210 A. E. Verrill — Corals of the Genus Acroporo. 



the Museum of Yale University. These I found in the original 

 packages, with Dana's labels, when I took charge of them in 

 1864. 



A second series of duplicates Avas selected from the collections in 

 the National Museum (then in the Smithsonian Inst.) by me in 

 1860, under the direction of Professor S. F. Baird, for the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology. 



The types of Dana's species received from other sources are mostly 

 in the Museum of Yale University. The most important of these 

 came from Point Pedro, Ceylon, collected in 1843, by the Rev. 

 George H. Apthorp, who was a missionary there, 1833-1844. His 

 letters relating to this valuable collection are still preserved in the 

 museum.* Some of the specimens recorded by Dana as from " Singa- 

 poi'e " probably were from this collection, but others were correctly 

 recorded as from Ceylon : — e. g. M. €-(fusa, M. plantaginea, M. 

 efflorescens. The locality-labels of some of the Ceylon specimens 

 were lost before Dana studied them. 



The tj^pes of vaj own species, from the U. S. North Pacific Expl. 

 Exped., are in the Nat. Mus., but duplicates or fragments of most of 

 them ai-e also in the Museum of Yale University. Other species 

 described by me in 1864-1866 are in the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology and Yale Museum. The species studied by me from the 

 Red Sea were mostly in the Ward collection, afterwards pui-chased 

 by the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago, but duplicates or frag- 

 ments of many of them are also in the Yale Museum. 



All the West Indian forms seem to be mere growth-varieties of 

 one polymorphic species. See A. mimcatu and varieties, pp. 165- 

 168. 



* The Rev. George H. Apthorp, of the American Ceylon Mission, was born 

 May 31st, 1798, at Qnincy, Mass.; died at Oodoopitty, Ceylon, June 8th, 1844. 

 He graduated at Yale College in 1829, and at Princeton Theol. Seminary in 

 1832. Sailed for Ceylon July 1833, arriving there in Oct. 1833. 



He was a very devout man and a devoted missionary, laboring, apparently, in 

 a very barren and unpromising field, under many and great disadvantages. 



The collection of corals was made at Point Pedro, about 7 miles from Varany, 

 where he was then stationed with his wife, who aided in obtaining and bleaching 

 the corals, and also in making a collection of shells sent with them. 



In his letters of 1843, to Prof. Benj. Silliman, Sr., he mentions some of the 

 difficulties encountered, both in obtaining and also in packing the corals, for 

 no suitable packing materials could be had, except the cast-oflf garments of the 

 girls in the mission school. His specimens arrived in good condition, however. 



He also states that no other corals had ever been sent away from that locality. 

 Some of the species sent by him are still very rare in collections, as for example, 

 Pocillopora grandis I). 



