| Introduction | | Species lists | | Search taxa | | Taxon tree | | Literature | | Distributions | | Statistics | | Editors | | Match taxa | | Webservice | | Log in |
RAMS source details
Webster, Harrison Edwin. (1879). The Annelida Chaetopoda of the Virginian coast. Transactions of the Albany Institute. 9: 202-269, plates I-XI.
52034
Webster, Harrison Edwin
1879
The Annelida Chaetopoda of the Virginian coast
Transactions of the Albany Institute
9: 202-269, plates I-XI
Publication
World Polychaeta Database (WPolyDb)
[None. The work starts as:]
The Annelida catalogued and described in the following pages were collected in the summer months of 1874 and 1876, by the zoölogical expeditions which, for some years past, Union College has sent out during the summer vacation. The locality was in Northampton Co., Virginia, (Eastern shore of Va.), between the main-land and the line of outside islands. Collecting on the eastern shore is in many respects unpleasant. The coast is monotonous; there is very little variety of station, unless a change from soft black mud to softer blacker mud can be called variety. At low-water a great area is exposed, but from high-water mark to the edges of the channels it is always mud; and when the dredge is let down it comes up filled with the same variety of mud; of course under such circumstances the work itself can not be pleasant. However, there was abundence of life. At low water the flats were black with Ilyanassa obsoleta Stimp., and two species of Gelasimus were present in numbers that defied computation; oysters and blue-crabs were everywhere; Amphitrite ornata was so common that in many places their extended tentacles almost touched each other; Marphysa sanguinea appeared at every turn of the spade or haul of the dredge; Nereis limbata, Drilonereis longa, Cirratulus grandis, Enoplobranchus sanguineus and other worms were present in the mud in great numbers; small annelids and molluscs abounded among the oysters. By far the greater part of our work was done with the spade at low-water. With the exception of the Syllidae and some other small forms, nearly every species dredged was also found between tides. In a few places we found what our boatmen called "rocky bottoms." The rocks were a thin layer of dead shells, that had been washed into the deeper parts of the channels and remained there. These shells had been very thoroughly excavated by a species of sponge and other boring animals, and in the galleries thus formed most of the smaller species of annelids were found.
North-western Atlantic
Systematics, Taxonomy
|