Ill 



THE MOLLUSKS 

 BY CHARLES W. JOHNSON 



THE summer visitor, or even the native Labradorian, can know 

 little about the mollusks of Labrador unless he be provided with 

 suitable appliances for dredging in moderate depths of water. 

 The great mass of pack-ice which bounds the shore for a large por- 

 tion of the year is a destructive agency, preventing the possibility 

 of existence of what, in more southern latitudes, is termed the 

 littoral fauna. Beyond the area affected by the ice, however, 

 there is a rich and varied fauna, with constant surprises awaiting 

 the collector with suitable facilities for dredging. Not only is 

 the number of species quite large, but these are also, in many 

 cases, individually abundant. Occasionally one of the larger, rare 

 gasteropods finds its way into the dredge, alluring one to further 

 activity, with the prospect of new species in this comparatively 

 neglected region. The fauna is Arctic, the southern boundary of 

 the Arctic province being the limit of floating ice, which on the 

 Atlantic coast of North America extends to southern Newfoundland. 

 Many of the species are circumpolar in their distribution, or rep- 

 resented by closely related forms or local variations, having un- 

 doubtedly a common origin. 



Several annotated catalogues of the mollusks of Labrador have 

 been published. Professor A. S. Packard, in 1863 (Canadian 

 Naturalist and Geologist, Vol. VIII, p. 412), published "a list of 

 the animals dredged near Caribou Island, southern Labrador, 

 during July and August, I860." The list contains seventy-eight 

 species of mollusks. In 1867, Professor Packard (Memoirs Boston 

 Soc. Nat. History, Vol. I, p. 262) published in connection with a 

 paper on the glacial phenomena of Labrador "a view of the recent 

 invertebrate fauna" in which are recorded one hundred and eight 

 species of mollusks. Miss Katherine J. Bush, in 1883 (Proceed- 

 ings U. S. Nat. Museum, Vol. VI, p. 236), recorded seventy-nine 

 species obtained by the expedition under Mr. W. A. Stearns in 

 1882. The collection was made at various points between 

 Forteau Bay and Dead Island. Again, in 1891, Professor Packard, 

 in his work, The Labrador Coast, published a list of one hundred 

 and twenty-nine species, including all those in the previous lists. 



453 



