460 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



also returning with the collecting gear and pickled specimens by 

 slower transport, the Alcoa Runner. 



All in all, the Smithsonian-Bredin Expedition on the Freelance 

 covered, as a ship sails into the wind, perhaps a thousand miles be- 

 tween Trinidad and St. Croix, and from one to another of some 28 

 islands or islets, rocks, or reefs on the way. Biological collections were 

 made on or about most of them, bottom samples were taken at 15 

 different anchorages, and samples of soil for biotic assay at 38 lo- 

 calities. The entomological aspects of the expedition were concerned 

 primarily with obtaining material from an area that is rather weakly 

 represented in the national collection. Much information on distri- 

 bution and ecology, and some on habits and life histories were obtained, 

 but the distributional data were by far the most important. 



The various materials collected at this writing are still far from 

 being completely sorted and critically identified. Included are over 

 4,000 specimens of plants, more than 18,000 individual specimens of 

 Microlepidoptera and other insects, over 27,000 marine invertebrates 

 of various kinds, sea anemones, corals, polychaete worms, shrimps, and 

 crabs, and their smaller relatives, and many mollusks, squids, and 

 octopuses. Among this material are many little-known or undescribed 

 species. The fishes saved for the Museum's ichthyological collections 

 numbered 1,700 — a not insignificant showing for five "collectors" for 

 a 5^2-week period. 



The Institution is again immeasurably indebted to Mr. and Mrs. 

 Bredin for underwriting this second of their recent scientific expe- 

 ditions undertaken for the enhancement of the study collections of 

 the United States National Museum. 



Of course, there was much more to the trip than is, or can be, re- 

 counted in these few pages. We have set forth, briefly annotated, the 

 greater part of our itinerary and a few of our experiences. I cannot 

 refrain from citing one quotation quite typical of the natives' phi- 

 losophy throughout the islands, lifted, with apologies, from a little 

 real-estate folder distributed in Christiansted : "Only so many dollars 

 on St. Croix — mon kill heself try get more'n he share." 



