IN RE 
Cable Address Museology New York” 
The American Museum of Natural History 
CENTRAL PARK WEST at 79th STREET 
NEW YORK, N. Y. 
Laboratory of Experimental, Biology 
Nov. 4 th, 11 40 
Dear 
Dr. Schmitt : 
You must have had a very exciting time. When 1 
finally found Pavlov Bay on the map, I was quite thunderstruck-it 
seemed" like the end of the world. I didn’t suppose there was any way 
of getting to such places except by having a private yacht or something 
of the kind. I’m afraid such a cold wet place would be fatal to me- 
I can t t stand the seashore especially in northern latitudes. 
The polyclads you sent are all of one kind and ob- 
viously belong to the family Lcptoplanidae , genus Notoplana. I 
thought : they looked familiar although this genus is one of the worst 
of the poly clads, having numerous species all over the world, which 
look very much alike externally. They can only be distinguished by 
the details of the copulatory apparatus. I have sectioned one of the 
worms and this confirms the opinion reached by studying whole mounts, 
namely, that the animal is Ilotoplana sanjuania Freeman 1933 (Trans. 
Amer. Micro. Soc. 52, p. 128) I studied this species when I was at Friday 
Harbor in the summer of 1938 and collected a number of specimens. Hence 
as i say it looked familiar. This species is known only from Puget 
Sound where it lives under rocks in shallow water. It presumably 
must be distributed all along the North ~ acif ic coast since you found 
it so far north. I suspected it might have been previously described 
fro® Japan but I have gone over all the No topi anas reported from J a a an 
and none of them are the same as this one* Go I believe the name is 
valid* Its habit of living on the hacks of crabs at Pavlov Bay is 
peculiar. I presume it is also found along the shores, i suppose you 
didn’t look? I believe it must be regarded as merely epizoic on the 
crabs-most likely it is really associated with the barnacles found on 
the crabs' backs , probably feeds on the barnacles. I fear there is 
really nothing very interesting to say a lout this polyclad. 
It is useless to try to narcotize flat worms . Narco- 
tics usually disintegrate them without iminoboli zifjg them* It is 
best to throw the:, into 70> alcohol or formalin. Weights to keep 
them flat are desirbble ; how ever x have no difficulty flattening then 
out after* I get them, so that it's not necessary to bother* I wish 
you would state the color ; alt ough I regularly ask everybody to do this, 
nobody ever remembers . 
. \ 
Sincerely, 
