30 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
ai ietis are less sought after it is principally because the quan- 
tity of food they yield is less. I am told that our only large 
freshwater bivalve ( Anodon leotaudi) is also eaten in quantity 
but I have never had the luck to see more than two full sized 
specimens during all the years I have hunted moluska. 
* ^ tim no ^ aware that our land shells are eaten. Trne they 
are not \ ery common, with the exception of those of small size 
which v ould not be worth while collecting for food. The most 
abundant of a sufficient size are three species of Bulimus ; the 
large Bulimus oblongus is the first of these. Doubtless it was 
eaten heie in former times as it still is on the continent. Drouet 
in his account of the mollusks of French Guiana says (on the 
report of M. Eyries) qiie la chair est passablement comacS niais 
il declare lux avoir trouve un gout aromatique asset agr Sable, 
The othei two, Bulimus (Orthalicus) undatus and Bulimus vin- 
centinus would no doubt be palatable eating, but I have no infor- 
mation on the point. 
On the 8th January, 1864, I read to the Scientific Associa- 
° n in id ad a jiaper on a shell deposit near the road from 
oit of Spain to St. Joseph. This shell deposit had been noticed 
the Geological Report on Trinidad and had been considered to 
a raised beach. An examination of it, however, had led me to 
_ * e ' 6 ^ WaS ra ^ ier a kitchen-midding of the aborigines. 
eposn has now entirely disappeared — it occupied the site 
o w at is now the Government quarry at Laventille, a little 
urther out from town than the sawmill. I gave a list of the 
luskan remains in this deposit and as it shows pretty well 
* u i • S ^ ec ^ es were in demand as food among the former 
it ants of the island, I reproduce it with some correction : — 
Pyrulamelongena Venus flexuosa 
3 j mono „ . 
i 3 » . , . „ cancellata 
Tasciolaria tulipa t , 
Purpura bispinosa ” 
Tritonidea auriculata n P ec orma 
Donax dentieulata Ostrea frona 
, . Area listen 
» striata 
