MARINE SHELLS OF LOWER CALIFORNIA. 35 



during Captain Beechey's voyage of discovery in the 

 "Blossom," and published in London, 1839, ^^ which 

 twenty species from the gulf are mentioned, mostly new 

 ones. These were chiefly shore shells and showy spe- 

 cies. In 1836- 1842 Captain Belcher, with the British 

 ship " Sulphur," surveyed that coast, and the ship's sur- 

 geon, Richard B. Hinds, made some more thorough col- 

 lections, partly by dredging, obtaining about thirty species, 

 most of them published in the "Zoology of the Sulphur," 

 1836 to 1842. 



The next important collections were made during the 

 Mexican war by the American, Col. E. Jewett, traveling 

 at his own expense. He touched at Mazatlan, and ob- 

 tained six species, supposed to be from there, but prob- 

 ably many more were mixed with the shells collected by 

 Major Rich, U. S. A., numbering 108 species, and 102 

 obtained by Lieutenant Green, U. S. N., in the gulf. 

 These were catalogued by Dr. A. A. Gould, and about 

 thirty supposed new species described by him as [new] 

 "Mexican and Californian Shells," with figures, in the 

 Boston Journal of Nat. Hist., vol. vi, 1853. 



The most extensive collection ever made in the gulf 

 was by Fred. Reigen at Mazatlan, which place, being 

 only about twenty-five miles north of the latitude of Cape 

 St. Lucas and close to the Tropic of Cancer, shows most 

 perfectly the influence of a tropical climate on the mol- 

 lusca. A special work on this collection of about 708 

 species, and also on all others then known from Mazat- 

 lan, was published by P. P. Carpenter, as the "Mazatlan 

 Catalogue," 1855-7. The collection was the result of 

 three years' work, and contained a few species that may 

 have been imported on ships. 



The Xantus collection, made at Cape St. Lucas, has 

 been before mentioned, in the first article on land shells 



