4 THREE CRUISES OF THE “BLAKE.” 
Mexico. Less than fifty years ago there were not more than 
twenty known species of crustacea from the West Indian region. 
The * Blake" has added no less than forty new genera and 
150 new species to those thus far described. "Ten of the genera 
and nearly forty of the species belong to the well-known Bra- 
chyura, in spite of the fact that Stimpson and Milne-Edwards 
had, before the explorations made by the “Blake,” apparently 
very fully worked out the species of this group from the dredg- 
ings of the “Hassler” and “Bibb”; sixteen genera and over 
sixty species belong to the less known Anomura ; and there are 
fourteen genera and about fifty species of Macrura. 
Among the mollusks the total number of littoral species re- 
corded by Adams and D'Orbigny is 580, as compared with 461 
collected by the “Blake.” This number also includes 210 lit- 
toral species, while 251 are abyssal. The number of genera rep- 
resented by the former is about 110, while some 98 genera are 
found in the “ Blake" collection. These numbers are of course 
approximate. 
The immense collections of echinoderms are peculiarly inter- 
esting. Of the deep-sea echinoderms the most striking are 
the Elasipoda, a new order of holothurians, established by Dr. 
Théel for the reception of these extraordinary and aberrant 
types, of which no less than fifty-two species were discovered by 
the “Challenger” expedition. Previous to that time three spe- 
cies of the group were known, one fróm the Kara Sea, and 
two subsequently found in the northern parts of the Atlantic 
by the Norwegian North Atlantic expedition. The “ Blake ” 
dredged about nine species of this remarkable order, three of 
which were unknown before. 
There are now described eighty-three species of sea-urchins 
from the Caribbean fauna. Of these, eleven were added by the 
dredgings of Count Pourtalés in the “ Bibb” and « Hassler,” 
nineteen were discovered by the * Blake," and thirteen species 
previously known from other districts were obtained for the first 
time in the Caribbean and adjoining seas by the Coast Survey 
expeditions, so that the list of species has been more than 
doubled by the dredgings made since 1876. 
The * Blake" dredged fifty-four species of starfishes, of 
