48 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1908. 
the Antarctic Ocean were presented by the Museum of Natural His- 
tory of Paris, through Prof. E. L. Bouvier. 
The absence of the assistant curators in New Haven for so long a 
period greatly curtailed the amount of scientific work accomplished. 
Two papers descriptive of fossil crabs from California and fresh- 
water crabs from Kast Africa were prepared by Miss M. J. Rathbun. 
Work on the isopods was continued by Dr. Harriet Richardson, who, 
besides identifying the specimens returned from New Haven, de- 
scribed the species Letdya distorta from Bermuda and reported on a 
second lot of isopods from the Antarctic Ocean, collected by the 
French Charcot expedition. Mr. Austin H. Clark, of the Bureau of 
Fisheries, continued work in the laboratory of the division on a me- 
moir covering the general collection of crinoids, and also completed 
for publication 5 special papers on the group. Dr. Walter K. Fisher, 
of Stanford University, spent about four months at the Museum and 
visited the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Yale University 
Museum for the purpose of examining type specimens and literature 
in connection with the report which he is preparing on the Museum 
collection of Pacific starfishes sent him a year ago. 
About 2,900 lots of marine invertebrates were sent to 18 specialists 
for study and identification, mainly as follows: The entire collection 
of sessile barnacles, comprising 1,202 lots, to Dr. H. O. Pilsbry, of 
Philadelphia, who will report on the group for publication by the 
Museum; 711 lots of ophiurans to Dr. H. L. Clark, of the Museum 
of Comparative Zoology, for use in the preparation of a work on the 
ophiurans of the Pacific Ocean north of latitude 385° N.; 141 lots of 
meduse and 184 lots of plankton containing meduswe from the Pacific 
Ocean, to Dr. H. B. Bigelow, of the same museum; and 211 vials of 
larval crustaceans from the New England coast, to Dr. R. P. Bigelow, 
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The pedate holo- 
thurians which have been in the possession of Prof. C. L. Edwards, 
of Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, except the specimens of 
the genus Cucumaria on which he is still at work, have been returned 
to the Museum. 
The helminthological collection, in charge of Dr. Ch. Wardwell 
Stiles, of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, and Dr. 
B. H. Ransom, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, has attained a 
position of much practical importance, since it now contains a large 
amount of material resulting from government investigations on 
the diseases of man and of wild and domestic animals. The speci- 
mens have been mainly obtained through the two bureaus mentioned 
and the Bureau of Fisheries. The additions from the Marine-Hos- 
pital Service during the year included specimens obtained during the 
plague investigation in San Francisco; from Manila, forwarded by 
Asst. Surg. P, E. Garrison, U. 8. Navy, and from physicians in 
