﻿SIPUNCULID WORMS OF CALIFORNIA — ^FISHER 429 



The specimens from Crescent City are medium sized or small, and 

 all are of the pale variety. On the other hand, the Ensenada examples 

 are as dark as the paratypes. 



Specimens from a colony of the hydrocoral Allopora californica are 

 the pale variety, but those dredged off Point Pinos, Cahf., in 46 to 56 

 fathoms (Albatross station 4551) are all well pigmented, medium 

 brown. The same is true of the specimens from 10 fathoms off 

 Santa Cruz. 



Finally the darker pigment spots of the trunlv are of irregular 

 occurrence and are certainly of no specific importance. 



Remarks. — Thi'ough similarity of habit, hooks, and internal struc- 

 ture there are six species of Phascolosoma more closely related to 

 one another than to others of the genus. These are granulatum, 

 nigrescens, puntarenae, agassizii, japonicum, and scolops. 



Two specimens of Ph. japonicum from Aikawa, Rikuzen, Japan, 

 are superficially very similar to pale examples of agassizii. Selenlva's 

 colored figures (1883, pi. 2, figs. 18, 19) might serve to illustrate some 

 of the variations of agassizii. Evidently the hooks are as variable as 

 in agassizii. They are the same size and shape, and the clear streak 

 follows about the same com-se but has no expanded portion (as is 

 sometimes the case in agassizii). There is a clear triangular area at 

 the base but this is not indicated in Selenka's figure (1883, fig. 145) 

 or in Sato's (1930, p. 10). The papillae of jiaponicwm have obviously 

 larger platelets, occupying a wider zone. The Aikawa specimens 

 agree with Sato's figures (1939, p. 384). Internally the only tangible 

 difference is the absence of a coecum. The fixing muscle is almost 

 exactly the same as in agassizii; the nephridia are anchored to the 

 same extent, the origin of the retractors varies within the limits of 

 agassizii] and the longitudinal muscle bands show no significant 

 difference. 



I examined an example of Phascolosoma japonicum from Ucluclet, 

 Vancouver Island, upon which Chamberlin (1920, p. 5d) based his 

 record. It is clearly one of the variations of agassizii, lacking the 

 essential characters of japonicum; that is, the clear streak of hook 

 (pi. 38, fig. 23) has a slight swelling; the platelets of the dermal 

 papillae are as in other examples of agassizii; there is an intestinal 

 coecum. I have no means of checking the record of japonicum from 

 the Queen Charlotte Islands. The 10 specimens from this locality 

 that I examined are all agassizii. 



Phascolosoma agassizii (including puntarenae) has been recorded 

 from many localities all over the world. Wilhelm Fischer (1922a, 

 p. 7) sums up the distribution. "The species is already known from 

 all tropical and temperate seas." In the Indian Ocean he Hsts 

 Ceylon, the Laccadive and Maldive Islands, Mauritius, Sumatra, 



