ANIMAL DISTRIBUTION FOLLOWING A HARD WINTER. 



97 



Miss Eleanor Bach in 1916 found a specimen of Halicystus 

 auricula (Clark) attached to eel grass in low water near the old 

 Vineyard Haven wharf where it had apparently been washed 

 up with algae. This is a northward ranging species with a range 

 from Cape Cod to Greenland. 



A slight amount of preliminary collecting in the latter part of 

 June, 1918, showed that the fauna was noticeably changed from 

 the preceding yea r and that the change was decidedly greater 

 than the usual yearly fluctuation. The preceding winter had 

 been unusually severe and this offered an hypothesis for the 

 cause of the unusual changes in the abundance of some animals. 



The water temperatures have been taken for a number of 



TABLE I. 



Showing the Temperatures at Noon off the U. S. Fish Commission Wharf at Woods 

 Hole, for the Four Winter Months of 1916-17 and 1017-18, 



