COPEPODS OF THE WOODS HOLE EEGION" 3 



during the trawling and dredging operations carried on by the two 

 steamers, the Fish Hawk and the Alhatross, newly purchased at that 

 time by the Bureau of Fisheries. This collection made by Doctor 

 Rathbun forms the basis of the present paper and has been supple- 

 mented from various sources. The Bureau of Fisheries' station at 

 Woods Hole has contributed its entire collection of local copepods 

 gathered since 1885. Most of the vials in this collection are labeled 

 in the handwritings of Vinal Edwards and Eobert Goffin, and they 

 have added many interesting species that would have otherwise 

 remained undiscovered. The investigation of the various fresh- 

 water, brackish, and salt-water ponds was begun by Doctor Rathbun, 

 but has been conducted chiefly by the present author. Here again 

 whatever success has been achieved has been due in large measure 

 to the facilities afforded by the Bureau of Fisheries. There should 

 also be mentioned the investigation of the beach sands, which is 

 discussed elsewhere (p. 6) and which added many new and inter- 

 esting copepods to the fauna of the region. 



EXCEPTIONAL FEATURES OF THE MATERIAL 



The material thus accumulated possesses certain exceptional 

 features. In the first place Doctor Rathbun examined his speci- 

 mens carefully and made extensive notes upon each of them while 

 they were still alive. He paid especial attention to their living 

 coloration, and the word pictures he drew of their wonderful com- 

 binations of color are fully as vivid and realistic as the painted 

 reproductions in Giesbrecht's famous monograph on the fauna and 

 flora of the Gulf of Naples. These color notes were turned over 

 to the present author with the specimens and are here published 

 as nearly verbatim as has been possible. They give us accurate 

 information about the appearance of many of our common Ameri- 

 can species, which are otherwise known only by some structural 

 characteristic. Such color descriptions are especially timely in 

 view of the fact that the great majority of investigators who have 

 worked with copepods have seen only preserved material, which 

 gave them no idea of the natural colors. Even such an exhaustive 

 work as that recently published by Sars upon the Crustacea of 

 Norway is obliged to record repeatedly " Color not yet ascertained," 

 after a detailed structural description. 



The second remarkable feature of the present collection is the 

 large number of species that have never before been reported from 

 this Woods Hole region. Indeed, for many of them this consti- 

 tutes the first record of the species anywhere along the Atlantic 

 shores of North America. This question naturally arises : How 

 does it happen that so many species escaped the attention of those 

 investigators who published the lists already mentioned? The 



