450 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



childhood days on this island and bathed in the sulfur waters of these 

 self-same springs. Soufriere is almost as French as English, in its 

 place names at least. It changed hands a dozen times or more in the 

 days the French were harassing the English during our own Revolu- 

 tion. Castries is big and bustling, having staged a most remarkable 

 comeback following the disastrous fire of 1949. For the most part, 

 it can now boast of new, clean, and modern shops, office buildings, 

 and warehouses. We found it an excellent place for replenishing our 

 stores and fuel and water supplies. 



The next morning we dropped back a few miles to Marigot Bay — a 

 most intriguing locality for the collector. The entrance to this 

 secluded, sheltered place is scarcely to be marked from offshore, yet 

 within it is a typical buccaneer's hideaway. On one shore the channel 

 is so steep-to that one can tie up to the palm trees and literally step 

 ashore. The ship's masts were completely hidden in the tops of the 

 trees. All that the black-hulled Freelance lacked to complete the 

 picture was a "Jolly Roger" emblazoned with skull and crossbones. 



Some of our most successful seine hauls were made in this lovely 

 spot. Our botanist, Dr. Smith, returned with ample booty from the 

 hill above our mooring place, despite the warning posted near our 

 landing place that "any trespass done under this woodland will be 

 arrested & deal with arcording to the law." Captain Nicholson, with 

 his expert diving, found something quite new to him, and to me also— 

 a pair of plump brownish white-spotted snapping shrimps (Alpheus 

 armatus) that find themselves at home in the shelter of the tentacles 

 of the large fleshy sea-anemone Bartholomea annulata, which lives 

 almost buried on sandy bottoms. These shrimps clambered over and 

 among the tentacles of the anemone with impunity where other species 

 of shrimps quickly became entangled in the mucus given off by the 

 tentacles and perhaps also stunned by their nematocysts and were 

 forthwith ingested. Though similar associations are known in zoolog- 

 ical literature, it had not before been observed by any of us. Later, 

 in an aquarium, the captain held two anemones and two pairs of these 

 shrimps alive for several weeks with only an occasional small freshly 

 killed fish for sustenance. 



From Marigot Bay the course was set for Pigeon Island, which in 

 1782 was garrisoned by the English under Rodney in order to keep 

 watch on the French West Indian fleet based on Martinique. Remains 

 of the old fortifications and several of the cannon were noted by Mr. 

 Bredin and Dr. Smith while exploring the heights above the landing 

 place. Mr. Bredin brought back a much-corroded uniform button that 

 must have been dropped in the fort during its occupation in Rodney's 

 day. Now the island sports a beach club with overnight cottages run 

 by a retired former member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Co. 



