118 THE NAUTILUS. 



Monterey, and is in proper season a fairly frequent inhabitant of the 

 waters just off shore, attaining a length of four or five feet. It is 

 with considerable interest, therefore, that I have recently received 

 information from Dr. C. H. Gilbert, of Stanford University, regard- 

 ing the occnrrence of a much more formidable species, as represented 

 by a single specimen found dead and floating on the surface of 

 Monterey Bay by some of the Monterey fishermen in June, 1911. 

 The monster was brought to shore and dragged up on the wharf, 

 where it was measured by one of the men receiving fish and cast 

 back into the water. He reported that its dimensions, inclusive of 

 the tentacles, were over thirty feet. The animal was in very bad 

 condition, there was no color left, and the epidermis had all sloughed 

 off. Unfortunately, Dr. Gilbert was not at Monterey the particular 

 day that the creature came in and did not himself see the specimen, 

 60 no attempt was made to preserve any portions whatever for pur- 

 poses of identification. Although it would be fatuous to hazard a 

 suggestion as to what species was here represented, we can at least 

 affirm that it was most certainly not D. gigas. 



Of course newspaper and magazine accounts of off-shore encounters 

 with even more titanic monsters than this one are frequent enough, 

 but from the nature of the case it seems worth while to place even 

 the most meager facts on record whenever any really definite data 

 are to be obtained. 



Stanford University, October 8, 1911. 



A NEW PLANOSBIS FEOM MICHIGAN. 



FRANK C. BAKER. 



Mr. Frank Smith, Associate Professor of Zoology of the Illinois 

 State University, recently submitted some molluscan material for 

 identification, collected in Douglas Lake, Cheboygan county, Mich- 

 igan. Among the Planorbis is one form which seems to have been 

 unnoticed, and which is easily separable from all other forms. It 

 may be described as follows : 



Planorbis cajipanulatus smithii nov. var. 



Shell discoidal, solid, the aperture sinistral ; periostracum light 



