No. 4.] 



NORTH-AMERICAN ECHIURIDS. 



165 



borne, Echiiinis chrysacanthophorus (8). But he also adds : I 

 have seen but a single specimen of this species. The one I 

 have before me answers very well to the characters assigned 

 to Echiurus Gaertneri by Quatrefages. It wants likewise the 

 spoon-shaped appendage," i.e.^ the proboscis {ibid.). 



But Quatrefages himself admitted in 1865 that the species 

 Gaertneri was based upon individuals which had been rolled 

 about by the wind," and he adds : It is very possible that the 

 appendage was broken off" (10). This proved to have been 

 the 'case, and in 1880 Greef included the species Gaertneri as 

 one of the synonyms of E. Pallasii Guerin, but he retained the 

 doubtful species chrysacanthophorus (7). 



A species of Echiurus has been dredged by Professor Verrill 

 at various points along the New England coast, and has been 

 reported conditionally as E. chrysacanthophoriis. But Verrill 

 wrote me in 1895 that in all his dredging (over 1000 localities) 

 he had met with this species in very few instances, and never^ 

 a perfect specimen." Hence he wisely refrained from attempt- 

 ing any detailed description of it, and from any comparison 

 with foreign species. 



Finally Shipley, in 1896 (13), and again in 1899 (14), rejects 

 the species altogether as being inadequately described, and the 

 locality, ''North Atlantic," which he assigns to Echiurus Pal- 

 lasii^ doubtless signifies the Norwegian and Greenland shores, 

 from which it has been reported by other authors. 



Such being the condition of affairs, it seems fitting to describe 

 the species accurately, to determine it definitely, and to add a 

 few observations upon its habits which may be of generic inter- 

 est. This is rendered possible by the fact that it has been the 

 good fortune of the author to obtain a large number of abso- 

 lutely perfect specimens and to keep some of them under 

 observation in aquaria for several weeks, while others were 

 successfully preserved, — a by no means easy task. 



The material was all obtained at Casco Bay, on the Maine 

 coast, during the summers of 1895-98. It is also hoped that 

 the photographs which accompany these notes may prove of 

 assistance in locating the species. 



1 The underscoring is his. 



