42 



THE NAUTILUS. 



time in exploring the country about and subjecting it to a high 

 degree of intensive collecting. In this eastern corner of Cuba 

 the coastal strip of some ten miles in width is a semi-arid region 

 with a complex of mountains that are either quite bare of trees 

 or, at most, covered with a scrub forest and low-growing spiny 

 shrubs, with, here and there, a wealth of cacti that almost 

 suggests Lower California. The rock foundation of all this 

 region, — barring some shore strips of very recently elevated 

 coral, is everywhere composed of about everything in the line 

 of rocks except limestone. This is a condition that in the 

 Antilles usually spells disappointment and failure to the snail 

 hunter. North of the big bay and then across several miles 

 of low flat country, just where the foothills of the sierras begin, 

 lies the city of Gaantanamo, interesting to us as the home of 

 Charles Ramsden, the naturalist. Just north of Guantanamo 

 is a great rampart of high limestone mountains which beckon 

 most alluringly to the collector. Sections of this rampart, 

 somewhat arbitrarily marked off, are the " Monte Verde," the 

 ''Monte Toro " and the "Monte Libano" of classic fame in 

 Cuban Natural History. 



In company with Ramsden we spent a wonderful day on 

 nearby Monte Libano but a revolution that was then devastating 

 the province and filling the land with incendiaries and bandits 

 drove us out of this richer field and obliged us to confine our 

 attentions thereafter to the arid country lying within the safer 

 limits of the Naval Station, — some fifty square miles upon which 

 Uncle Sam holds a long lease. 



It seems to be a natural law that arid or desert lands sup- 

 port but few species of snails, but that these few species exist in 

 great numbers and that they take on a very considerable range 

 of variation. All this is perfectly true of this region. We were 

 constantly amazed by the great number of specimens to be 

 found; and each day of exploration in some new valley or over 

 some range of hills added even greater figures of abundance to 

 our already astonishing records. 



The "prevailing" snail of this region is Cepolis ovumreguli 

 Lea. Its shell is very suggestive of the true helix of Spain or 

 Algeria of the lactea group. The variation is exceedingly great 



