254 Mr. W. S. M. D'Urban on the 



as the collections appeared to include many very interesting 

 species, I was anxious to submit them to the best authorities 

 in the various departments. I was so fortunate as to find 

 several eminent scientific gentlemen who were willing to 

 examine the specimens for me. I sent the Crustacea collected 

 in 1878 to the Eev. A. M. Norman, and those obtained in 

 1879 to Prof. J. 0. Westwood ; the Mollusca were deter- 

 mined by Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys ; the Echinodermata of 1878 

 were examined by the Rev. A. M. Norman, and those of 

 1879 by Mr. W. Percy Sladen; Dr. Mcintosh named the 

 Annelids ; and the Rev. Thomas Hincks has made a labo- 

 rious examination of the Hydrozoa and Polyzoa. The few 

 Spongia and Actinozoa were examined by Mr. H. J. Carter. 

 I take this opportunity of offering these gentlemen my sincere 

 thanks for their kindness, which has enabled me to draw up a 

 reliable list of the animals brought home by Mr. Grant. As 

 yet nothing seems to have been published by the Dutch natu- 

 ralists who accompanied the two expeditions, with the excep- 

 tion of a slight sketch of the zoology of the second voyage by 

 Dr. F. H. van Lidth de Jeude, in a pamphlet published at 

 Amsterdam, entitled " De Verslagen omtrent den tocht met 

 de Willem Barents naar en in de Ijszee, in den zomer van 

 1879 (Uitgegeven vanwege het Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 

 Bijblad no. 6); " and, as nearly two years have now elapsed 

 since the return of the first expedition, it seems desirable that 

 the information obtained by the study of Mr. Grant's collec- 

 tions should be made available to the scientific public without 

 further delay. Barents Sea was visited by the Austro- Hun- 

 garian North-Pole Expedition under Weyprecht and Payer in 

 1872-1874 ; and dredgings were made, but mostly to the north 

 and east of the ground examined by the l Willem Barents ' 

 expeditions. A portion of the Invertebrates obtained were 

 catalogued and described by Dr. Emil von Marenzeller in a 

 pamphlet published at Vienna in 1877*. Many of the 

 species he mentions were obtained by the Dutch expedition, 

 and, in addition, many that were not met with by the Aus- 

 trians. 



It is evident that Barents Sea abounds with animal life in 

 a very marked degree. In fact all the explorers of these 

 northern regions seem to have been deeply impressed with 

 the extraordinary richness of the marine fauna of the Arctic 

 seas to the north of Lapland, Russia, and Siberia. Austrians, 

 Dutch, and Swedes alike dwell on the amazing number of 



* 'Die Coelenteraten, Echinodermen und Wurmen der k.-k. 6'ster- 

 reichisch-ungarischen Nordpol-Expedition bearbeitet von Dr. Emil v. 

 Marenzeller.' 



