ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



fined to the inhabitants of the Kingsmill, Gilbert 

 and Marshal] groups; in short to that part of 

 Oeeanica known as Micronesia, the region of 

 "little lands," as these islands have been named. 

 The reason for this must be an ethnological one, 

 and in that science the explanation must be 

 found. 



SAND BARS AND FLATS AT LOW TIDE 

 By W. I. DeNyse 



For the lover of nature, a trip out on the sand 

 bars and flats at low tide in midsummer when 

 they are teeming with life, means many agree- 

 able surprises. He need provide himself only 

 with a dip net and a pair of rubber boots, 

 thoroughly to enjoy the great variety of marine 

 animals asleep or apparently so, and the small, 

 natural aquariums existing in the tidal pools. 

 Walking on the eel grass left flattened by the 

 ebb tide, one discovers here and there a mysteri- 

 ous mound, which on being uncovered, turns 

 out to be a blue crab, its claws held close to the 

 body in a resting position while it dozes in its 

 snug retreat. Instantly on being disturbed, it 

 is wide awake and ready for fight, rising on 

 its legs and snapping the large claws together 

 threateningly. As soon as the intruder disap- 

 pears, it settles again under the sand, to await 

 the incoming tide. Another mound, disrupted, 

 may prove to be the retreat of a horseshoe crab, 

 largest of American crabs, which, like its neigh- 

 bor, awaits the incoming tide. Depressions 

 here and there in the grass, containing a few 

 inches of water, harbor very young flounders, 

 pigmy sculpins, toadfish, pipefish, eels and 



minnows, less patient for the approach of the 

 waves that will carry them to a larger swimming 

 ground. 



Approaching the high and dry sand bar, one 

 observes numerous miniature fountains playing 

 into the air from the syphons of clams — hard- 

 shelled, soft-shelled, and razor. Some of the 

 little streams play upward for several feet and 

 seem to multiply as the tide begins to rise. 



Perhaps the most attractive of Nature's sea- 

 side exhibits are the beautiful aquariums in the 

 tidal pools, perfectly equipped with rich green 

 Viva, deep red Soleria chordalis, crimson 

 Grinella and other handsome sea plants. Small 

 hermit crabs and the young of the horseshoe, 

 blue, spider, green and lady crabs, scamper over 

 the bottom, minnows are spawning, and here 

 and there a winkle or conch spins out its button- 

 shaped egg-strings and a whelk forms its collar- 

 shaped mound in which to deposit its eggs. 



One may be lucky enough to catch a pair of 

 sea horses in the love season, the male changing 

 its colors from brown to near snow-white to 

 attract its mate. A pipefish may be detected 

 stealing eggs from the swimmerets of a defense- 

 less shrimp, while under a bit of Viva a blue 

 crab casts its shell for a bright new one, grow- 

 ing a bit larger during the process. It is fear- 

 ful of enemies while the new shell is soft, and 

 dares not venture abroad for a day or so, till 

 the shell hardens sufficiently to protect it. 



Everywhere the flats and sand bars are liter- 

 ally alive with mud snails, some partly' buried 

 and others moving slowly over the bottom in 

 search of food, and performing their valuable 

 services as scavengers of the beaches. 



PREHEXSILE-TAILED PIPEFISHES 



By Ida M. Mellkn 



IT is the custom in this part of the world to re- 

 fer to the sea horse as the only fish possess- 

 ing a prehensile tail. The discovery of a 

 paragraph in Wallace's Natural Selection, rela- 

 tive to pipefishes with prehensile tails, seemed 

 therefore quite worthy of investigation, although 

 it is not clear whether he refers to British or 

 Australian species. Directly after a paragraph 

 on Australian sea horses, he says : 



"There are now in the aquarium of the 

 Zoological Society some slender green pipefishes 

 which fasten themselves to any object at the 

 bottom by their prehensile tails, and float about 

 with the current, looking exactly like some 

 cylindrical algae." 



Pipefishes and sea horses have been grouped 

 by most ichthyologists under the family Syng- 

 nathidae. but at the Aquarium we have found 

 the classification of Theodore Gill far more con- 

 venient: sea horses — Hippocampidae, pipefishes 

 — Syngnathidae. 



It seemed certain to us and to American and 

 British authorities to whom we referred the mat- 

 ter, that Wallace had made an error of observa- 

 tion. Everywhere we met with the assurance 

 that "sea horses are the only Syngnathidae with 

 a prehensile tail. 



Pursuing Wallace's prehensile-tailed green 

 pipefish through the literature on pipefishes, we 

 discovered several suspiciously similar observa- 



