SMITHSONIAN ENSTITUTION UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, SPEOCAL HYDEOIDS 1. THE PLUMULARTD^E, WITH THIRTY-FUCK PLATES. CHARLES CLEVELAND NUTTING, PROFF5SO!\ K Zl JUOOY, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1 900 I..IRAMY ON OF1 T'HARI.ES ETARGITT <CI>f THIS JL.ABOIRATOY , ieO(O-lOSO BY nuts SON TO TDK BSIOI.OGICAI, I-. AIBOUATORV f 3. 6 /v SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, SYRACUSE, N. Y. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. SPECIAL BULLETIN. AMERICAN HYDROIDS. T 1 . THE PLUMULARII) K, WITH THIRTY-POUR PLATES. CHARLES CLEVELAND NUTTING, PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 1 900. ADVERTISEMENT. This work (Special Bulletin No. 4) is one of a series intended to illustrate the collections belonging to, or placed in charge of, the Smithsonian Institution and deposited in the United States National Museum. The publications of the National Museum consist of two series, the Bulletin and the Proceedings. The Bulletin comprises complete technical works of considerable size, zoological mono- graphs, handbooks of the Museum collections, records of scientific expeditions, etc. Most of the volumes hitherto published have been octavos, but a quarto form has been adopted for works like the present one, which, on account of the character of the illustrations, require a large page. The Proceedings are intended primarily as a medium of publication for shorter technical papers, many of them of a preliminary character, containing newly acquired facts relating to biology, anthropology, and geology, new schemes of classification, descriptions of new forms of animals and plants, discussions of nomenclature, and the diaries of minor expeditions. The Proceedings are issued annually to libraries in volumes of about 1,000 pages. A small edition of each paper is distributed in pamphlet form to specialists in advance of the bound volume. Papers of more general popular interest are published in the appendix to the Annual Report. Papers intended for publication in the Proceedings and Bulletin are referred to an advisory committee composed as follows: Frederick W. True (chairman), James E. Benedict, Otis T. Mason, Leouhard Stejneger, Lester F. Ward, and Marcus Benjamin (editor). S. P. LAN&LEY, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. WASHINGTON, 1). <J., July 15, 1900. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The surprising wealth of plumularian life in American waters was unknown to tbe earlier investigators of the marine fauna of the New World, a fact due to the lack of exploration in the West Indian region, which has since yielded an unprecedented harvest, the result of the scientific work of those in charge of the vessels of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and the T. S. Fish Commission. When, in 18CU, the elder Agassiz wrote the fourth volume of his Contributions to the Natural History of the United States, only three species of Plumularida1 were included. Three years later his son, Alexander Agassiz, recognized six species in the second number of the Illustrated Cata- logue of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Two of these species, however, Aglaophenia francisrana and Plumttlarin arborea, probably belong to the genus Hyd rail mania, and would there- fore not be included in the Pluinularida-. A very important contribution to our knowledge of this group was made by Professor Allman in 1877, when he published the results of his investigation of the material secured by Count Pourtales in the Gulf Stream. 1 In that beautifully illustrated work no less than twenty-six species of plumnlariaus are mentioned, twenty-four being new to science and hence carefully described and figured. In 1879 Prof. A. E. Yerrill published his Preliminary Check-List of the Marine luvertebrata of the Atlantic Coast from Cape Cod to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in which seven species of Pluniularid;e are noted. The material secured by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer 2 Hltrite in 1877-78 was reported on by Dr. S. F. Clark, who found three new species. The same vessel continued the work of dredging in the Southern waters during the remainder of 1878, 1879, and the summer of 18SO, with the result that Dr. J. Walter Fewkes described twelve new species of Plumularidie from the material secured. 