no REPORTS Of INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



made. A large series of photographs illustrative of the character of the 

 island and its bird-life were secured, together with statistical material and 

 notes on the habits of the birds and sketches in color of fresh specimens 

 and of the island itself. 



Prof. Edwin G. Conklin continued his studies upon the protoplasmic dif- 

 ferentiation of the eggs of the scyphomedusa Linerges, which was at times 

 abundant during March and April in Nassau Harbor. He is, however, 

 unable to discover any definite "organ-forming substances'' in this egg, such 

 as he so clearly demonstrated the existence of in the eggs of tunicates. 

 Professor Conklin's researches, however, enabled him to discover a new and 

 remarkable fish, a new polychaete norm, and to make a study of the normal 

 development of Linerges itself. 



Dr. Robert Hartmeyer, of the Berlin Zoological Museum, studied for two 

 months in the Tortugas Laboratory, and during his visit he made an exten- 

 sive general collection of the animals of the reefs and channels, devoting 

 special attention to the ascidians, in which group his collection is far superior 

 to any previousl}- made in the Tortugas region. 



Preliminary Report on the Ascidians of the Tortugas, by Dr. R. Hartmeyer, 

 Assistant at the Berlin Zoological Museum. 



I spent nearly two months on the Tortugas, from the middle of May until 

 the middle of July, in order to make general collections of marine animals for 

 the Berlin Zoological Museum and to study particularly the ascidians of these 

 islands. On different scientific trips I have visited several parts of the tropic 

 seas, but have found no place for collecting and studying the marine fauna 

 in so satisfactory a manner as at the Marine Laboratory of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. Some groups of marine animals, for example 

 the gorgonians and the milleporids, may be studied here alive, and experi- 

 ments upon them may be better made here, perhaps, than anywhere else in 

 the world. These animals grow in a large number of species and individuals 

 just in front of the laboratory in very shallow water, and can be obtained 

 at low tide without difficulty and brought quite fresh into the laboratory for 

 further study. There are found here a very rich pelagic fauna and an 

 abundant reef fauna, and also a very interesting and yet little-known fauna 

 of the deeper channels between the flats — quite different from that of the 

 coral reefs. 



The ascidians, which I particularly studied, are one of the most abundant 

 groups of marine animals at the Tortugas, especially in the deeper water of 

 the southwest channel and under the large stones along the shore of Logger- 

 head Key. On the dead part of the coral reef there are only a few forms, 

 but on some parts of the living reef one will find many different species 

 incrusting the big clusters of Torites clavaria. I collected at least 40 or 50 

 different species, most of them compound ascidians. But many more forms 

 will surely be found, especially in the deeper water, than I could collect 

 during my comparatively short residence at the laboratory. If we consider 

 that only four species of compound ascidians have been described from the 



