AMPHIPODS OF THE FAMILY BATEIDAE IN THE 

 COLLECTION OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL 

 MUSEUM 



By Clarence R. Shoemaker 



Assistant Curator, Division of Marine Invertebrates, United States National 



Museum 



After Fritz Miiller described the genus Batea from the coast of 

 Brazil in 1865, it was not again heard of until 1903 when Samuel 

 J. Holmes observed it among material dredged by the United States 

 Fisheries steamer Fish Hawk in 1900 near Woods Hole, Massachu- 

 setts. In 1901 Holmes also collected specimens at Woods Hole. 

 During 1904 and 1905 the Fish Hawk took specimens from many 

 localities about Vineyard Sound. Dr. C. J. Fish has presented to 

 the United States National Museum specimens which he collected 

 at Woods Hole in 1922. It thus appears that the genus is fairly 

 common in the vicinity of Woods Hole. In 1918 three specimens of 

 B. catharinensis were taken at Barbados by the Barbados-Antigua 

 Expedition of the State University of Iowa. 



Recently, while sorting the unidentified Amphipoda in the collec- 

 tion of the United States National Museum, I noted the occurrence 

 of this genus at several new and widely sej)arated localities. During 

 1889 and 1891 the Fish Hawk dredged specimens from several 

 localities along the coast of South Carolina, and in 1891 she ob- 

 tained specimens from Tangier Sound in Chesapeake Bay. In the 

 course of the Biological Survey at Chesapeake Bay from 1915 to 

 1921 the Fish Hawk found this genus to be common in almost every 

 part of the bay. Florida has to the present time yielded but one 

 specimen of B. catharinensis and this without date or collector 

 given. -- 



The United States Fisheries steamer Albatross on her 1911 cruise, 

 while in the Gulf of California, obtained the first representatives 

 of the genus Batea from the west coast of America. In 1912 the 

 Venice Marine Biological Station of the University of Southern 

 California procured specimens from the entrance to Catalina Har- 

 bor, Santa Catalina Island. P. S. Barnhart of the Scripps Institu- 

 tion in 1915 obtained specimens off La Jolla, southern California, 

 and Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, while investigaiing the life history of 



No. 2626.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 68, Art. 25. 



79649—26 1 1 



