Ii 
THE MOLLUSKS 
By CHARLES W. JOHNSON 
THE summer visitor, or even the native Labradorian, can know 
little about the mollusks of Labrador unless he be provided with 
suitable appliances for dredging in moderate depths of water. 
The great mass of pack-ice which bounds the shore for a large por- 
tion of the year is a destructive agency, preventing the possibility 
of existence of what, in more southern latitudes, is termed the 
littoral fauna.. Beyond the area affected by the ice, however, 
there is a rich and varied fauna, with constant surprises awaiting 
the collector with suitable facilities for dredging. Not only is 
the number of species quite large, but these are also, in many 
cases, individually abundant. Occasionally one of the larger, rare 
gasteropods finds its way into the dredge, alluring one to further 
activity, with the prospect of new species in this comparatively 
neglected region. The fauna is Arctic, the southern boundary of 
the Arctic province being the limit of floating ice, which on the 
Atlantic coast of North America extends to southern Newfoundland. 
Many of the species are circumpolar in their distribution, or rep- 
resented by closely related forms or local variations, having un- 
doubtedly a common origin. 
Several annotated catalogues of the mollusks of Labrador have 
been published. Professor A. 8. Packard, in 1863 (Canadian 
Naturalist and Geologist, Vol. VIII, p. 412), published “‘a list of 
the animals dredged near Caribou Island, southern Labrador, 
during July and August, 1860.” The list contains seventy-eight 
species of mollusks. In 1867, Professor Packard (Memoirs Boston 
Soc. Nat. History, Vol. I, p. 262) published in connection with a 
paper on the glacial phenomena of Labrador ‘‘a view of the recent 
invertebrate fauna” in which are recorded one hundred and eight 
species of mollusks. Miss Katherine J. Bush, in 1883 (Proceed- 
ings U. S. Nat. Museum, Vol. VI, p. 236), recorded seventy-nine 
species obtained by the expedition under Mr. W. A. Stearns in 
1882. The collection was made at various points between 
Forteau Bay and Dead Island. Again, in 1891, Professor Packard, 
in his work, The Labrador Coast, published a list of one hundred 
and twenty-nine species, including all those in the previous lists. 
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