THE NAUTILUS. 125 



comer and a stranger to the oldest inhabitants. After wading 

 about in the sticky mud for a time and having gathered a quan- 

 tity of the shells, the company, exhausted from their labor, sat 

 down on the shore to rest. It was decided that the chief must 

 name the malihini (stranger). Being a stout man and not ac- 

 customed to such strenuous labor as he had just been engaged 

 in, he declared that the name of the new clam should be 

 "okupi." 



A few hours spent collecting specimens was sufficient to con- 

 vince me that the name was most appropriatelj^ bestowed. 



The species seems to be entirely restricted to brackish water 

 mud-flats and is easily killed by either fresh or sea water. My 

 native informant states that after the okupi had been abundant 

 for several years during his youth, there came a period of very 

 heavy rain which flooded the lowlands about his home in Ewa. 

 After the flood went down there was not one of this species of 

 clam alive in that locality. Although he is a professional fisher- 

 man he had not seen the clam either in Ewa or at Kalihi (where 

 he had resided since 1886) until a few months ago, when the 

 natives began to secure them in quantity from the Kalihi and 

 Moanalua mud-flats, not a mile distant from his home. 



In a large series of 456 specimens 68 have deep purple in- 

 teriors; 374 bluish-white and 14 are from yellow to salmon 

 colored, the proportions remaining the same in full grown and 

 immature shells. When this clam is cooked the varied dark 

 greenish-brown or purple-brown markings ^ change to a rich 

 chestnut (or between russet and cinnamon-brown of Ridgeway) 

 but the interior of the shell is not affected. The majority of the 

 colored figures of this genus that we have examined are appar- 

 ently made from sun-bleached shells or those that have been 

 opened in hot water and accordingly do not show the color as 

 in life. 



While these shells agree in the main with the figure and de- 

 scription of Tapes philippinarum, and with Japanese specimens 

 they differ by the somewhat larger size and bolder markings. 

 It may be as well to have a varietal name, Tapes philippinarum 

 okupi, for the Hawaiian form. 



' Bone-brown to clove-brown in the drv shells. 



