64 TllK NAUTILUS. 



standing curiosity to compare tlie zoological features of the Bay 

 State with those of New Jersey, my old tramping ground, 1 paid her 

 five or six visits in different localities during the spring, summer and 

 fall of 1903. While these expeditions were mainly ornithological, 

 the Mollusca claimed more than passing attention, and a small col- 

 lection of specimens was made and presented to the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, where Prof. H. A, Pilsbry kindly 

 made the identifications and comparisons here recorded. 



Disclaiming any but a tyro's knowledge of conchology, it only re- 

 mains for. me to preface these records by stating my conviction that 

 the evidence given by the vertebrates of Delaware indicate that her 

 southernmost border is more strictly Lower Austral than Upper 

 Austral. Certain species of birds and reptiles are fouTid there wliich 

 do not occur in southern New Jersey or Pennsylvania. In the 

 Brandywine valley hills above Wilmington there is perhaps a shade 

 of approach to a preponderating number of species typical of the 

 Upper Austral and Lower Transition. In the upper Choptank 

 valley the Lower Austral finds its most northerly reaching arm on 

 the Atlantic seaboard, and the bird fauna there found in the thickly- 

 forested bottoms is a curious combination of three distinct sub-faunae, 

 one northern, one western, and another southern. (R.) 



In general character, the snail fauna is nearly identical with that 

 of eastern Maryland west of the Chesapeake, but there are a few 

 somewhat conspicuous differences, such as the occurrence of typical 

 Polygyra tridentata, in place of P. t. jnxtidens, in Maryland. Pyra- 

 midula alteriiata fergusoni (Bid.) is another species of the coastal 

 plain, which has not yet been found in Maryland or eastern Penn- 

 sylvania. 



The Unionidce offer unexpected interest by the finding of a colony 

 of dwarf races of several species at Seaford, Sussex Co. (P.) Sea- 

 ford is at the head of navigation on the Nanticoke River, an affluent 

 of Chesapeake Bay, and lies near the centre of the level region reach- 

 ing, with but slight elevation above high-tide level, across the entire 

 peninsula. It is a sandy loam country with stretches of piney up- 

 lands and extensive areas of half-swamp lands. The left bank of the 

 river is fifteen to twenty feet high in some places. Some scattered 

 cypresses and white cedar occur on the left bank, but have nearly 

 been exterminated. The botany and vertebrate zoology of the region 

 are Lower Austral rather than Up|)er Austral in their prevailing 



