256 THE HALIOTIS, OR PEARLY EAR-SHELL. 
* 
The value of the exports of the Haliotis or Abalone shells 
from San Francisco was, in the year 1866, $14,440, being 
1697 sacks, each of two bushels capacity; and in the year 
1867 the export had increased to 3713 sacks, worth $36,090. 
Jeffreys, in remarking upon the sale of the European spe- 
cies, H. tuberculata, says that the importation into England 
of the Meleagrine, or true mother-of-pearl shells, from the 
South Seas, has interfered with the sale of the "ormer" 
at Guernsey, although he was informed that one merchant 
. . . purchased from four to nine tons annually, paying 
seven shillings and sixpence per hundred weight, equal to 
about thirty-seven and one-half dollars per ton, American 
gold. 
The geographical distribution of the Haliotides is widely 
extended ; it is remarkable however that not a single species 
is found upon either coast of South America, or upon the 
east coast of North America, while no less than five or six 
species* are found on the west coast of North America, be- 
tween the Gulf of California, northerly to, and including 4 
part of Alaska. 
Species are also found in Japan, China, Australia, New 
Zealand, Tasmania, and many of the smaller islands of the 
Indo-Pacific waters; the Canary Islands, Africa at the Cape 
of Good Hope, and the Atlantic Coast of Europe. 
The length of this paper prevents my treating at this time 
of the uses made of the Haliotis shells in the arts by civil- 
ized peoples, or the purposes to which they are applied by 
the ruder races of mankind. 

id CAD ER 
*Of these five or six species, H. splendens Reeve, is found at San Diego and the 
islands off the coast; H. corrugata Gray, Santa Barbara to San Diego and Catalina 
Island; H. rufescens Swainson, from Mendocino County, southerly, to San Nicholas 
Island; H. Kamschatkana Jonas, from Monterey, northerly to Alaska, also in Japan; 
H. Cracherodii Leach, from Farallone e S 
the Islands off the entrance an 
Bay, southerly to San Diego; and H. Californiensis Swainson, a doubtful species 
upon islands (and the outer ?) of Lower Cal s latter 
is regarded by many as a variety ii. 
eral specimens in my collection. Tias om fre to lh Boles, vili 




