THE POLYCH.^TOUS ANNELIDS DREDGED IN 1908 BY ME. OWEN BEYANT OFF THE COASTS OF LABRADOR, NEWFOUNDLAND, AND NOVA SCOTIA. By J. Percy Moore, Of the Zoological Department of the TJiiiversitij of Pennsijlvania, Philadelphia. Our knowledge of the Polychseta of Labrador is very meager, being based almost entirely upon two imperfect lists published by Prof. A. S. Packard in 1863 and 1867, respectively. The second and more complete list embraces 28 species of Polychasta, the determina-tion of several of which is doubtful, though some of the identifica-tions have been verified by Professor Verrill. It was, of course, not to be expected that the Labrador coast would furnish many novelties in this group, but that the fauna would be similar to that of the better-known waters adjacent. Beginning with Fabricius, in 1780, the Polychseta fauna of Green-land has had many able students down to our own time, and this group of animals is better known in few regions than in this. The ranges of many species, first made known from the waters of Green-land and northern Europe, have been found to extend to the Ameri-can coast at the region about the Bay of Fundy and the waters surrounding Nova Scotia. Stimpson, Verrill, and Webster and Benedict have described the rich fauna of the former, and Mcintosh, in a series of papers, has recorded especially the results of the dredg-ings of AMiiteaves in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Both regions, while yielding a considerable number of forms peculiar to the American coast, have exhibited a facies essentially Arctic. It was to be presumed, therefore, that the Labrador Polychseta would belong chiefly to Arctic species, with some additions from the more southern fauna. Packard's lists had already furnished a basis for this expectation, to which the present collection affords welcome confirmation. Fortunately, the bulk of the collection comes from Labrador, where additions to our knowledge were most to be desired. Of the 51 species recorded, 38 are from the coast of Labrador, and only 7 of these appear in Packard's lists, leaving 31 as probably new to that region. The remaining 13 sj^ecies were dredged mostly off Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 37— No. 1703. 133
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