
RAMBLES IN FLORIDA. 403 
obtained fourteen bushels of pearls”* from a certain sepul- 
chre, and as can be found at another place in the text that a 
common foot soldier, whose name is given as Juan Terron, 
had “a linen bag in which were six pounds of pearls;"f and 
elsewhere, that everybody, Spanish and Indian had pearls, 
and “as large as filberts;"i either the sources from whence 
the old historians derived their information were unreliable, 
or the Unios which are probably as abundant in the rivers as 
heretofore, have, to a very great extent, ceased to manufac- 
ture these much valued concretions. The latter case is 
hardly supposable. Perhaps one shell in a hundred might 
yield a pearl, of which not one in a hundred would be either 
clear or of perfect form, and not one in many thousands 
would be as large as a filbert.$ 
Between Camp Misery and the river, in wet or springy 
plaees upon the under side of pieces of boards or chips, 
many snails (Helix volvoxis Pareyss) can be collected, and 
the Coffee-shell (Melampus caffea) is close at hand. It is 
also found in the West Indies. Just outside of the fence 
that encloses the reservation of Fort Brooke, to the south, 
is a good place for obtaining Glandina truncata, a species 
of snail with a shell of a pink color, sometimes three inches 
It looks much like one that is found in Nicaragua 
(G. rosea). The Glandinas are carnivorous, and our Flo- 
ridian is a cannibal, and eats without either hesitation or re- 
morse the smaller snail, Helix volvoxis. The eggs of Glan- 
dina are of a whitish color, and about the size of a very 
small pea; it lives in moist grassy places, and a few boards 
that were on the ground at the locality referred to made an 
excellent trap; the Glandinas prefer the shade, and in order 
to protect themselves from the heat of the sun, hid them- 
eir open side turned from the torrent. About 
d. might be tolerably clear. (W oodward’s 

