36 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



localities, with respect to the more conspicuous or higher forms, 

 they will be mentioned in sequence with the few published 

 accounts. Of the latter only several short ones refer exclusively 

 to the carcinological fauna of New Jersey. 



Some of Say's specimens are still extant, though most of them 

 in veiy poor or only fragmentary condition. This is largely due 

 to the old method of preparation, when only dried specimens, 

 mounted on cards, pins, or in trays, were in vogue. Other data 

 than a general locality and the donor's, name was exceptional. 

 After being exposed to the light, dust and various temperatures, 

 besides the wear and tear due to moving them about, not to 

 speak of insect pests, it is remarkable that any have persisted 

 to the present time. All recent collections are now fixed as wet 

 or alcoholic preparations, and well housed from the ravages of 

 light, dust and evaporation. The old habit of drying Crustacea 

 likely grew out of the idea that while similar in many funda- 

 mental characters to insects, with which animals they were in 

 fact considered, it was thus thought necessary to mount them 

 on pins. Possibly it was also thought that they may be ex- 

 amined with greater facility, as well as save expense in the use 

 of spirits. 



Among other early collections made in New Jersey are those 

 of Dr. R. E. Griffiths, Mr. Samuel Ashmead, and Dr. Joseph 

 Leidy. Dr. Griffiths made a collection of the species found 

 about Cape May, while Mr. Ashmead's specimens are mostly 

 from Beesley's Point. Dr. Leidy's collections were perhaps the 

 most important made since Say's time, and embraced material 

 gathered from the early fifties till 1890. This was, fortunately, 

 usually studied and the results published, first as a list in his 

 memoir entitled "Contributions toward a knowledge of the 

 marine invertebrate fauna of the coasts of Rhode Island and 

 New Jersey," in 1855, and later by a few short abstracts, made 

 mostly as verbal communications at the meetings of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. All these articles appear 

 in the publications of this institution. 



Professors A. E. Verrill, S. I. Smith and O. Harger, in their 

 more or less combined accounts, in the "Catalogue of the marine 



