5S3 REPORT 1863. 



Page. PL Fig. 



202. I. 7,10. Mi/a Japonica, n. s. Volcano Bay, Is. Yedo. Closely related 

 to M. arenaria : [identical, teste A. Ad.]. 



292. 1. 8,9. Psammobia olivacea, n. s. Bay of Yedo. [Nearly allied to 

 Hiatula Nuttalli.~] 



OQQ (4. 1,2. I Pectcn Yessoensis, n. 8. Hakodadi. [Resembles Amwittm 



^ 6 ' )3. 3,4. f caurinum, Gld.] 



295. 5. 16,17. Purjmra scptentrionalis, Rve. [ = -? crispata, var.] PJapni:. 



295. 5. 13,15. ?ullia Perryi,n. s. Bay of Yedo, one sp. dredged. [_= I'oliJ- 



harpa ampullacea, Midd.l 



296. Venerupis Nuttalli, Conr. \_Saxidomus]. Japan. 

 296. Tellina secta, Conr. Japan. 



296. Tapes decussata, Ln. [Probably T. Petitii, var. or Adamsii. 



Japan.] 



296. Ostrea borealis, Ln. Japan. 



296. lanthina communis, Lam. Japan. 



296. lanthina prolongata, Blainv. Japan. 



96. At the time that Dr. Gould was describing Dr. Stimpson's Japanese 

 shells in the Boston Proc. Ac. 'N. S., Mr. A. Adams, R.N., one of the leained 

 authors of the ' Genera of Recent Mollusca,' was making extensive and accu- 

 rate dredgings in the same seas. The new genera and species have been and 

 are being published, in a series of papers, in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, and 

 in the Proc. Zool. Soc., preparatory to an intended complete work on the 

 mollusc-fauna of the Eastern North Pacific. The collections of Mr. Adams 

 have already displayed the Japanese existence of several species, as Siplionalia 

 Kellettii, Solen sicarius, Homalopoma sanguineum, &c., before supposed to be 

 peculiar to the West coast. Unfortunately for our present purpose, while 

 the comparison of specimens was going on, Mr. Adams was unexpectedly 

 called to service on board H.M.S. ' Majestic,' and was obliged to pack up his 

 collections. Enough has been ascertained, however, to prove that it will be 

 unsafe henceforth to describe species from either coast without comparison 

 with those of the opposite shores. 



97. Pacific Railroad Reports. As it is necessary, in studying any fauna, 

 to make comparisons far round in space, so it is essential to travel far back 

 in time. The fullest account of the fossils of the West Coast of America is 

 to be found in the l Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the 

 Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean,' which form ten thick quarto volumes, 

 copiously illustrated with plates, and published by the U.S. Senate, Wash- 

 ington, 1856 *. The natural-history department was conducted under the 

 superintendence and with the aid of the Smithsonian Institution ; and science 

 is under special obligations to Prof. Spencer S. Baird, the Assistant Secre- 

 tary, for his Reports on the Vertebrate Animals. It would hardly be ex- 

 pected in Europe that the best resume of the zoology, the botany, and the 

 geology of the vast region between the Great American desert and the Pacific 

 should be found in a railroad survey. Unfortunately, it has not been the 

 custom to advertize and sell the valuable documents printed at the expense 

 of the U. S. Government, in the ordinary channels of trade. They often become 

 the perquisites of the members of Congress, and through them of the various 

 employes, by whom they are transferred to the booksellers' shelves. The 

 fifth volume of the series is devoted to the explorations of Lieut. Williamson ; 

 the second Part contains the Report by W. P. Blake, geologist and minero- 

 logist of the expedition. In the Appendix, Art. II., are found " Descrip- 

 tions of the Fossil Shells," by T. A. Conrad. They were first published in the 



* This extremely costly and valuable assemblage of documents was selling in Washing- 

 ,on, in 1860, at 5 sterling the set. 



