BRYOZOA OF THE PHILIPPINE REGION 



By Ferdinand Canu 



Of Versailles, France 



and 



Ray S. Bassler 



Of Washington, D. C. 



INTRODUCTION 



This contribution to the biology of the Philippine Archipelago is 

 based upon the collections made by the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries steamer Albatross in the Philippine expedition of 1908-9. 

 During this expedition special efforts were made to obtain dredgings 

 from stations in the archipelago rich in mollusca and in shell debris. 

 Dr. Paul Bartsch, in charge of the collecting work of the Albatross at 

 this time, knowing our interest in material of this kind and appreci- 

 ating the fact that the shelly bottoms would yield many forms of 

 bryozoa often neglected in such expeditions, made unusually large 

 collections of shell and other types of debris. As expected, most of 

 these dredgings proved to be rich in the incrusting and free calcareous 

 bryozoa and we are accordingly highly indebted to Doctor Bartsch 

 for his efforts in securing this material. Certain large families as the 

 Bugulidae and Flustridae and many of the Cellularines with little 

 calcified zoaria are not represented at all in these dredgings, since their 

 delicate zoaria seldom have a chance to be preserved in such debris 

 and have to be collected by special means. 



The completeness of the collections from this area will be evident 

 when it is known that in 1910, dredgings from over 300 localities were 

 placed in our hands for study. All of these were picked for their 

 bryozoan contents, but as the end of the task did not appear in sight 

 as the years went by, it was finally determined to restrict the study 

 to about 50 of the most interesting localities. Even this was a great 

 task, for in some cases the dredgings from a single locality amounted 

 to several pecks of material. The separation of the picked material 

 into species and their determination and description proved equally 

 time consuming. Finally the illustration of the report was found to 

 be a formidable task, for many hundreds of photographs which do 

 not appear on our plates were necessary for purposes of comparison. 



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