PREFACE. 



Perhaps no other class of animals has been so much neglected by 

 scientists as the American Osiracoda. With the European Ostracoda 

 it is quite different. In Great Britain, iSTorway, Germany, Bohemia 

 and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea able naturalists have 

 devoted many years of their life to the study of the Ostracoda of their 

 respective countries. A perusal of the bibliography given below will 

 show how well they have done the work. In his late monograph (221) 

 Professor Wenzel Vavra devotes several pages to a historical resume 

 of the work that has been done upon the European Ostracoda. All that 

 has been done upon the recent American Ostracoda can be included in 

 a single paragraph, and a small one at that. 



The first scientist to study American Ostracoda was De Kay (58). 

 In 1844 he described a few specimens from ISTew York. This was fol- 

 lowed in 1852 by an article by Professor Dana (57). In 1855 Lubbock 

 (123) published a short article on South American Ostracoda. 'Next comes 

 a paper by Chambers (41) on Colorado Crustacea. Between 1879 and 

 1881 Professor Herrick (83, 84, 85, 8G) published several papers on 

 this subject. His paper on ^^Alabama Crustacea^' is by far the best 

 article yet published on recent United States Ostracoda. Professor 

 Moniez (142) has recently added a paper on Lake Titicaca Crustacea. 

 Between 1892 and 1894 the present writer has contributed his mite 

 (212, 213, 214, 215, 216) towards furthering the good cause. In 1893 

 Forbes (67*) published a description of a new species. 



The fossil Ostracoda have been studied by Jones (89,92) Brady (29) 

 and Ulrich (217). 



In the present communication it is proposed to give complete de- 

 scriptions of all known recent United States Ostracoda. In most cases 

 the descriptions are made from dissections made by the writer. When 

 this has not been possible the description of some American author has 

 been incorporated. In all such cases the description is surrounded 

 by quotation marks and the name of the author is mentioned. 



I here tender my thanks to Messrs. A. B. Whitby and L. T>. Hile- 

 land, who have so kindly collected for me material which otherwise 

 would have been inaccessible. Mr. Whitby collected in Texas and 

 southern Georgia, while Mr. Hilelaud collected in Delaware. 



I here acknowledge my great indebtedness to Professor C. L. Her- 

 rick, not only for the loan of rare literature and for the use of Plates 

 LX, LXIII, LXIV, but also for the careful drawings of Cyjn'is alhu- 

 querquensis and for alcoholic specimens. 



