78 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



Islands and Japan, with quite as much probahihty as on the eastern 

 side of the Pacific along the shores of Alaska, British Columbia, and 

 California. And I have recently been informed by Mr. J. F. Abbott, 

 of St. Louis, Missouri, that a number of the Japanese nemerteans 

 apparently belong to the same species as those which he has col- 

 lected at Pacific Grove, California. 



So far as can l)e determined from these collections, the local dis- 

 tribution of the 20 genera of nemerteans at present known fi'om the 

 west coast of North America is indicated in the following table. 

 The figures re])resent the total number of si)ecies of each genus 

 which have thus far been recorded in each of the eight piincipal 

 zones into which the region may conveniently be divided. 



As shown by the accompanying table, the present report deals 

 with 86 species distributed among 20 genera. Of these 20 genera 

 the one most abundantly represented both in number of species and 

 abundance of individuals is Amphiporus with 21 distinct species, of 

 which but two (^4. craentatus and A. angulatus) have been recorded 

 from other parts of the globe. Tetrastemma and Cerebratulus 

 are each represented with 10 species, Micrura has 8, while Cari- 

 NELLA and LiNEUS have 7 species each. Paranemertes Avith 4 

 species is known only from the Pacific coast, as is also the case with 

 Carinomella with but a single species. Emplectonema, Zygone- 

 mertes, and Taeniosoma each have 3 species, while the remaining 

 genera are represented, so far as at present known, with a single 

 species each. 



In regard to number of species known from the different regions 

 of the Pacific coast and the adjacent waters, but 6 forms have as yet 

 been recorded between the equator and southern California ; this 

 is doubtless due to the small number of collections which have been 

 made in those localities. There are 87 species which have been 

 collected at San Pedro, San Diego, and in the off-shore w^aters of 

 southern California, and 34 from Monterey Bay and adjacent waters 

 oft" the coasts of central and northei-n California. 



The region about Puget Sound and British Columbia, embracing as 

 it does a great number of islands separated by narrow fiords through 

 wdiich the tides run swiftly, thus providing an abundance of ]>ure 

 w^ater and food materials, furnish almost ideal conditions for a lux- 

 uriant growth of nearly all classes of marine invertebrates, and in 

 few other places on the globe are these animals so abundant. Ne- 



