THE MUSEUM. 



75 



other fine Natural History books which 

 will be mentioned later. 



One of the most eiijoyiihle [larts of 

 our Eastern trip was with Dr. I luck- 

 ens at W'atertown. We recently se- 

 cured his fine shell collection and we 

 have now secured his other fine col- 

 lections of Marine Specimens, Nests 

 and Efjgs and a large and tine lot of 

 duplicate shells, which were not in the 

 main collection. The condition of the 

 specimens was something fine. One 

 has to look long for a single imperfec- 

 tion. Lists of some secured will be 

 seen on another page. 



Many other collectors were seen for 

 brief visits and some we fully expected 

 to see, we were unable to make con- 

 nections. We hope to see them ne.xt 

 time. "Ye Editor." 



Mr. .Mbert E. Colburn, lately of 

 Edward S. Schmidt' s Studio of Taxi- 

 dermy, sailed for Patagonia, S. .\.. 

 Nov. 7th last. He goes as general 

 Zoologist for the expedition sent by 

 Princeton University under the leader- 

 ship of Prof. J. B. Hatcher. Zoology, 

 Ethnology and Geology will be mclud- 

 en in their collections. Prof. Hatcher 

 and Mr. Colburn will stay at least a 

 year and very probably two years in 

 this little known region. The party 

 will be landed in the Straits of Magel- 

 lan and then travel inland several hun- 

 dred miles by pack train. Mr. Col- 

 burn has had some previous experience 

 iu field work, having spent some lime 

 collecting in Florida and one summer 

 in Newfoundland. He is also an ex- 

 pert workman in the taxidermic labo- 

 ratory, heving mastered the art under 

 the eye of F. S. Webster, now Zoolog- 

 ical Curator for the Carnegie Museum 

 of Pittsburg. 



Mr. Colburn is a Washingtonian 

 and his many friends hope to see him 

 return safely in due time from the land 

 of giants; as it was formerly regarded 



P. S. — Mr. Colburn arrived in the 

 Straits of Magellan Dec. lo, all O. K. 



Sea Pansies. 



One of the most beautiful of the or- 



ganisms on the Pacific Coast is the 

 Kenilla amethystina, or sea pansy, as 

 it i-; very appropriately called. It is 

 really a community of coral-like ani- 

 mals living in a structure somewhat of 

 the size and shape of a pansy flower, 

 with a short stem that further carries 

 out the resemblance. 



The color of the main structure is of 

 a rich royal purple, whille the jelly-like 

 animals themselves are white, and 

 peeping out from their doorway ap- 

 pear like stars in the firmament of the 

 heavens. 



These communities are not rare on 

 our sandy shores, but may only be 

 found by accident by those who have 

 not learned the secrets of marine life. 

 At low tide they may be found buried 

 in the sands, with nothing to indicate 

 their presence but an imperfect circular 

 line in the smooth-washed surface of 

 the beach that only a trained eye is 

 likely at first to detect. 



If one of these sea pansies is re- 

 moved from the sand and placed in a 

 dish of sea water, the creatures that 

 form the community will soon mani- 

 fest life, and reveal a most beautiful 

 structure showing plainly their relation- 

 ship to the coral 'insect.' 



Each individual polyp in the com- 

 munity will be found to possess eight; 

 long fringed tentacles around a nar- 

 row disk. The numerous individuals 

 of each community are arranged on 

 the upper surface of a flattened cor- 

 date fleshy structure, to the lower sur- 

 face of which is attached a stem like 

 organ, useful alike as a means of loco- 

 motion and for the anchorage of the 

 tenement house in the sand. 



The sea pansy is a near ally of the 

 sea pens and the sea fans — which lat- 

 ter are branched and resemble beauti- 

 ful flowering shrubs or plants. The 

 organ-pipe coral belong to the same 

 group of polyps according to some sys- 

 tems of classification. A hundred 

 years ago the corals were all thought 

 to be plants, as they closely imitated 

 almost all kinds of vegetation, but 

 they are now regarded as true animals. 



