786 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



observer to see the bottom fauna very dis- 

 tinctly as long as he can hold his head 

 under water. In some cases these too little 

 known tools were of value and interest, 

 though the extreme prevalence of the spiny 

 sea urchin, Diadema, makes one cautious 

 in the use of one's head under water. The 

 presence of stinging corals, sea-scorpions 

 and sea stings also inculcates caution in 

 the handling of dimly seen objects. 



On the reef close to the laboratory was 

 found crawling one night the remarkably 

 branched echinoderm Gorgonocephaliis or 

 Astrophyton, rarely seen except in deeper- 

 water dredgings. 



The near-by beach (a perfect bathing 

 beach) yielded hippas, and interesting 

 gasteropods, including the carrier shell, 

 XenopJiora conchiliophora, as well as 

 echinoderms. The rocks at the laboratory 

 were covered with chitons, echini, gastero- 

 pods and the active crab Grapsus grapsus 

 L., there known as "Bessy lightfoot," while 

 at the boat wharf there, single heads of 

 coral with tubularian hydroids gave wit- 

 ^ ness to the pureness of the water in which 

 ''bright-colored fish and changing squids 

 made daily journeys and reappearances. 



The means at hand for dredging proved 

 inadequate to the deeper parts of the bay, 

 but showed considerable workable areas 

 near shore free from coral heads and in- 

 habited by gasteropods, ascidians and star- 

 fish. 



The location of the laboratory proved 

 unexpectedly advantageous for the study 

 of tropical fishes and their parasites, since 

 almost all the fish caught for the town 

 daily passed under our eyes. The fifty or 

 so dugout canoes that are seen resting on 

 the sands by their owners' houses in the 

 town all day long are out about the reefs 

 before dawn, when the fishermen haul their 

 traps or fish with hook and line till the rise 

 of the trade wind sends them home directly 



past the laboratory. Being men of keen ob- 

 servation and knowledge of the natural 

 history of the reefs, and in need of money 

 as well, it was a mutual advantage to have 

 them stop to exhibit both the usual catch 

 and any unusual animal that might else 

 have been thrown back into the sea. Much 

 of the fishing being carried on with traps 

 or pots baited with "sprats," or mashed 

 Diademas, not only fish of all kinds, but 

 many Crustacea and molluscs are taken 

 and from depths not otherwise easy of ac- 

 cess. 



As emphasizing the beautiful clearness 

 of the water it may be noted that the fish- 

 ermen throw their traps into water many 

 fathoms deep with no buoy to mark them, 

 in confidence that from their knowledge of 

 the landscape of the bottom they can find 

 the spot for each of their many traps and 

 then see it well enough to take it up with 

 a hook and line. 



The ecological territory consisting of 

 mangrove roots hanging in quiet sea water 

 along the edges of the Bogue Islands is in- 

 habited by vast masses of vegetable and 

 animal life representing all the phyla of 

 the animal kingdom if but few groups of 

 plants. Before the hanging roots have 

 grown down to the bottom they furnish 

 favorable place of attachment for free- 

 swiming larvffi and are soon covered over 

 with fixed growths of oysters, barnacles, 

 sponges, hydroids, algse and many sorts of 

 simple and compound ascidians that grow 

 into large complex masses near the surface 

 of the water. Amidst these fi:sed animals 

 wander many strange crabs and active 

 ophiurids and nudibranch and shelled 

 gasteropods. The exact make-up of these 

 complex colonies varies from island to is- 

 land and from side to side, while some 

 passageways are rich in algse and in large 

 tubicolous annelids. 



The fauna of the Great and Montego 



