HARD WI CKE ' S S CIE NCE-GOSSIF. 



49 



THE REPORT OF THE "CHALLENGER" EXPEDITION. 



* 



By AGNES CRANE. 



UR years have 

 elapsed since 

 H.M.S. Chal- 

 lenge! anchored 

 at Spithead on 

 the termination 

 of a most success- 

 ful voyage round 

 the world of three 

 years' (1873-76) 

 duration. A con- 

 siderable interval 

 was necessarily 

 requisite to dis- 

 tribute the im- 

 mense amount of 

 material accumu- 

 lated during the 

 cruise. But the 

 long delayed pub- 



t— s» lication of any 

 official account of 

 the zoological results of the expedition has been un- 

 favourably commented on. The appearance of the 

 first part of the initial volume of the series of reports 

 at the commencement of the new decade will there- 

 fore be eagerly welcomed by the scientific world. 

 Professor Sir Wyville Thomson's announcement, 

 that the whole of the first volume — comprising the 

 memoirs of Professor Kblliker on the Pennatulida, 

 of Dr. G. S. Brady on the Ostracoda, Professor 

 Turner (bones of Cetacea), Dr. Giinther (Shore 

 Fishes), and that of Mr. Kitchen Parker on the 

 Embryology of the Green Turtle — will shortly be 

 forthcoming, and that others by the various eminent 

 naturalists engaged are in an advanced state of 

 preparation, will be regarded as highly satisfactory. 

 Now that the work is all distributed and is proceeding 

 simultaneously on all branches, we may reasonably 

 hope that the fifteen quarto volumes to complete the 



* Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. 

 Challenger, "Zoology," vol. i. 1880. Sold in London, Edin- 

 burgh, and Dublin. Published by order of Her Majesty's 

 Government. 



No. 183. 



series (each of which, it is stated, will almost equal.in 

 bulk an annual volume of the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society), will proceed more rapidly towards publica- 

 tion, and that information concerning the rich harvest 

 of zoological treasures accumulated by the Challenger 

 will ere long be within reach of that section of the 

 public specially interested. 



The instalment now published comprises the report 

 first completed, that of Mr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., 

 on the Brachiopoda. It is issued separately by Sir 

 Wyville Thomson, under whose superintendence 

 the whole will appear, for distribution among the 

 naturalists engaged as illustrating the method of treat- 

 ment to be adopted, and the style in which the series 

 will be brought out. This is an advance in the right 

 direction, though one that, so far as Mr. Davidson 

 was concerned, might have been taken several months 

 back. The part contributed by that eminent brachio- 

 podist contains sixty-five clearly printed quarto 

 pages, and four artistically drawn plates of the new 

 species dredged by the Challenger. The illustrations 

 are furnished by the skilful pencil of the author in 

 accordance with his invariable custom. 



A considerable number of specimens referable, 

 however, to comparatively few species, were collected 

 during the cruise. In fact only thirty-one species out 

 of about 130 known surviving forms of this once far 

 more abundant group of humbler molluscs were 

 obtained. Ten of these proved new to science, and 

 are appropriately named by their describer after the 

 members of the naturalist staff, or specialists on the 

 group. By far the larger number of the thirty-one 

 species were found to belong to the more lowly 

 organised division of clistenterate brachiopods, or 

 those which are destitute of an anal aperture. Only 

 one species of Crania, one of Lingula, and two Discina 

 represented the more highly organised tretenterates 

 which are provided with that structure. A solitary 

 Rhynchonella, a variety of the well-known black 

 species R. nigricans of New Zealand, was brought up 

 off Kerguelen Island from 1 50 fathoms. A single speci- 

 men of a new species of the subgenus Terebratulina 

 ( Wyvillii), the largest hitherto discovered either in the 

 recent or fossil state, was also dredged off Culebra 



D 



