MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 295 
fifteen miles from land, masses of leaves, pieces of bamboo, of sugar- 
cane, dead land shells, and other land débris, which are undoubtedly all 
blown out to sea by the prevailing easterly trade-winds. We frequently 
found floating on the surface masses of vegetation, more or less water- 
logged and ready to sink. The contents of some of our trawls would 
certainly have puzzled a paleontologist ; between the deep-water forms of 
Crustacea, Annelids, Fishes, Echinoderms, Sponges, etc., and the mango 
and orange leaves mingled with branches of bamboo, nutmegs, land 
shells, both animal and vegetable forms being in such profusion, he would 
have found it difficult to decide whether he had to deal with a marine or 
a land fauna. Such a haul from some fossil deposit would naturally be 
explained as representing a shallow estuary surrounded by forests, and 
yet the depth might have been 1,500 fathoms. This large amount of 
vegetable matter, thus carried out to sea, seems to have a material 
effect in increasing, in certain localities, the number of marine forms. 
The collections made have all arrived in Cambridge, and will be sent 
for determination, as fast as practicable, to the naturalists who have 
undertaken the reports on the different groups of last year's collections. 
As their preliminary reports are well under way, I need only allude here 
in general to some of the most interesting types. Among the Foraminifera, 
are a number of the arenaceous types noticed by Mr. Brady in the col- 
lections of the “Challenger” and “ Porcupine”; among the Sponges, a 
species allied to Phoronema, a small Hyalonema, tufts of large, silicious 
spicules (Hyalonema proper), covered at one end with Zoanthus very 
similar to the common Japanese type ; fine series of Dactylocalyx, show- 
ing the whole mode of growth from a simple globular form and a gigantic 
Euplectella, The collection of Starfishes was quite small, and con- 
tained nothing worthy of special notice. The collection of Holothu- 
rians contained, in addition to the deep-sea forms mentioned in my 
former letters, a larger number of species than last year, —— genera allied 
to Molpadia, Caudina, Echinocucumis, and the like. 
Among the Echini, with the exception of the Pourtalesia group, all 
the types collected by the “Challenger” are well represented, with a 
few Spatangoids hitherto unknown. The number of Echinothuriw was 
quite large. Of the Pourtalesia group, but few specimens in good con- 
dition were obtained, though the trawl brought up numerous fragments 
of several of the genera (if I am not mistaken) collected by the “ Chal- 
lenger" in deep water in the Southern Ocean. The small number of 
Clypeastroids collected, even when approaching the South American 
shore, at the 100-fathom line, near Trinidad, where they are so common, 
