228 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



Myatruncata. Linn. (And var. Uddevcdlensis.) 



Fossil — Saxicava sand and Leda clay ; Montreal ; Quebec ; Riviere- 

 du-Loup ; Anticosti ; Goose River, N. Shore, River St. Lawrence ; 

 New Richmond ; Portland ; New Brunswick (Matthew) ; Labrador 

 (Packard) ; Greenland (Moller) ; also in the Pleistocene of Europe. 



Recent — Little Metis ; Tadoussac ; Riviere-du-Loup ; British Col- 

 umbia ; Gulf St. Lawrence, but rare in comparison with its abundance 

 in the drift. Generally distributed in the Arctic seas and North 

 Atlantic, American coast as far south as Cape Cod ; Puget Sound 

 ( = preciosa Gould, P. P. C. ) 



The variety usually found in the Pleistocene of Canada is the short 

 or Uddevallensis variety, which is that occurring in the arctic seas at 

 present, while in the Gulf St. Lawrence the ordinary long variety is 

 found almost exclusively. At Portland, Maine, however, the long 

 variety lived in the Pleistocene, and occasional specimens are found at 

 Riviere-du-Loup and New Richmond. The form Uddevallensis occurs 

 living in Labrador (Packard), and I have found it at Tadoussac and 

 Little Metis. 



It is interesting to observe that while the present species is more 

 abundant than the next in the Pleistocene, it is much more rare in the 

 Gulf at present. It also occurs in deeper water. 



In collecting recent specimens of Mya truncata and M. 

 arenaria at Little Metis, I have had opportunity to ob- 

 serve their habits and varieties in a manner to illustrate 

 the differences above noticed. 



At the head of Little Metis Bay, where the water is 

 shallow and warm, and the bottom is soft mud and sand, 

 a large variety of Mya arenaria is very plentiful in the 

 flats bare at low tide; so much so that the place is resorted 

 to by fishermen from localities lower on the coast for 

 bait. It sometimes attains the length of 4J inches, and 

 has a thick, dense shell, without perceptible epidermis, 

 and often with radiating bands. So far as I am aware, 

 neither Mya truncata nor the peculiar variety of M. 

 arenaria referred to below, occurs on this part of the 

 coast. 



