No. 2.— FORAMINIFERA OF THE WOODS HOLE REGION. 
BY JOSEPH A. CUSHMAN. 
Very little is kno\ni concerning the Foraminifera of the New Eng- 
land coast, or, in fact, of the shallow water of any part of our Atlantic 
coast. The Woods Hole region is, in some respects, a poor one for 
this partieidar group. It is not very closely connected with the ocean, 
being entirely protected except at the entrance to Buzzards Bay and 
Vineyard Sound, and even there the waters are rather sheltered. The 
depths in all parts of the region are comparatively shallow, and eighteen 
fathoms is about the deepest of the dredgings. The bottom condi- 
tions also do not favor a varied Foraminiferal fauna especially in parts 
of Vineyard Sound where the bottom is made up of shifting sands. 
Here the dead shells of the Foraminifera are found in a worn and 
broken state. As a residt of the conditions few of the deeper-water 
species seem to occur in the region. 
Through the kindness of the United States bureau of fisheries, I 
was enabled to study the material dredged during July and August, 
1905. This dredging was in connection with the biological survey of 
the region which has been in progress for some time. As a result of 
this study a partial knowledge of the species represented in the region 
was obtained. Later a series of bottom samples from about fifty 
stations was examined and these added somewhat to the previous list. 
The material used was from dredgings in Buzzards Bay, made by 
hand from the steamer Phalarope, mostly in the shallower waters near 
shore and along the inside of the Elizabeth Islands, in from three to 
nine fathoms of water. Specimens were also obtained from dredgings in 
Vineyard Sound, extending from a slight distance outside of Gay Head 
and Cuttyhunk on the west, to a point between Cottage City and Fal- 
mouth on the east. To this material, collected during the regular work 
of the survey, I was enabled to add somewhat by my own efforts. By 
the use of a sc -ape-net on the outer piles of the dock at the Fisheries 
station a good supply of hydroids, algae, and the shells of Mytilus 
edulis was gathered. By washing and scraping the hydroid stems 
and algae an abundance of Foraminifera was obtained. This con- 
sisted, however, almost entirely of a few species. The mud and 
other extraneous matter was scraped from the ^lytilus shells and then 
washed. This was the most productive of rare species of any of the 
