9° 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



which is the most northerly coral known. In 

 life each little cup-shaped star is surmounted 

 and surrounded by a delicate milky-white 

 sea anemone with a slit-like mouth and a 

 crown of waving tentacles, armed with myr- 

 iads of stinging threads. The accompany- 

 ing photograph shows a very beautiful coral 

 from the Bermudas (Isophyllia), which has 

 been living in a jar of pure sea water at the 

 Aquarium for nearly a year. 



In this brief notice of a few of our most 

 common marine creatures, we must not omit 



distinguished its ancestors. In May and 

 June the female horseshoe crab crawls up 

 along the shallow water-covered beaches and 

 digs a hole in the sand, wherein she lays her 

 eggs. 



The lady crab {Platyoiiichus occlhitiis) is 

 certainly the most beautiful of our Crustacea, 

 being of a delicate yellow, speckled with 

 bright red spots. It haunts sandy beaches 

 and buries itself up to the eyes at the least 

 alarm. 



Our common blue crab or edible crab 



STAR FISU-K\P.\\lil. 



to speak of the crabs, great numbers of 

 which live in the shallow bays along the 

 southern shore of Long Island or in the 

 Sound. 



One of the most interesting of these is the 

 horseshoe crab (Liiimliis polyphcmus), which 

 is not, truly speaking, a crab, but is one of 

 the few survivors descended from the once 

 numerous race of the trilobites. 



When very young the horseshoe crab re- 

 sembles a trilobite, but in later life it changes 

 and loses manv of the characteristics which 



[Calliiiccfcs liasfatiis) is exceeding abundant 

 along the Long Island shores. Very near 

 relatives of this crab are widely distributed, 

 being found in both Atlantic and Pacific 

 oceans. 



Probably the most characteristic crab of 

 the Long' Island Sound is the spider crab 

 (Libiiiia dubia), which lives upon rocky and 

 muddy bottoms, and whose "arms" spread 

 fully i8 inches. This crab is, however, a 

 mere pigmy when compared with his cousin 

 from the deep sea ofif the coast of Japan, 



