1897.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 155 



corbis,am] annelids {Diopatra' Arenicola). Elsewhere the beach 

 is strewn with rocks covered with the common mussel [Mytilus 

 edulis). Further shoreward the beach is firmer, more stony, or 

 grown over by eel-grass or other marine plants. Here in the 

 more sandy portions numerous Tellinids abound (f Fsammobia, 

 Sanguinolaria, Maco^no, etc.) Nereis is likewise met with. The 

 Crustacean Gebia pugettetisis was met with in this region, occur- 

 ring seaward of the line separating the two tidal subdivisions of 

 the beach. It excavates burrows of great depth, the entire ex- 

 tent of which was almost impossible to determine with the im- 

 plements at hand, the softness of the sand with the inflowing 

 water prevented deeper digging than one or two feet. Upon the 

 slightest alarm the Gebia hastens downward out of reach. The 

 only practicable method of obtaining this form w^as by approach- 

 ing a burrow from the side and cutting off the animal's retreat 

 before it had taken alarm. Most of the specimens obtained had 

 the commensal Lepton rude Dall attached to the under side of 

 the first abdominal segment, while man}^ carried in addition 

 either the male or the female of tlie Isopod Phyllodurus abdomi- 

 nalis* In all cases examined the females were found to occupy 

 a definite position on the posterior surface of the second pair of 

 abdominal appendages, being attached to the left of the median 

 line with the head directed dorsad and laterad.f 



Back from Port Hudson and occupied by the residential por- 

 tion of Point Townsend there rises a bluff of glacial drift. Fol- 

 lowing the harbor to the southwest this gives place just below 

 the city to a broad area of marshy flatlands, evidently the site of 

 a former inlet, while half a mile further on highlands are again 

 encountered. The entire extent of this shore from Point Hud- 

 son to Fort Townsend is skirted by a sandy beach of var3'ing 

 width. Under the wharves of the city it is narrow, but opposite 

 the above mentioned flatlands it expands into extensive sand- 

 flats. The entire beach proved one of the richest fields for lit- 

 toral collecting. 



Along the water front of the cit}' the littoral region is varied 

 by broad extent of docks, broken here and there by uncovered 

 stony or sandy beaches. The localities beneath the wharves, 

 kept wet and dark by exclusion of the sunlight, were fully as rich 

 as those elsewhere, the amount and character of the sewerage 

 here deposited did not appear to be such as to materially effect 



*Stimpson (on the Crustacea and Echinodermata of the Pacific shores of North 

 America, Boston Journ. Nat. His., Vol. VI., No. III., 1852) reports in 1852 that only 

 females had been obtained. 



tThe Gebia HUoralis of the Atlantic is also commonly known to be infested by an 

 Isopod (Gyge) but in this case, however, it occurs indifferently in either or both 

 branchial chambers. 



