220 Naturai. History Bulletin. 



We had come to this locality for the purpose of dredging" 

 over this submarine ridge, feeling confident from the general 

 la}' of the land and currents that an exploration carried on 

 here would not be fruitless. We also intended to send a party 

 of botanists, ornithologists, and entomologists to work on Lit- 

 tle Cat Island. This latter plan was frustrated, however, by 

 a piece of carelessness on the part of the mate, who lost his 

 bearings during the night, and worked the vessel so far to lee- 

 ward of the island that we could not afford to beat up to it 

 acrain. 



We found the dredging here exceeding!}^ difficult, owing to 

 the rocky nature of the ridge. We did not dare use an3'thing- 

 but the tangles, and they were constantly getting fouled, and 

 endangering our gear. We made three hauls in the after- 

 noon of the day upon which we arrived at that locality, and 

 seven the next day. The bottom must have been of the 

 roughest possible description, and was probably covered with 

 massive corals interspersed with the branching forms, J////f^c>rrr 

 and gorgonians. The tangles wore out here more rapidly 

 than anywhere else during the voyage, and the strain on the 

 dredging spar, rope, etc., was such as to render the experi- 

 ence anything but an agreeable one to those who had in 

 remembrance the sudden catastrophe while dredging on the 

 Pourtales Plateau. 



The collection secured here was peculiar from the fact that 

 it did not embrace a single crustacean. Hardly a haul of the 

 dredge or tangles at our other fields of work came up without 

 at least a few crabs. Practically all the specimens secured 

 here were either echinoderms or ca'lenterates, and nearlv all 

 were serpent-stars or hydroids. 



The small but exceedingly interestino" series of Ophiur- " 

 iT)JE contains several species not met with elsewhere. There 

 were two species of Ophiocunia. one of which had the arms 

 banded, one tentacle-scale, almost circular mouth-shields, and 

 the disk conspicuously and evenly granulated. The other 

 was a small species related to O. cethiops Llitken, which is a 

 Pacific species. Our specimen was black on the dorsal sur- 



