12 



MUSSEL FAUNA OF MAUMEE EIVEK. 



while all of the others were either too small or so discolored as to be 

 unfit for use. 



The river was followed from this point down to Swinney Park, 

 a distance of about a mile and a half, but practically no shells were 

 seen, and men wading in the river fishing for crawfishes with dip 

 nets knew of none. From Swinney Park down to the riffles, soon 

 to be discussed, the river had been examined fairly well during the 

 previous year, and no shell beds of any importance had been found. 

 Occasional^ dead shells had been seen scattered along shore and in 

 one place a few large Lampsilis Ugamentinus, which had probably 

 been killed by fishermen for bait. 



Station B. Riffles^ St, Marys River helow the Van Buren Street 

 Bridge. — The most important bed found in the St. Marys River was 

 at the riffles, about an eighth of a mile below the Van Buren Street 

 Bridge and across from the city waterworks pumping station. 



The riffles are conveniently near the residence of Miss Elizabeth J. 

 Bowman, at 719 Michael Avenue, who very kindly gave us the use of 

 her house and grounds as a laboratory headquarters for the work in 

 and around Fort Wayne. Being so favorably situated, this station 

 w^as repeatedly visited and the mussels obtained were carefully exam- 

 ined for food, parasites forming pearls, etc. 



As the opportunity for doing laboratory work is rather rare in 

 moving field parties, and as it was supposed that this mussel bed 

 would be fairly typical of others we would encounter but would not 

 have opportunity to study fully, this bed was investigated and the 

 observations noted in considerable detail. 



The stretch of river above the mussel bed was about 8 feet deep 

 at its greatest depth and 60 or 80 feet wide, with a sandy bottom, 

 and was used by the boys as a swimming-hole. A large quantity 

 of sand for building purposes had been hauled out of the river at 

 this place and screened some little distance from the river bank. 

 Among the screenings was a fair number of mussel shells of different 

 species and shells of Pleurocera and Sphcerium, The species of mus- 

 sels represented by the shells among the screenings were Quadrula 

 ombiginosa^i Q. undulata^ Pleurohema clava^ TJnio gihhosus^ Sym- 

 phynota complanata, Anodonta grandis., Lampsilis gracilis^ L. rectus^ 

 L. ligamentinus^ and Z. luteolus. There were not many live mussels 

 to be found in this stretch of the river, probably on account of dis- 

 turbances caused by the hauling of sand. 



There were also few found below the riffles, as the stones were too 

 thick in the river bed to furnish any foothold. The shell bed itself 

 was therefore on a slope between the shallower portion of the riffle 

 and the deeper sandy bottom upstream. The bottom on which the 



