452 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



Protection des Vegetaux, Service de 1' Agriculture, who also took us 

 to meet J. Morice, Directeur de l'Office de Peches. A further courtesy 

 was the gift of a complete set of the bulletin issued by the local 

 natural history society, a periodical not otherwise available in Wash- 

 ington that will be very welcome to our systematic biologists. Mr. 

 Cobb also kindly conducted us on an extended all- day tour of the 

 island, first inland through rain-forested valleys to the sulfur baths, 

 and then over the hills to St. Pierre. 



St. Pierre is the now famous city where on Ascension Day, May 9, 

 1902, 30,000 inhabitants lost their lives in a matter of moments in that 

 fearsome cloud of incandescent gas that rolled down Mount Pelee. 

 Parts of the city today are strongly reminiscent of Pompeii, except 

 where some of the new, though not always modern, buildings are being 

 erected among the old. Some protection is now being accorded the 

 more significant ruins, and continued excavation is opening up more 

 of the important structures and the streets of old St. Pierre. The 

 vulcanological museum, with its host of "relics" and photographs 

 taken shortly after that fatal eruption, furnishes a sad and moving 

 visual commentary on what was that once flourishing town and what 

 happened to it. It was perhaps the Creole Paris of the New World 

 and is memorialized in Lafcadio Hearn's "Two Years in the French 

 West Indies," written long before the disaster. 



Later that day we received an invitation to meet M. Morice at the 

 local yacht club with Dr. Blanche, where we were shown a number 

 of interesting preserved specimens of Crustacea, including the three 

 species of spiny lobsters known from Martinique. Then he mentioned 

 a special zoologist's treat he had in store for us — a bottle full of red 

 megalopa from Pigeon Island! Although they were picked up on 

 the beach 30 hours after our visit, they were little the worse for 

 wear. Morice assured us, too, that it was the first time the phenome- 

 non had come to the attention of any observant person and that he 

 was as anxious as we were to determine the species of crab represented. 

 Dr. Chace has since determined these as probably previously unknown 

 larval forms of an oxystome crab of the family Raninidae. 



An urgent cablegram recalled Mr. Bredin to the States. His going 

 left a gap in our ranks, which he promised to fill at the first oppor- 

 tunity with his brother-in-law, Ernest N. May. It was Mr. May who 

 sponsored the Smithsonian-May Expedition of 1947, also to the West 

 Indies, mentioned on the first page of this article. 



Dominica is a beautiful high island, as attractive in many ways as 

 equally verdant Martinique, with its majestic and destructive Mount 

 Pelee. Our sails, with an assist in the lee of the island from our twin 

 diesels, brought us from Fort-de-France to Roseau in about 9 hours. 

 Greeting us on the dock was Dr. Clarke, who had already spent 17 



