10 THE NAUTILUS. 
And so the great story of life is narrated; a story so wonderful, 
so interesting, so full of suggestion of a great and wise Creator, that 
I take up the burden of life once more, encouraged, instructed, 
broadened, helped ! 
THE ANNUAL Reports PRESENT A VARIETY.—As the mem- 
bers of the Isaac Lea Chapter are found from Maine to San Diego, 
Cal., and while some live on the sea coast, others dwell near lakes 
and rivers, while others again reside far from any body of water, 
the annual report of work done by each member is varied. Some 
members have had years of experience, while others, perhaps, give 
us their first years’ experience in collecting and studying molluscan 
forms of life; but each report is interesting, and, from month to 
month, we hope to give one or two reports of the members of our 
Chapter. This month our members will be interested in Professor 
Keep’s paper on fossil shells. After reading it, our juvenile mem- 
bers will be glad to learn that Professor Agassiz, in his “ Geologi- 
cal Sketches,” tells about the Silurian fossils of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
and what he says about the fossil beds adds new interest to the re- 
port of our President. 
University P. O., Los Angeles Co., Cal. 
AN UNDESCRIBED MERETRIX FROM FLORIDA. 
BY WM. H. DALL. 
Meretrix simpsoni n.s. 
Shell small, plump, concentrically grooved, but somewhat irregu- 
Jar in sculpture, smoother toward the beaks; varying in color ex- 
ternally from pure white to livid bluish overlaid with streaks or zig- 
zag brown lines, the interior from pure white to deep bluish purple ; 
the most common color variety much resembles Sowerby’s figure of 
CO. hebrea Lam. (Thesaurus, pl. 134, figs. 145-4), but with the pos- 
terior end more rounded, the hinge teeth more compressed and 
smaller, and with a well-developed pallial sinus reaching to the ver- 
tical of the beaks; the lunule is smooth, long-ovate, marked off by 
an incised line, but not differentiated by color or otherwise from the 
adjacent parts of the shell; the escutcheon is obscure. 
