174 New York State Museum 



There is an association which might be termed the 

 association of floating and swimming forms. These crea- 

 tures are often cast upon the various shores and most of 

 them have been discussed more or less under other asso- 

 ciations. They include the medusa hydroids ; the comb- 

 jellies; the jelly fishes large and small; the free swimming 

 hydrozoan colonies (siphonophores) such as the Portu- 

 guese Man-of-War (Physalia), a form of the tropical 

 Atlantic and Gulf Stream sometimes seen floating along 

 our coast late in summer; various worms in abundance; 

 the Goose Barnacle {Lepas fascicularis) carried by the 

 Gulf Stream and cast up on our shores late in summer; 

 the Gulf-Weed Crab {Portunus sayi) which lives in 

 masses of Sargassum or Gulf-weed and sometimes drifts 

 from the tropical Atlantic to our coast in the summer; 

 the Floating Snail {Janthina fragilis) which floats in the 

 Gulf Stream off the coasts of Florida and the West Indies 

 and is cast up on our shores by southerly winds ; several 

 species of scallops ; species of squids or Sea Arrows ; and 

 the Paper Nautilus (Argonauta) which is found in the 

 tropical parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and occa- 

 sionally drifts northward upon the Gulf Stream and is 

 cast upon the south Long Island coast. There are two 

 species of squids common to our coasts. The Blunt- 

 tailed Squid (Loligo peali) is common from Cape Cod 

 to South Carolina and frequents shallow water; the 

 Short-tailed Squid (Ommastrephes illecebrosus) is the 

 common squid of the New England coast ranging from 

 Cape Cod to Newfoundland and used as bait in the 

 Banks fishing. The Giant Squid (Architeuthis princeps), 

 the largest living invertebrate, is seen rarely and then 

 always off the Grand Banks or off the coast of New- 



