u'« 



The Nautilus. 



Vol,. XVIIT. SEPTEMBER, 1904. No. 5. 



SOUTHWESTERN SHELLS. 



BY JAS. H. FERRISS. 



Joliet has a botanical park wliere nature herself made a goofl start 

 in a collection. Fast as the money and friends can be had the col- 

 lection is being improved. I am superintendent of the ferns upon a 

 salary of '2.') cents per year, which is to be paid whenever the com- 

 missioners have their salaries increased to that point. An effort to 

 complete a collection of the U. S. ferns and cacti has led me into tiie 

 Southwest after rare examples. 



I was surprised on the first day out to find shells among the fern 

 roots upon the hot side of the Franklin Mountain at El Paso, as 

 surprised as when the ferns were found in the first place. This 

 mountain of clay and rock, thoroughly baked, is as uninviting to the 

 collector as a well-used brick kiln. There were two shells there, 

 Holospira roemeri Pfr. and Bulinndus dealbatus pasonis Pi Is. This 

 will be a species some day. Of less than twenty species found upon 

 this first trip, six \vere new species or varieties. 



Not until the last half of the fern trip made the present year were 

 the snails given serious consideration. A collector will find few 

 specimens in a land where to him the conditions are new, unless he 

 gives his whole soul to the work. 



Frank Woodruff, ornithologist and photographer of the Chicago 

 Academy was with me a couple of weeks. At Deming, N. INI., we 

 formed an alliance with the city marshal who escorted us to the 

 Florida Mts., ten miles away. At Bowie, Ariz., an expedition was 



