DEPARTMENT OF MARINE INVERTEBRATES. 239 



siou of the material before beginning upon the study of special groups, 

 in order to prepare good reference series and determine the direction 

 in Avhich the best results could be obtained. This preliminary work 

 has practically been finished and much i)rogress has been made in the 

 writing of spe<'ial monographs, and the descrii^tion of new and obscure 

 forms. At the same time the specimens have been placed in good con. 

 dition, the labels and catalogues perfected, and the collections conven- 

 iently arranged. 



One monograph was completed within the year and accepted for pub- 

 lication in the Proceedings of the Museum. It is a joint paper by Mr. 

 Benedict and Miss Kathbun on the genus Panopcus of crabs, a genus 

 which has long needed the careful revision it has received at their 

 hands. It is represented in the Musenm by about three thousand 

 specimens, belonging to twenty-foiu' species, of which six were found to 

 be new and undescribed. Material for the work was also obtained from 

 other sources, including the specimens belonging to the Yale Univer- 

 sity Museum, furnished by Prof. A. E. Verrill, the Bennuda collection 

 of Dr. G. Brown Goode, and tlie Brazilian collections of the Hartt ex- 

 peditions. Each si^ecies was reproduced by means of outline drawings 

 or photographs, but the latter proving unsatisfactory for engraving, 

 pen and ink sketches liave been made from them. A complete bibliogra- 

 phy of the genus was prepared in connection with the paper. 



Mr. Benedict is now engaged upon a monograph of the genus Eupa- 

 (j n fUH which already numbers sixty species in our collection, many of them, 

 especially from recent explorations by the steamer ^IWy^f/ro^s in the Pa- 

 cific Ocean, being new to science. All of the principal museums in the 

 country will be drawn upon for material in the ijreparation of this 

 l)a|)er, in order that it may be made as complete as possible. Miss 

 Rathbim is at work upon a descriptive catalogue of the Family Peri- 

 ccHdce, represented in the National Museum by eleven genera and forty- 

 eight species, of which fifteen species have never been described. 



The crabs collected by the steamer Fish Ha/rl- oh the coast of South 

 Carolina and in Long Island Sound, in connection with the oyster in- 

 vestigations of the past two years, have been named, and lists of the 

 same furnished to the Fish Commission. Mr. Benedict has also given 

 some time to the prei^aration of notes to be embodied in a handbook 

 of instructions for the collecting of marine invertebrates. 



The studies of Mr. W, C. Kendall on the zoological collections made 

 l)y the Fish Commission schooner (jramims in the Gulf of Mexico in 

 ISS!), described in the previous report, were continued a short time 

 into the jjresent j^ear. 



A collection of entozoan parasites from fish-eating birds, collected 

 at Guaymas, Mexico, by P. L. Jouy, was referred to Piof. Edwin Linton, 

 of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa., who has re- 

 ported ui)on them in a paper which will appear in Vol. xv, of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Museum. 



