43 



A PRELIMINARY CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROTO- 

 ZOAN FAUNA OF THE GULF BIOLOGIC STATION 

 WITH NOTES ON SOME RARE SPECIES. 



J. C. SMITH. 



(Read before the Louisiana Society of Naturalists, December 12, 19u3). 



The faunal lists of this paper were made in the laboratory of the 

 Gulf Biologic Station during a week's stay in September, 1903, 

 and from material gathered in the vicinity of the Station. The 

 time at my disposal was so short that no effort was made to do any 

 systematic collecting and, in consequence, there are no data to 

 warrant any valuable or interesting conclusions ; therefore, these 

 lists may be considered merely as a contribution to the fauna of 

 this region and a small addition to the already scant literature on 

 marine forms of the Protozoa of this country. 



Faunal lists are usually uninteresting to all save special students, 

 but the want of such lists as relate to the Protozoa of this country 

 was made very evident at the time when Schewiakofif ('93) com- 

 piled his work on the geographical distribution of the Protozoa 



(1893). 



I find the more lists we have, that are carefully made, the more 

 cosmopolitan the Protozoa are shown to be. 



In these lists I have several forms recorded for the first time in 

 this country and one recorded for the first time since its discovery. 

 I have also incorporated a few notes in which are embodied some 

 additions to, and corrections of the original descriptions of some 

 apparently rare species. 



Collections were made from three distinct points : From St. 

 John's Bayou, the littoral zone of the Gulf, and surface plankton 

 from the Gulf. 



Strictly speaking, the Gulf in the neighborhood of the Station 

 has no true littoral zone, as the sloping sand beach, which is 

 washed continually by the waves, afifords no foothold for any veg- 

 etal growth. The material collected here consisted of stray pieces 

 of marine algae, comminuted vegetable tissues and membraneous 

 tubes of worms (?) with the water in which they were found. 



