TIIK NAUTILUS. 

 CAST UP BY THE SEA. 



BY K. W. ROPER, REVERE, MAS.S. 



While cleaning up the trophies of a recent successful trip to the 

 lieach, I wondered if my fellow shell collecters, who live near the .sea- 

 shore, appreciate the need of closely following up the .storms. It is 

 not enough to go occasionally. The beach ought to be .searched 

 every time a strong on-shore wind brings in a heavy surf. And the 

 visit ought to be made at the first low tide. Another Hood tide with 

 change of wind may bury the most precious treasures under the 

 sand. I may go nineteen times to the three-mile beach near my 

 home, and get nothing new, although I should never come home 

 empty handed ; but on the twentieth visit a shell is found of a species 

 I have not before collected. Once it was a little red Margarita 

 imdulata ; and again a Bela harpularia. Only the enthusiastic col- 

 lector knows the peculiar pleasure of such discoveries, and only the 

 collector experiences a pang at the sight of some rare shell hopelessly 

 broken, as I have many times seen the fragile Thracia conradi. The 

 latter and other bivalves live beyond low-water mark, very likely 

 so deep in the sand that a dredge would pass over them. But in a 

 heavy easterly gale the great breakers, pounding on the outer bar at 

 low tide, plow up their home, and rolling over and over, the helpless 

 shells are brought to shore by the incoming tide. It is noticeable 

 that seldom do two storms bring in a similar class of shells. 



I remember one gale which literally strewed the beach with tens 

 of thousands of the " little amethystine gems" which Totten called 

 Venus gemma. Another time the razor shells and the pretty Mach- 

 cera costata will suffer, and again the prevailing species will be Lun- 

 atia, Buccinum and Fusiis. Eight times, in as many years, I have 

 found the large Solemya borealis, twice alive. The little *S^. velum ig 

 more common. Once I captured a living Pecten tenuicostatus of 

 large size. How violently he opened and shut his shell when placed 

 in a shallow pan of fresh water ! But in spite of assiduous collecting 

 I can note less than seventy marine shells found in Revere. Doubt- 

 less collectors on more southern shores can find a greater variety. 



GENUS MAKING. 



BY CIIAS. T. SIMPSON, TAGGART, MO. 



Genus making is the fashion now-a-days with a certain school of 

 conchologists. Parties addicted to this work have access to good 



