The United States National Museum 343 



especially of Unionidee, given by Doctor Isaac Lea, and 

 subsequently enriched by his son-in-law and daughter, the 

 Reverend and Mrs. L. T. Chamberlain. This collection is, 

 in its specialties, the freshwater mussels of the world, unri- 

 valed for extent and value, comprising an enormous number 

 of types and having full data in relation to the habitat, etc., 

 in nearly every case. 



"Almost as important for the mollusks of Great Britain, 

 Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and especially for the 

 various deep-sea dredging expeditions sent out under British 

 auspices before the Challenger expedition, is the Jeffreys 

 collection, purchased from Doctor J. Gwyn Jeffreys, and 

 comprising the results of nearly half a century of active 

 collecting, exchanging, and purchase in all some 25,000 

 lots of specimens, by far the most important and complete 

 series of British shells in existence, and forming the basis 

 of some hundred publications. 



" The fauna of West America, both littoral and deep- 

 sea mollusks, is represented by the combined collections of 

 Robert E. C. Stearns, William H. Dall, the United States 

 steamer Albatross of the Fish Commission, the Arctic cruis- 

 ers of the United States Revenue Marine, and many private 

 donations, in all representing the most complete existing rep- 

 resentation of the fauna, with full data in nearly every case. 



" The fauna of the east coast of North America is repre- 

 sented by the unrivaled collections of the United States Fish 

 Commission, augmented by a series of those of the Blake 

 and many private collectors in the West Indies and on our 

 southern coast. 



"The land and freshwater shells of North America, apart 

 from the freshwater mussels, are represented by the best 

 existing collection derived from many sources, including 

 types of Binney and Bland, Lea, Lewis, Dall, Stimpson, and 

 many others. 



" To sum up, the collection of mollusks has the best series 

 in the world, supplied with the fullest data, in the modern 

 sense, of the land, freshwater, shore, and deep-sea mollusks 

 of North America, the Arctic regions, the North Atlantic and 



