Hydroids of the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States is an attempt to give a brief description, with figures, of every hydroid species known to occur along the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States, together with its distribution within this area. It is intended to provide the Pacific zoologist with a reference, easily understood, to every species of hydroid reported from the coast. Keys to families, genera, and species have been included to facilitate diagnosis. Much of the information presented has already been published, but in widely scattered papers, some of them long out of print. The new contribution is largely in the extensive addition to the distribution records, for which many thousands of specimens have been examined.

Charles McLean Fraser (1872-1946) is best remembered for his work on hydroids, but he was also involved in a much broader range of activities during the development of marine biology on the Pacific coast of Canada in the first half of the 20th century. From 1920 to 1940 he was Head of the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia. He was also an influential member of societies such as the Royal Society of Canada and the Pacific Science Association.

Charles McLean Fraser's profile page