[Preliminary Notes on Some Marine Worms Taken at Laguna Beach]
W. F. HAMILTON
During the summer of 1914 I made a collection of some 230 bottles of annelids. It was thought best that I should publish a list of the families and of such species as I have succeeded in identifying.
Polychaeta
Syllidæ
Are quite abundant among the finer sea mosses.
Pionosyllis elongata Johnson.
Found among goose-neck barnacles west of the Laboratory and in seaweed tangles. White with bright red eggs coloring posterior end. Taken June 26, 1914.
Two other forms are common in the finer sea moss.
Polynoidæ
Are of frequent occurrence on rocks and in seaweed tangles. I have identified four species.
Halosydna insignis Baird.
The most common and variable polynoid at Laguna. Color of elytra yellowish gray to bright red. Length from 18 to as much as 47 mm. (contracted).
Halosydna californica Johnson.
Less abundant. Similar in distribution. More slender and of a lighter pigmentation.
Lepidasthenia gigas Johnson.
This interesting form was taken from a large mass of the tubes of Vermetus (squamigerus?) (gasteropod). Heretofore, as far as I know, it has only been recorded as a tube commensal with a large Amphitrite. My specimen was not commensal, but was hidden among the mollusc tubes. The color was recorded as a "light, unsaturated yellow, elytra darker yellow, body irridescent below." The setæ project only their tips beyond the parapodia, differing only in this respect from Johnson's figures. I could not find any asymmetrical somites, judging from the elytrophores. The elytra were all gone and the specimen was poorly preserved.
Harmothoe hirsuta Johnson.
A single specimen 25 mm. long, badly mutilated and in a poor state of preservation was taken in seaweed between tide-marks. Two other species were taken from a similar location, but I have not identified them yet.
Phyllodocidæ