BARBADOS-ANTIGUA EXPEDITION 89 
constantly breaks only the hardiest of Neritas, a few LIntorina 
zigzag and Tectarzus and some Chitons can stand the destruc- 
tive force of the waves, and many of the Antillean species usual 
in exposed or semi-exposed stations are wholly absent. On the 
leeward side where the surf is less strong there are more mol- 
lusks to be found, but even there the in-shore conditions are 
not very favorable. The southern shore between the Eastern 
and Needham Points offers the best opportunities to a patient 
beach-collector who must not tire of gathering quantities of lit- 
tle green Neritina viridis and the porcellaneous brown and white 
Olivella jaspidea while searching for rarer things. The ten or 
fifteen species found washed up on the sand live in the weedy 
patches among the coral reefs that thickly beset the coast and 
are difficult to collect alive on account of the dangers of naviga- 
tion amid the reefs. 
Although the general fauna of the littoral zone is poor as a 
whole, there are a few very interesting species that occur here 
and that are very rarely taken elsewhere. One is the rather 
abundant Voluta musica, the show shell of the Barbados dealers, 
which lives in the weedy patches inside the reefs on the western 
side of the island. Barbados is the metropolis of this very 
handsome mollusk which ranges along the north shore of South 
America from Brazil to Cartagena, but for some reason it has 
never followed the currents further into the general Caribbean 
region. There are several volutas in Brazil and further south 
and a rather fine series of them (of another group) in the Gulf 
of Mexico and Gulf Stream area, but the Antillean island re- 
gion has none save this unique Voluta musica in Barbados. An- 
other very fine Barbadian mollusk, only known elsewhere by 
three defective specimens, is Terebra texana Dall. The type is 
from Matagorda, Texas, a beach worn specimen and a frag- 
ment, and one other specimen is known from the kitchen mid- 
dens of Brazil. The terebras of the Atlantic have small and 
uninteresting looking shells for it is essentially a Pacific genus. 
There the shells of many species are large and very handsome. 
This particular species, however, is as large and fine as most of 
the Pacific ones. In past geological times quite large terebras 
lived in Antillean waters and this is probably a survivor. We 
did not ourselves actually collect a specimen but one bought 
