โ Scribed by Lewis Radcliffe
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
With plates VI-VII. I. Location and natural advantages for Scientific Investigations.
The marine biological laboratory of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, situated on Pivers Island in Beaufort Harbor about 150 yards west of the city of Beaufort, is admirably located for the use of the biologist interested in the coastal fauna and flora of the South Atlantic states and affords esceptional advantages for the study of marine life and economic problems of considerable variety. In the harbor, the nunierous salt marshes, sand shoals and mud flats intercepted by deeper channels and more or less exposed at low water, support a wealth of life that is a source of constant interest and pleasure to the zoologist because of the variety of forms and the ease with which these may be secured.
In the marshes live the diamond-back terrapin, and fiddler crabs occur in immense numbers; the latter may be taken at all seasons and are a source of food for birds and larger crabs. Gastropods in considerable numbers find a home among the reeds and grasses. Equipped with a shovel and collecting bucket, one may wander out on the sand shoals at low tide and secure annelid worms in abundance, also sea anemones, holothurians, spatangoid urchins, burrowing crustacea, molluslis", a species of Balanoglossus, and occasionally rarer forms, e. g. bracliiopod ( L i n g u l a ) , the lancelet ( B r a n c h i os t o m a c a r i b s u m ) , the black-snake eel ( B a s c a n i c h t h y s s c u t i c a r i s ) and the cusl-eel ( R i s s o l a m a r g i n a t a ) . On the oyster beds along the margins of the salt marshes and flats are sponges , hydroids , brittle stars, polychaet worms, polyzoa, crabs, burrowing shrimp, pelecypods, gastropods, and in season the interesting nests of certain fishes, e. g. the toad-fish ( O p s a n u s t a u ) and a blenny ( H y p l e u r o c h e i l u s g e m i n a t u s ) . The piJes to the various wharves about Beaufort and Morehead City, and the stone break-I) Published by permission of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES