No. 18.— The Polychaeta of the Puget Sound Region. 
By Herbert Parlin Johnson. 
The following account of the Polychaeta of Puget Sound and 
neighboring waters is primarily based upon a collection made by 
Nathan R. Harrington, lately deceased, a member of the Columbia 
University Zoological Expedition to that region in the summer of 
1896. The collection, comprising thirty-four species belonging to 
seventeen families, was sent to me in January, 1898. Preliminary 
examination showed that the collection, although meagre, in part 
poorly preserved, and almost destitute of data, contained much of 
interest. It seemed best, however, to defer any publication of 
results until more and better material could be obtained. Thanks 
to the good efforts of several collectors, notably Prof. William E. 
Ritter and Miss Alice Robertson, both of the University of Cali¬ 
fornia, very substantial additions have been made to the original 
collection. These, together with two species from Victoria, B. C., 
kindly contributed by Prof. William A. Herdman, raise the total 
number of species to fifty-one, distributed in thirty-four genera and 
twenty-six families (see Table, p.384) — practically all the Poly¬ 
chaeta known to occur in the Puget Sound region. 1 They cannot 
reasonably be supposed to represent more than a fourth or even a 
fifth of the actual Polychaete fauna. Nearly all the collecting thus 
far has been between tide-marks. Dredging has been small in 
amount and limited to very moderate depths (not over thirty fath¬ 
oms) ; and the entire absence of pelagic forms — with the possible 
exception of Aricideopsis megalops — would indicate but slight use 
of the tow-net. 
1 Ehlers (’68) describes eight species from the Pacific Coast; five of these (Nereis 
agassizi , X. procerci, X. vexillosa, X. virens and Xephtliys coeca) have been found in 
Puget Sound or vicinity. 
Baird (’63) describes nine species, all from Esquimalt Harbor, Vancouver Island. 
Four of these, Polynoe ( Lepldonotus ) insignis, lordi, fragilis, and Xereis foliata (== X. 
virens Sars) have been identified, and an account is given of them. Lepiclonotus 
grubei is in all probability the same as Polynoe insignis. There remain unidentified 
only four of Baird’s species (Harmothoe unicolor, Xereis bicanaliculata , Glycera cor- 
rugata, and Sabellaria saxicava). These it is practically impossible to identify with 
certainty from Baird’s descriptions. 
