71 



peratures and seasons and the relative abundance of any special 

 members of the order of prime importance, and, more especially, 

 any facts gleaned as to whetner any special species forms the 

 principal food of any particular fish will be of value. Herrmg 

 fishers know that their quarry will be found where these little 

 animals are in abundance, while every New Bedford or Dundee 

 whaler has spun yarns of the well-known "whales' pasture," which 

 is nothing more nor less than a reddish patch in the ocean— it may 

 be square miles in extent — composed of countless millions of these 

 little creatures. 



In carrying out the investigations of the copepod fauna of the 

 waters in the immediate vicinity of the Gulf Biologic Station, the 

 principal aim was rather to get a line on the different species found 

 therein than with any desire to attempt to settle any knotty points 

 as to their life-histories. For any serious work along the latter 

 line, a long period of sustained investigation is necessary, and 

 the short time which the writer was able to devote was, perforce, 

 in the way of preliminary systematic work. 



The work was carried on during the first half of September, 

 1903, and in its prosecution, collections were made by means of a 

 fine-meshed surface net and modified Birge nets from the plank- 

 ton, six to eight miles out in the Gulf, in Calcasieu Pass and in 

 St. John's Bayou, connecting Lake Calcasieu with the Pass. 

 These collections were made at the surface, at from three to four 

 feet deep, and at all stations the dredges were sent to the bottom — 

 the maximum depth dredged in the Gulf being about twenty feet. 

 Owing to the continued drought during the whole of July and 

 August, all ponds in the vicinity of the Station were dried up, 

 and thus no work could be done on the fresh-water forms. Be- 

 3^ond a number of species of CladocerSin-Simocephalus vetulus 

 and of an Ostvacod-C ypris virens, found in one of the experi- 

 ment jars in the station and in the draw-well near the building, 

 nothing in the way of a fresh-water entomostracon was secured, 

 thus narrowing down the list to marine members of the order 

 Copepoda. 



The fact that the investigations in the Gulf were limited to a 

 distance of about eight miles from shore, and that at that distance 

 the efifect of the fresh water coming from Calcasieu Pass would 

 not be entirely dissipated, would naturally lead to the conclusion 

 that a great similarity would be found between the forms from 

 the plankton and from the two other stations. This was. in a 

 measure, borne out, but it may be mentioned that the Gulf dredg- 

 ings were made when wind and other conditions had partly over- 



