Invertebrate Animals of Passaiiiaquoddy Bay. 89 
of the more common species, reserving more detailed and more tech- 
nical considerations until further study will enable me to treat the 
subject with greater fullness and precision. 
Of the mollusca some fifty species have been found, so far, in the 
Bay. Of the Tumcata or sac-molluscs some three species occur, 
including the beautiful Cynthia pyriformis., known among the fish- 
ermen as the “sea-peach,” and no production of the sea has been 
more appropriately named. For when taken fresh from the dredge 
it has the delicate velvety bloom of a perfectly ripe peach, and the 
resemblance is still further increased by its being fixed by a short 
stem. Floating pieces of wood and stakes of weirs are found bored 
by a species of Teredo, which is a true mollusc, although likely at 
first sight to be taken for an annelid. At Frye’s Island a broad and 
strong tide-dam was completely undermined and destroyed by them 
within the space of six years. 
The next family, the Solenida3, is represented by but one species, 
the razor fish {Sole^i ensis), which occurs in the sand at low water 
on Hospital Island. Uncovered only at the lowest tides, and 
possessing the power of moving with great rapidity by means of the 
large muscular “ foot,” they are extremely difficult to obtain, and for 
this reason are less used as an article of food than they otherwise 
would be. Far more abundant and obtained with much greater 
ease, and too well known to all of you to require any description, is 
the common clam {JMya arenarui ) . Filling every available locality 
where there are flats of fine sand and mud, there is probably not a 
single mile of coast on the Bay where they do not occur, their pres- 
ence at any point being shown by the dead shells thrown up by the 
tide and by the little holes out of which they send a tiny stream of 
Avater from their siphons Avhen disturbed. They were an important 
article of food to the Indians before the advent of the Europeans, as 
shown by the numerous and large shell heaps on the shores of the 
Bay. Their white successors, however, do not make such extensive 
use of them, but in case of famine or dearness of food from other 
causes they would become of great economic value. 
Not less interesting to the naturalist is the somewhat rare shell 
Thracia Conradi., a bivalve larger than the clam, of a dingy white 
color, and living on muddy bottoms. The protean iSaxicava rugosa., 
living among rocky ledges, has no two individuals alike, each one 
conforming itself to the irregularities of the cavity in which it lies 
