APPENDIX A 



THE HAITIAN EXPEDITION 



By William Beebe, Director 



The Haitian Expedition was the tenth undertaken by 

 the Department of Tropical Research of the New York 

 Zoological Society. It numbered a staff of nine, and 

 extended through a period of nearly five months, from 

 January 1 to May 23, 1927. 



Five chief objects may be cited: 



(1) To prepare a list of Haitian fish, there being none in 

 existence. 



(2) To study at close range and at first hand by means 

 of a diving helmet the life of a coral reef. 



(3) To obtain motion pictures of the life of a coral reef. 



(4) To test a wholly new idea of a floating laboratory. 



(5) To see how inexpensive an expedition of this kind 

 can be made. 



(1) In the space of a hundred days, we secured over two 

 hundred and seventy species of fish in one small area of the 

 Gulf of Gonave, near Port-au-Prince Bay. It is interesting 

 to note that in four hundred years there have been recorded 

 from Porto Rico only three hundred species. 



Our Haitian fish are being studied by Mr. Tee-Van and 

 myself, and the list, together with considerable contri- 

 butions to their life histories, will be published soon in 

 Zoologica. A fisheries department is wholly lacking in the 

 present occupational scheme of the Americans in Haiti, so 

 duplicate collections were made for the Haitian Govern- 



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