COLLECTING IN DIGBY, NOVA SCOTIA.
BY LILLIAN DYER THOMPSON.
While traveling through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick last summer, we stayed for about six weeks at Digby, N. S. Digby is about 200 miles northeast of Boston, and is situated near the Bay of Fundy, opposite St. John, N. B. The town is located on the southeast shore of the Annapolis Basin,—a sheet of water about twenty miles long and ten miles wide. This basin is connected with the Bay of Fundy by a channel about three-fourths of a mile wide at its greatest width. This channel, known as Digby Gap, is noted for its rapid tides,—the rate of flow through the Gap being about eight miles an hour. The tide fall at Digby is thirty feet. The shores of the Basin are sandy, with the exception of the two rocky promontories on each side of the Gap; the one which is nearest to Digby being Point Prim. The town is on a small peninsula on either side of which are two inlets of the Annapolis Basin, known as the Racquet, on the west, and the Jacquet, on the east of Digby proper. On the ebb tide these are almost dry, exposing long mud flats.
There is one island in the Basin, about opposite the Gap and at the mouth of Bear River, called Bear Island. From this a long bar extends, called Bear Island Bar, which is covered to a depth of about six feet at low water, and is covered with eelgrass.
Near the Yacht Club pier were found many Polinices heros, and their red-brown “sand-collars.” In the Jacquet were many Litorina littorea and Litorina rudis. On the exposed beach, nearer the town, we found Mytilus edulis. On the rocks, in the Racquet, we found Thais lapillus and a host of Acmaea testudinalis ranging in size from one-eighth of an inch to about an inch in diameter. In the mud, at the base of the rocks, were a multitude of Buccinum undatum, Neptunea decemcostata, ranging in size from one-eighth of an inch to about an inch in diameter. In the mud, at the base of the rocks, were a multitude of Buccinum undatum, Neptunea decemcostata, and Colus stimpsoni, all alive and half-buried. Some dead specimens of Aporrhais occidentalis were also found, five of them being full-grown.
On the suggestion of Capt. Danforth, we constructed a dredge, and endeavored to dredge Bear Island Bar from his motor-boat. Here we found quantities of Lacuna vincta, Alectrion obsoleta, Cylichna alba, and two Polinices triseriata.
There were some soldiers encamped at Digby, and they used to gather Litorina littorea and steam and eat them, without any flavoring. They sometimes ate Thais lapillus also. One day, after a rain, we found two Helix hortensis crawling along the road.