POLYCHAETE WORMS, PART 1 271 



brownish, reddish yellow, reddish and greenish with brilliant metallic 

 or opalescent iridescence. 



Biology. — Found at low water burrowing in sand and muddy 

 sand, in sand under rocks and rocky crevices, in oyster and mussel 

 beds, and in roots of eelgrass {Zostera), and holdfasts of Laminaria. 

 Some small specimens found among pile scrapings. Dredged in bays 

 and sounds on bottoms of sand, mud, gravel, rocks, with shells, 

 among brj^ozoan nodules, with compound ascidians (as the sandy 

 Amaroecium •pellucidum) . Form no tubes but burrow readily and 

 deeply, encased in a thick coat of mucus, which they secrete in abun- 

 dance. Hard and wiry and may contract into close spiral coils. 

 Breeding occurs throughout the summer in the Woods Hole region 

 but ripe specimens are rare (Moore, ms.). Regeneration occurs with 

 great facility and examples with abnormalities of annulation, probably 

 in part the results of renewal, are common (Moore, ms.). 



Material examined. — Numerous specimens from Massachusetts 

 (Cape Cod, Woods Hole region, Vineyard Sound, Nantucket Sound, 

 Buzzards Bay), Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia (Chincoteague 

 Bay near Robins Marsh; Chesapeake Bay), South Carolina (Cali- 

 bogue Sound; Skull Creek), Gulf of Mexico. 



Distribution. — Cosmopolitan in temperate and tropical regions. 

 English Channel to France, Mediterranean, Adriatic, Massachusetts 

 to Florida, Bermuda, Gulf of Mexico, West Indies, off Colombia and 

 Venezuela, Vancouver Island to California, Mexico, north Japan Sea 

 to Japan, China, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Straits of 

 Magellan, West and South Africa. Low water to 46 fathoms. 



Genus Drilonereis Claparede, 1870 



Type (original designation): Drilonereis filum (Claparede, 1868). 



Both free-living species represented have the prostomium conical, 

 spatulate, bluntl}^ rounded anteriorly, greatly flattened dorsoventrally, 

 without eyes. Proboscis with maxillae i heavy, strongly hooked, 

 resembling ice tongs, toothed at the base, with a pair of long slender 

 rodlike maxillary carriers and a shorter oval unpaired piece. Maxillae 

 II each with about 8 teeth; maxillae iii each with 1 main fang and 

 1-3 smaller ones; maxillae iv each with a single fang (fig. 72/i). 



Key to the New England Species of Drilonereis 



1. Free living 2 



Parasitic in onupliids D. caullcryi 



2. Parapodia small, inconspicuous on anterior setigers (fig. 72,a,b) ; in far pos- 



terior region, parapodia distinctly bilabiate (fig. 72d) D. longa 



Parapodia prominent from first setigcr on, similar throughout length of body 

 (fig. 71/0 D. magna 



