Vohime /.] July, 1900. \_No. 4. 



BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN. 



OUR NORTH-AMERICAN ECHIURIDS. 



A CONTRIBUTION' TO THE HABITS AND GEOGRAPHICAL 



RANGE OF THE GROUP. 



CHAS. B. WILSON. 



ONLY four species of Echiurids, representing three of the 

 five known genera, have been reported from the North Ameri- 

 can coast up to the present time. These are as follows : Tlia- 

 lassema mellita Conn was found at Beaufort, Va., living in 

 empty sand-dollar tests, and its structure and morphology 

 were most admirably worked out (2). Tlialassema -ciridis 

 Verrill has been reported from nodules of blue clay at a depth 

 of seventy-seven fathoms off Head Harbor, Campobello Island 

 (16). Bonellia snJtniii Selenka was dredged from deep water 

 off the coast of Nova Scotia and was described and named in 

 the Challenger Reports (12). 



The fourth species, Echiums chrysacanthophorus Pourtales, 

 has been reported by several authors from various localities on 

 the New England coast. Each of these four was established 

 as a new species by its discoverer and has been found nowhere 

 else. The Bonellia species was based upon a single badly 

 mutilated specimen, T. viridis, and the species of Echiurus 

 upon a very limited number of specimens, no one of which in 

 the latter species was perfect, leaving T. mellita to stand alone 

 beside the well-known and thoroughly studied European forms. 



In the present contribution I am able to add American local- 

 ities for two of the well-known Old World species, and when 



163 



