise to at least tvvo marked vari- 

 eties besides the typical red oak ; one grow- 

 ing sparingly upon the banks of the See- 

 konk River, perhaps elsewhere, having very 

 long, lance-like leaves, usually somewhat 

 one-sided, often with a crooked midrib ; 

 another variety grows quite plentifully upon 

 the borders of the Pawcatuck River and 

 other portions of the southern part of the 

 state. This has much smaller acorns than 

 the typical ones and in a deeper cup, and 

 the leaves are correspondingly small. I 

 have also seen specimens of this variety 

 near the Diamond Hill station. 



It may be added that the range of this 



oak is very great, growing farther north 

 than any other oak, even to near the Hud- 

 son Bay, and upon the slopes of the AUe- 

 ghanies as ftir south as they extend. It 

 will also fiourish upon all kinds of soil, 

 from a swamp to the crevices of the rocks 

 high up the mountain sides, where it forms 

 itself into burls and low impenetrable heads 

 yards wide but not a foot high, the last of 

 the deciduous trees to defj' the blasts. 



The Shell-Bearing Mollusca of Rhode 

 Island. 



BY HORACE F. CARPENTER. 



Chapter XX. 

 Family 41. Assiminiidae, contains one 

 genus, Assiminea, Leach, one species of 

 which inhabits Rhode Island. 



60. Assiminea modesta, H. C. Lea. 

 Syns : 



Assiminea Grayana, Verrill, non Leach. 



Cingula modesta. Lea. 



Shell small, conical, imperforate, smooth, 

 thin, glossy, light chestnut brown, tinged 

 with greenish or gra3ish from the seaweeds 

 on which it lives ; whorls five or six with 

 an acute tapering spire ; last whorl large, 

 round. Length, one-eighth inch ; breadth, 

 one-twelfth. 



This species was found by H. C. Lea, on 

 the under surface of stones near Brooklyn, 

 L. I., and described by him in Proc. Bost. 

 Soc. Nat. Hist., i., 205, 1845, under the 

 name of Cingula modesta. It has since 

 been found at Huntington, L. I., between 

 tides. In 1880 Prof. A. E. Verrill discov- 

 ered a shell at Newport, R. I., at high 

 water mark, on decaying seaweeds, between 

 the docks, together with Alexia mj'osotis, 

 and Truncatella truncatula. He supposed 

 it to be the European shell Assiminea Gray- 

 ana, Leach, introduced to this port b}' ship- 

 ping, and so described it in his Cat. Mar. 

 Moll.., 1882. Since then he has compared 

 these Newport specimens with the English 

 ones, and has become satisfied not only 

 that they are unlike, but that they are the 

 same as Lea's modesta, and in the second 

 Cat. Moll.., 1884, he gives a full description 

 of the shell, with extended remarks on the 

 same, calling it Assiminea modesta, (Lea) 

 Verrill. 



