MARINE BIOLOGY ON THE PACIFIC COAST 

 and burrowing amphipod and isopod crustaceans, 

 and at times great numbers of the unique crustaceans 

 Hippa analoga with barrel-shaped body and long an- 

 tennae. In some years great windrows of the small 

 lamillibranch Donax with a commensal hydroid 

 (Clytia bakeri) attached to its hinge line, are cast up 

 on the beaches by the breakers. 



The dredging off-shore in southern waters is 

 very rich indeed and varies greatly with the depth 

 and nature of the bottom. Compound ascidians 

 resembling large brown pancakes, purple crabs 

 (Randallia) and myriads of small sea urchins 

 (Strongylocenlrotus), the large flabby brownish mot- 

 tled sea hare (Aplysia calif ornica) and the yellowish 

 warty sea-cucumber (Stichopus calif arnicas) are 

 found inside of the kelp belt. On the banks or rocky 

 bottoms where fish are more abundant, the attached 

 and burrowing forms are detached by the dredge, 

 such as the gorgonian Muricea, siliceous sponges 

 often of considerable size, and rare echiurid and 

 sipunculid worms from burrows in the soft black 

 shale. Pectens, brachiopods, and crinoids are 

 locally abundant, and the deeper mud bottoms 

 yield abundant spatangoid sea urchins, sea cucum- 

 bers in variety, ophiurans, and occasional stalked 

 sponges, and fan shells (Pinna). In the great Los 

 Coronados sunken valley the United States steamer 

 Albatross brought to light an extraordinarily rich 

 fauna of deep-sea pennatulids, sponges, crustaceans, 

 and echinoderms. 



Pelagic Life. The pelagic life, best seen off 

 Catalina Island on a quiet afternoon, includes the 

 large purple-striped medusa Pelagia which some- 

 times forms great windrows in the tide rips off 

 the kelp and harbors commensal minnows under 

 its bell and parasitic amphipods in its radial 

 canals, siphonophores in considerable variety, pink 

 ctenophores, the brilliant yellow Venus's girdle 

 (Cestus veneris), heteropod and pteropod molluscs, 

 Sagilta, Salpa in chains and circles, and, in hauls 

 from deeper water, pelagic cephalopods and stalk- 

 eyed fish, and an occasional phantom Leptocephalus 

 or larval eel, or an equally transparent Phyllosoma 

 or larval stage of the spiny lobster (Panulirus in- 

 terrapins) of the Pacific Coast. 



The microplankton in the California current is 

 generally very abundant and varied. In the spring 

 and early summer the vernal wave of diatoms is 

 so marked as to form a coastal belt known to 

 mariners as "black water." In mid-summer and 

 early fall the southern coasts are often visited by 

 extraordinary displays of phosphorescence, due to 



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