3 From 1871 to the present time an enormous amount of dredging has been done by the various vessels employed in the work of the U. S. Fish Commission and U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. As a result an unprecedented quantity of inaterial has accumulated in the U. S. National Museum ami the museum of Yale University, which has been a sort of repository for the U. S. Fish Com- mission collections, under charge of Prof. A. E. Verrill, who has done an almost incredible amount of labor in working up various groups. He has only incidentally given attention to the hydroids, however, and has described but few new species of Plumularida'. At the time of the inception of the present work it is doubtful if more than fifty species of Plumularidie were known to occur in American waters. An examination of the wealth of material above referred to resulted in the discovery of the numerous new species described in the following pages. A careful scrutiny of the literature of the Hydroida also revealed a considerable number of species that should be added to our fauna. It is now evident that the West Indian region is the richest in plumulariau life of any area, of equal size in the world. Not even the Australian region, hitherto regarded as by far the most prolific in these exceedingly graceful organisms, can equal our own Southern waters in profusion of genera and species. 1 Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, V, No. 2, 1877. 2 Report on the Hydroida collected during tbe exploration of the Gulf Stream and Gulf of Mexico by Alexander Agassiz, 1877-78. Bulletin, Museum of Comparative Zoology, V, No. 10, 1879. : ' Report on the results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassi/., in the Caribbean Sea, in 1878-79, anil along the Atlantic coast of the United States, during the summer of 1880, by the U. S. Coast Survey steamer Blakf, Commander J. R. Bartlett, U. S. N., commanding. Bulletin, Museum Comparative Zoology, VIII, No. 7, 1881. 1 2 AMERICAN HYDROIDS. The material in the U. S. National Museum relating to the Ilydroida had never been worked over when the present writer consented, at the request of the late Doctor Goode, Assistant Secre- tary of the Smithsonian Institution, to prepare a monographic account of the whole group. The author was persuaded that the time had come for a gathering together of our knowledge regarding the Hydroida, a review of the work done by other authors, a working over of the vast accumulations resulting from the various Government expeditions and the "Bahama expedition" from the University of Iowa, and a presentation of the whole subject in monographic form. It was deemed best to publish the work in several sections for convenience in handling and a- more prompt appearance of the results of study in certain groups, and the Plnmulurida- was selected as the first group for discussion, because the amount of new material was probably greater than in other families, and for the further reason that it would take a greater amount of time to prepare any acceptable account of groups involving the investigation of the hyclroid medus;e, perhaps the most intricate and perplexing class of forms embraced in the order Hydroida. It was hoped, moreover, that Dr. Alexander Agassiz would, in the mean time, complete his promised work on the Acalephse, including the accession of knowledge which has been accumu- lating since the appearance of his ''North American Acalephic" in 18(55. In this case it would be unnecessary to investigate the hydroid medusa; to any considerable extent in connection with this monograph. Whatever of merit appears in the following pages is very largely due to the naturalists who have almost without exception responded to my great need for their generous aid. To mention all who have given assistance would involve the naming of nearly every living naturalist who has made a special study of the Hydroida. 1 can not, however, omit acknowledgment of the help rendered by the following: My thanks are especially due to Dr. Alexander Agassi/,, who obtained for me the privilege of occupying the Harvard table at Naples; to Prof. A. B. Verrill, for much valuable material from the Yale Museum, and even more valuable advice; to Hon. J. J. Brice, former U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, for placing at my disposal the facilities of the laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts; to the late Sir William H. Flower, for permission to examine the Challenger Plumularida* in the British Museum (Natural History); to the Eev. Canon A. M. Norman, for specimens and advice; to the veteran naturalist, the late Prof. G. J. Allman, for helpful suggestions; to the officers of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, and especially E. I. Allen, esq., for laboratory facilities at Plymouth; to Prof. Anton Dohrn, Prof. Paul Meyer, Prof. Hugo Eisig, and Dr. Salvatore Lo Bianco, of the Zoological Station in Naples; to Prof. William M. Bale, for specimens of Australian Plumularid.e and much excellent advice; to Prof. W. Baldwin Spencer, for literature and specimens; to Dr. Gottlieb Marktanuer-Turueretscher, for his papers on the Ilydroida; to Prof. Eobert von Lendenfeld, for literature and correspondence, and to Dr. Walter Faxon, lor facilities in examining the types in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. AMERICAN HYDROIDS. SECTION I.-THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE PLUMULAEiD^E. Only the more distinctive features of the Plumalaridae will be discussed, here, the intention of the author being to reserve the presentation of the morphology of the Hydroida as a whole lor the general introduction to this work, which will accompany the last section.