I30 



LOWER COASTAL ANIMALS 



It was a gorgeous sight, which vanished as usual after preservation. There 

 were large, fleshy fans, thick-walled cups, clumps the size of footballs, 

 and many other bizarre forms; and mixed up with the rest were large 

 colonies of polyzoa made up of criss-crossed flakes, hard and sharp like 

 crispbread. Small wonder that the trawl gave way while being dragged 

 through this mass of material. 



A few trawls off San Thome in West Africa and near the Kermadec 

 Islands north of New Zealand showed us that the Tropics could improve 

 even on this. The material which the Galathea's heavy gear could haul 

 up here in a trice was fantastic. Near the island of Raoul in the Kermadec 

 group we made three dredges at a depth of about 80 metres. One gave a 

 haul which included a whole tub-ful of brilliantly coloured sea-urchins 

 of great beauty, the size and shape of oranges, and equipped with long, 

 sharp spines five centimetres in length which made us handle them with 

 great care. Another haul was still richer, and it took several days to 

 complete a rough sorting of these catches. There is no doubt that many 

 of the animals found are quite new species, but a full study of them will 

 take a long time. 



Near Campbell Island, south of New Zealand, we tried a similar dredge, 

 but owing to the cooler water here the results were much less striking. \Ve 

 seem to have been more successful in a trawl on soft ground in Milford 

 Sound on the west of South Island, New Zealand. We had hauled in the 

 trawl and were clearing away the mud when one of our New Zealand 

 guests exclaimed: "Why, there's Lucinoma (a bivalve), which my 



colleague Marwick is describing 

 from our Tertiary deposits!" He 

 took some specimens home to his 

 colleague and now one of our 

 finds has been described as a type 

 of the species, under the name 

 Lucinoma galathece. This is the 

 first of a good many new species 

 which in the future will testify to 

 the results of this expedition. We 

 also found a small cap-shaped mol- 

 lusc (Cocculina) which seems to 

 be unknown. Among the empty 

 shells were many unknown types 

 now waiting to be described. 

 The biialve Lucinoma galatheae. Beyond a depth of 200 — 300 



