42 Sea-side Study on the Coast of California. 
stiff breeze ordinarily arises in the afternoon and renders the collec- 
tion of surface life almost impossible. Surface collecting by night, 
so profitably carried on at Newport, met with considerable success 
on the coast of California. The fogs which in some months hang 
for many hours above the water is detrimental to this kind of work, 
Calms, while of great advantage to the student of surface collec- 
tions, try the patience of the naturalist engaged in dredging who has 
no steam launch at his control. The best time to dredge ! with a 
sailing craft was found to be about noontime, as there is less liability 
to be becalmed at that time, and it is too early for the heavy winds 
of the afternoon. 
In my trip across the Santa Barbara Channel, the Miiller’s net 
was used at intervals to get some idea of the general facies of the 
surface life from this region of the Pacific. The contents of the net 
was made up of representatives of all the more important surface 
animals from the Narragansett Bay. These animals are of course 
represented by different genera and species from those found in New 
England waters, but the general character of the surface life is much 
the same. As compared with the same latitudes on the Atlantic, it 
did not seem as rich,” 
The phosphorescence which is a direct index of the amount of 
surface life in the sea is often very brilliant on the Pacific coast. I 
have studied this light at various points on the Mediterranean, along 
the Florida Keys, on the coast of New England and at the Bermudas 
but have never seen it more striking than in the surface waters of the 
Santa Barbara Channel and in the fiords of the island of Santa Cruz. 
Ina canon fiord under Punta del Diablo, at about 9 o’clock in the 
evening, I witnessed a phosphorescent display of this kind of most 
extraordinary character. Aside from its natural beauty it was in- 
dicative of an abundant harvest with the Miiller’s net. The signs 
did not fail, although the light, as so often happens in surface col- 
lecting, was mainly due to multitudes of one genus of animals. At 
this time it was due to large numbers of a species of Copepod which 
is often very abundant in the Santa Barbara Channel. 
I have noticed in studies of live animals carried on at the Bermu- 
das, at Tortugas and on the coast of New England, that in the 
1 I refer to shallow-water dredging and to dredging with the sailing 
crafts which a visitor to the coast is obliged to use. 
2 The author has in preparation a paper in which the new genera and 
1o ot invertebrated animals found on the coast of California in sur- 
face water dredging will be described and figured. 
2 
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