VÅR some time may still pass before the work on 
Holothuridea which Sir WYVvILLE THOMSON has en- 
trusted to me will have advanced so far as to allow 
me to send it to be published by the British Govern- 
ment, I have thought it necessary by permission of 
the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to give 
some preliminary reports, by means of which a just 
priority of discovery may be secured to the Challen- 
ger Expedition. They will contain summary descrip- 
tions of all the new genera and species of Holothu- 
ride collected during this expedition, and be accom- 
panied by simple outline figures. 
'The whole collection contains about two hundred 
species, of which more than half are new. Most of 
the species living in the great depths offer such con- 
siderable peculiarities that I think it convenient to 
form for them a new order, Elasmopoda, equivalent 
to those already known, Pedata and Apoda. The 
Elasmopoda comprehend, besides the two species hither- 
to described, Elpidia glacialis THEEL and Irpa abys- 
sicola DANIELSSEN & KOREN, from thirty to forty new 
forms, partly of gigantic dimensions, out of which 
sixteen are here described. 
The following courses will give a general notion 
of the position of the dredging stations: 
Stations 1—24, Canaries to West Indies. 
25—58, West Indies to Halifax. 
59—383, Bermuda to Madeira. 
» 84—128, Madeira to Brazil. 
3 129—140, Brazil to Cape of Good Hope. 
141—161, Cape of Good Hope to South Australia by Antarc- 
tic Circle. 
162—237, Australia, by Philippines, to Japan. 
238—260, Japan to Sandwich Islands. 
> 261—304, Sandwich Islands to Patagonia. 
> 305—321, Patagonia to Buenos Ayres. 
> 322—354, Buenos Ayres to the Azores. 
