NOTICES OF NEW BOOKs. 155 
for deep-sea sounding and dredging operations, and various in- 
struments and appliances not usually supplied to H.M.’s ships. 
That the opportunity which this expedition would afford of 
making valuable Natural-History collections in little-known 
regions might not be lost, it was decided to appoint as surgeon 
one who would also undertake the duties of naturalist, and Staff. 
Surgeon Coppinger was selected for this post. To judge by the 
results, as set forth in the two volumes the titles of which are 
given above, it would seem that a better appointment could 
hardly have been made; for Dr. Coppinger has more than 
realised the expectations of naturalists in regard to the col- 
lections made by him. 
The whole of these collections were presented by the Lords 
Commissioners of the Admiralty to the Trustees of the British 
Museum, and no less than 3700 specimens referable to 1300 
species (irrespective of duplicates) have thus been incorporated 
in the National Collection. 
The specimens procured during the survey of the southern 
extremity of the American continent were reported upon in the 
‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ 1881; but such was the 
extent and importance of the material acquired during the rest 
of the voyage round the coasts of North-Eastern Australia and 
Torres Straits, and amongst the oceanic islands between the 
Seychelles and Madagascar, that the Trustees of the British 
Museum considered it best that a, special Report should be 
published as a separate work. This has accordingly been pre- 
pared by the Zoological Staff of the Museum, and is now available 
to the public. It forms a thick octavo volume of 684 pages, with 
54 plates, some of them coloured—an enduring monument to 
the industry and zoological acumen of the contributors. 
Without going into special details, it may be said that, with 
the exception of the ‘ Challenger’ expedition, none of the recent 
voyages has contributed so much to our knowledge of the 
Littoral Invertebrate Fauna of the Indo-Pacific Ocean as that of 
the ‘ Alert.’ 
To give a brief outline of the voyage, it may be said that 
sailing from Plymouth in September, 1878, the ship touched for 
a few days at Madeira and St. Vincent respectively, and crossing 
the South Atlantic vid the Hotspur and Victoria Banks,—sub- 
merged coral reefs where some remunerative dredging was carried 
