THE CRUSTACEA COLLECTION 



BY 



FENNER CHACE 



The collections of Crustacea consist of a considerable amount of dried 

 material, chiefly crabs, shrimps and barnacles, and a very large series 

 in alcohol of all the various subclasses and orders. The bulk of the 

 material consists of marine species collected by the "Blake" and 

 "Albatross," but there is a considerable amount collected in the 

 Pacific by the "Hassler," A. Garrett, Rev. B. G. Snow, and A. 

 Agassiz. An important lot of Mediterranean material was purchased 

 from the Naples Zoological Station. Smaller collections have come 

 from various collectors connected with the Museum. The land and 

 freshwater crustaceans have, for the most part, been accumulated in 

 small lots by purchase, exchange, gift and collecting by members of 

 the Museum staff". 



The decapod crustaceans make up the bulk and most important 

 part of the collection. The Macrura have been only partially worked 

 up, so that much of the material is not even identified. The most 

 important section is the notable series of Crayfish (Cambarus and its 

 allies) upon which Faxon's great monograph of the group is based. 

 This contains more than one hundred species and varieties of which 

 more than one-third are represented by type material. The Bra- 

 chyura (Crabs) are the most satisfactorily identified part of the 

 crustacean collections. Although the cataloguing is quite incomplete, 

 it is safe to say that there are more than looo species in this section, 

 and more than loo are represented by type material. Stomatopods, 

 Schizopods, Amphipods, and Isopods are all present in large num- 

 bers, but almost nothing has been done with reference to their iden- 

 tification, except that a good start has been made on the labelling 

 and arrangement of the Isopods. All orders of Entomostraca are well 

 represented, but as no attempt has yet been made to arrange or even 

 sort them, it is not possible to give any reliable estimate as to the 

 number of species in the collection. Taken as a whole, however, it 

 seems probable that the crustacean collection contains more than 

 3000 species. 



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