1896.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 37 



three of these at the laboratoiy, on account, as will later be 

 noted, of his failure to find in that region the peculiar forms 

 which he had hoped to secure for the collections. Professor Os- 

 born, in company with Mr. John Muir and Prof. I. C. Russell 

 paid a visit to the laboratory early in August, but their stay was 

 a brief one on account of their proposed journey to Alaska; 

 the}- had, however, an opportunity to take part in a dredging 

 trip and to examine the material already collected. 



The trip to Alaska was undertaken by Mr. Calkins after spend- 

 ing six weeks in field work at Port Townsend. It gave him re- 

 peated opportunities for shore and surface collecting at the nu- 

 merous stations between Victoria and Sitka, and it proved of 

 great interest in the light of a zoological reconnaissance. Among 

 his gatherings are included some especially interesting Flagel- 

 lates and the curious ice-worm Dendrohsena. 



The results of the visits to Alaska of both Professor Osborn 

 ^nd Mr. Calkins indicate that this region is very rich in 

 material for morphological studies, and lead them to believe 

 that a summer's collecting might there be carried on Avith great 

 profit. 



The especially important work which it was hoped the expedi- 

 tion would accomplish on the side of the vertebrata had been 

 definitely planned by Dr. Dean in the organization of the party. 

 Besides making a general faunal collection of fishes and ascidi- 

 ■ans, there were two definite objects of especial importance to 

 the zoologist or embryologist visiting the Pacific coast. The 

 first of these was to obtain material for the developmental study 

 of the Chimseroid Hiidrolagus,v}\\\c\\ was known to be abundant 

 in Puget Sound. The second, more important, but more diflfi- 

 cult, was to secure the eggs and young of the Myxinoid Bdello- 

 stonia, a form reported abundant in the bays of the Pacific 

 States. To a student of the lower vertebrates there could cer- 

 tainly be found no subjects more important than these. Chi- 

 msera according to Smith Woodward and others, represents in 

 its few living types a group which must be given rank as a sub- 

 <!lass, and as comparatively little is known of its phylogeny and 

 kinships from anatomical and paljBontological study , a knowledge 

 of its embryology becomes of the utmost value. Of the devel- 

 opment of Chimaera nothing has been determined from the Atlan- 

 tic and Mediterranean forms on account of their relative rareness 

 — indeed even the empty egg cases, like specimens of Lepido- 

 siren, have been included among the greatest rarities of Euro- 

 pean museums. On the Pacific coast, however, the conditions 

 for the study of its embryology seemetl certainly far more 

 favorable. 



