ALCYONARIA OF THE CALIFORNIAN COAST. 



By Charles C. Nutting, 

 Professor of Zoology, State University of Iowa, Iowa City. 



The collections upon which this report is based were obtained for 

 the most part by the LT. S. Fisheries steamer Albatross while on her 

 cruise off the Californian coast during the year l'.)04. The collec- 

 tions of the University of California also furnished much interesting 

 material. A few species were found in the collection of the Marine 

 Biological Association of San Diego, and others were kindly placed at 

 m\ disposal by Stanford University. The writer is under great obli- 

 gation to the management of the Marine Biological Laboratory at La 

 Jolla and the Hopkins Laboratory at Pacific drove for laboratory 

 facilities and other valued courtesies during the time he was at work 

 on these collections. 



Almost no work had been done on the Alcyonaria of the Californian 

 coast previous to the simmier of 1905, when the writer was commis- 

 sioned by the Bureau of Fisheries to investigate the alcyonarian fauna 

 of that region. 



In 1863 Prof. \Y. M. Gabb published descriptions of a few species 

 in the Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences. 



From 1X()4 to IStiN Prof. A. F. Yerrill published a number of papers 

 containing descriptions of Alcyonaria of the Pacific coast, the most 

 important being ;i Review of the duals and Polyps of the West 

 Coasl of America. This i^ an exceedingly important paper, but 

 deals almost exclusively with forms occurring south of the region at 

 present under consideration, and includes descriptions of less than 

 half a dozen species from north of Mexico. 



In 1902 Dr. Th. Moiolf published his Studien fiber Octocorallien, 

 in which he describes three new species of pennatulids b from the 

 Californian coast. 



Aside from a few scattering references, the above are all of the 



papers that 1 have been able to find dealing with the Alcyonaria of 



« Trans. Connecticut Acad. An- ami Sci., I. Pt. 2. 



b Zoologische Jahrbucher, Abtheilung fur Systematik, Geographie, und Biologie 

 der Thiere, XVII. L902, p. 363. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol XXXV— No. 1658. 



681 



