FURTHER EXPLORATIONS FOR MOLLUSKS IN 

 THE WEST INDIES 



By PAUL BARTSCH, 



Curator, Division of Mollusks, U. S. National Museum 



The granting of the Walter Rathbone Bacon Travelling Scholarship 

 to me for the third year made it possible to explore some of the West 

 Indian territory much in need of investigation. Two years ago this 

 same scholarship made it possible to subject all the provinces of 

 Cuba, except Oriente, to a close scrutiny for land mollusks. The three 

 and one-half months spent in this island, which supports a greater 

 land shell fauna than any other equivalent area in the world, yielded 

 an enormous amount of material. The same grant made it possible 

 to spend the summer of last year in an exploration of Porto Rico 

 and the Lesser Antilles lying between this and the island of Trini- 

 dad, as well as the islands of Margarita, Orchilla and the Dutch West 

 Indies lying off the coast of Venezuela. This year our efforts were 

 focused on the southern Bahamas, the islands off the south coast of 

 Cuba, and the Caymans. 



After a futile attempt to obtain a suitable vessel in northern waters 

 to take the expedition to the Bahamas, contracts were finally closed in 

 Miami, Florida, for the use of the Island Home, a boat that seemed 

 to meet our needs. The reason for again securing a vessel for this 

 cruise was the fact that commercial transportation in the area to be 

 visited was non-existent, for most of the territory to be explored con- 

 sists of islands rarely visited by man. For this reason also, it became 

 necessary to provide food for the trip at the outset. The large territory 

 to be covered — some 2500 miles — made it desirable to secure sufficient 

 assistants to reduce to a minimum the time spent upon each of the 

 many islands visited. For this reason I tendered an invitation to Mr. 

 Harold Chittick, one of my students at the George Washington Uni- 

 versity, and to two Washington Boy Scouts, Ray Greenfield, who ac- 

 companied me to Cuba two years ago, and Alva G. Nye, jr.; also to 

 Mr. Harold S. Peters of the Bureau of Entomology of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. To this staff were added the Cap- 

 tain of the Island Home, E. Roberts, and the engineer, B. E. Lowe. 

 The Island Home was a 33-ton vessel, flat bottomed, 59 feet in 

 length, with a 21 foot beam, and a draft of 4^ feet, and provided with 



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