66 THE NAUTILUS. 
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
MARSHFIELD, OREGON (Coos Bay), Aug. 23, 1897. 
My Dear Pilsbry:—Though I have had good success as far as 
fossils are concerned, it has been the wrong season for land shells in 
southern Oregon. Everything is three inches deep in impalpable 
dry dust, and even the trees are dusty. Barring a few Helix fidelis 
and vancouverensis m aestivation and an occasional Ariolimaz, I 
have seen nothing in the woods, and the rare brooks here are curi- 
ously bare of insect or molluscan life. 
Since coming to the sea coast I have been too busy to do more 
than note the commoner species on the beaches, and observe a few 
items of distribution. The eastern clam, Mya arenaria, has become 
acclimated, and is one of the best and most abundant bivalves. It 
was introduced unintentionally with seed oysters from the East. 
The Pacific oyster, O. Jurida, is not now found living in the bay, 
but specimens (which may have been brought here from other 
places) occur sparingly in the Indian shell heaps. Unexpected was 
the presence of Nassa fossata in numbers, I think not before re- 
ported so far north. A rarity of the rocks at Cape Arago is the 
black abalone, Haliotis eracherodii, of which this must be nearly, if 
not quite, the northern limit. Among rubbish on the beach were a 
dead specimen of Mitra maura, and a valve, also dead and worn, of 
Tivela crassatelloides. These I suspect to be ballast specimens. 
The beaches offer a poor collecting ground, even Littorinas are 
scarce. I noted the following species of shells near the entrance of 
the bay, though winter collecting would doubtless afford a longer 
list :— 
Acmaea patina, pelta, persona and mitra; Olivella biplicata and 
betica ; Purpura crispata, decemcostata and ostrina ; Litorina scutu- 
lata, Priene oregonensis, Nassa fossata, Fisswridea aspera, Crypto- 
chiton stelleri, Katherina tunicata and Mopalia muscosa; Mya aren- 
aria, Entodesma saxicola, Cardium nuttalli, Saxidomus squalidus, 
Tresus nuttallii, Tapes rigida, Petricola carditoides, Saxicava arctica, 
Macoma nasuta and inconspicua (pink and white varieties), Siliqua 
patula, Hinnites giganteus; a fragment of Pecten caurinus, and in 
holes in the sandstones Pholadidea penita, Parapholas californica, 
Zirphea crispata, Adula stylina and Kellia laperouset. 
Yours very truly, 
W. H. Dat. 
