THE REARING OF SERPULID LARV^ WITH 



NOTES ON THE BEHAVIOR OF THE 



YOUNG ANIMALS. 1 



CHARLES ZELENY. 



THE METHOD OF REARING. 



The complete success of an attempt to rear serpulid larvae 2 

 has prompted the present description of the method, in view of 

 the fact that other workers have been unsuccessful in the same 

 field. 3 It is hoped that the method may be found valuable not 

 only for serpulid larvae, but also for the great majority of forms 

 which do not allow a direct current of water to be passed in and 

 out of the dish containing them. 



The eggs after fertilization were placed in large glass beak- 

 ers and the water was changed several times during the first day. 

 They were then allowed to develop into free swimming trocho- 

 phores which collected in great numbers at the surface of the 

 water during the second day. A few of these were removed 

 with a pipette and placed in a " battery jar " containing fresh sea 

 water obtained -in the open harbor at rising tide on a bright after- 

 noon. Not more than a few hundred larvae were put into any 

 one battery jar. The jars were covered with glass plates to keep 

 out the dust, and were placed in such a position that the rising 

 sun shone on them for about an hour just after sunrise each 

 morning. Immediately after the sun bath they were cooled off 

 in buckets of cold spring water and were then placed for the rest 

 of the day in shallow basins of the same cold water. In this 

 way the proper conditions for the development of the microscopic 

 algae and other organisms which serve as the food of the larvae 



1 Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory of Indiana University, No. 65. 



2 Hydroides diantJnis. 



3 The work described was done at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Station dur- 

 ing the summer of 1902, while the writer was holding the John D. Jones Scholarship at 

 that place. My best thanks are due to Professor C. B. Davenport, the director of the 

 station, for his kindness in supplying me with every possible facility while at the 

 laboratory. Some of the notes refer to work done at the Naples Zoological Station 

 during the winter of 1902-3. 



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