NOTES ON A FEW CCELENTERATES OF WOODS 



HOLL. 1 



CHAS. W. HARGITT. 



The following notes concerning a few Hydrozoa and other 

 Coelenterates, some new and others more or less rare, of the 

 Woods Holl Region, and made chiefly during the summer of 

 1906, are published in the belief that portions of them at least 

 are of more or less interest, particularly in view of the biological 

 survey of the region now under way under the direction of the 

 Bureau of Fisheries. It seems also worth while noting certain 

 biological aspects of these organisms which are but indifferently 

 recognized. 



Hydroids. 



Eudendrium. — Among the prolific hydroid fauna of the region, 

 few if any genera of Gymnoblastea are more abundantly repre- 

 sented both in species and individuals than Eudendrium. And 

 among the species of Eudendrium perhaps none is so conspicuous 

 in size or so abundant as E. ramosum. About docks, piers, in 

 tide pools, in open waters and water of a depth of ten to twenty 

 fathoms or more, the species is more or less abundant everywhere. 

 Apparently the first record of the species in American waters 

 was by McCrady in his now classic monograph (" The Gymnoph- 

 thalmata of Charleston Harbor," p. 166), and by him identified 

 with the E. ramosum of Europe. 



It has long been a query in the mind of the present writer 

 why, in the rather extended and painstaking work of Professor 

 Agassiz, there seems to have been no acquaintance with this 

 species. In his elaborate monographs on these forms he only 

 mentions this species as a native of European waters. And 

 in the later "Catalog of North American Acalephae" of A. Agassiz 

 (p. 160), it is only mentioned as having been taken by Clark in 

 Charleston Harbor. And even as late as Verrill's " Invertebate 

 Animals of Vineyard Sound" (187 1, pp. 408, 734), its occurrence 

 is merely mentioned, with no account of its characteristics or 



1 Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory, Syracuse University. 



95 



