Mr. Stearns read the following:

List of Shells collected at Bodega Bay, California, June, 1867.

BY ROBERT E. C. STEARNS.

In pursuance of the idea mentioned in my paper on the shells of Baulines Bay, of examining the bays and coast to the north of San Francisco, I made a brief trip to Bodega Bay in company with my friend Dr. Newcomb, on the thirteenth of June, 1867. Most of the species enumerated were collected within a very limited area, between tide marks, at the extreme point of Bodega Head, as the arm of land is called, which extending in a southerly direction from the general line of the coast, incloses what is known as Bodega Bay. The bay itself is, for the greater part, left bare at low tide, and the flats then exposed, composed of sandy mud, contain abundance of the common bivalves of the coast, principally Macoma, (two species) and Tapes, in all its varieties: Saxidomus gracilis may also be found here in considerable quantities, and is at certain seasons dug by the Indians, together with the other so called “clams.” At the spot where the principal portion of this collection was made, the outcropping rock is a coarse granite, upon which Litorina planaxis is found in great numbers. The limited time at my disposal, at the season when the trip was made, was only sufficient to admit of a brief, and therefore unsatisfactory reconnoissance; nevertheless, at least seventeen species were detected which have not heretofore been found (or reported) so far to the north. Many of these species I failed to find at Baulines, and some of them have not been reported north of the Bay of Monterey. At Baulines, the rocks are principally shales, and contain many species of pholads, which as will be seen by a glance at this list, if not entirely absent, must be rare at Bodega; the various “nestlers” which are found associated with the borers are also wanting; Haliotis rufescens is abundant upon the rocky islets off the coast, but not even a fragment of H. Cracherodii was met with.

* The species marked with an asterisk, seventeen in number, have never before been reported from a locality so far north.

† Mangelia levidensis (teste J. G. Cooper) has not previously been detected at a point so far south; it has heretofore been credited to “Straits of Fuca, W. T.” vide Geo. Survey Cat. 1867, by J. G. C.

‡ Tapes staminea and vars. were obtained at low water by digging from twelve to twenty inches deep, and together with Macoma secta and M. nasuta, were found in the same holes.

The Chitons above enumerated, have been compared with specimens recently (March, 1868) received labeled, from Dr. Carpenter of Montreal.

No. 39, Acmæa scabra; elevated dark colored specimens of this species with the characteristic sculpture sharply and well defined, were obtained in considerable numbers. Subsequently at Monterey I found occasional specimens displaying nearly the same elevation and of the same color as those from Bodega.