4 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



figures were the only ones, 1 and were often copied. In 1898 Fried- 

 laender (1898 a ) figured the head of what he recognized to be that of a 

 Eunice. This, with other material, he obtained from the reef-rock at 

 Samatau in Samoa. His material was afterwards studied by Ehlers, who 

 (1898) showed that Friedlaender had found the real head of the " Pa- 

 lolo," which then became Eunice viridis (Gray). 



It was my good fortune, while acting as assistant to Mr. Alexander 

 Agassiz in the Fiji Islands, to be present at the annual 'rising' of the 

 "Palolo " (Mbololo) at Levuka on November 17 th 1897, and Mr. Agassiz 

 has (1899, p. 16) given an account of our experiences at that time. In 

 the following year Mr. Agassiz dispatched me to Samoa to be on hand for 

 the November appearance of the "Palolo" and to search the reef-rock 

 for the entire animal. On my arrival at Apia I was fortunate in finding 

 Dr. Kramer, who placed his notes at my disposal as well as all of the an- 

 nelid material he had collected from the reefs in his search for the 

 Palolo head. I am also under obligations to Mr. W. Blacklock, U. S. 

 Vice Consul at Apia, to Captain Victor Schoenfelder of H. I. M. S. 

 " Falke," to my friend C. L. Crehore who accompanied me to Samoa, and 

 to Tui Malealiifanu, the head chief of Falelatai where I made my 

 headquarters. 



After searching the reefs to the westward, at Samatau, where Fried- 

 laender obtained his material, for several days without result, the 

 natives took me to a small bay called Fagaiofu to the eastward of 

 Falelatai. The bay lies between two small promontories which are 

 about one quarter of a mile apart, and is almost filled with a fringing 

 reef, the sea edge of which is not more than two hundred feet from the 

 beach at extreme low tide. Small patches of dead coral occur almost at 

 the beach line, becoming larger and more numerous seawards, where 

 they are more or less confluent so as to make a kind of platform. This 

 general platform is interrupted by two deep narrow channels or passages 

 corresponding to the outlets of small streams. At extreme low tide, 

 that is at neap tide, the place is so shallow that one can wade from the 

 shore to the outer edge of the reef platform. The reef at Fagaiofu is 

 composed of dead coral and the usual honeycombed reef-rock, except 

 at the outer edge where there is living coral. By prizing off masses 

 of the rock with a crowbar at the edges of the deeper channels, 

 " Palolo n were disclosed in great numbers and could be seen dangling 

 from the freshly exposed surfaces, and wriggling free into the water to be 



1 Mcintosh (1885) figured some chaetae from material obtained by the 

 " Challenger." 



