36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 65 



catch, though the efforts of the expedition were by no means solely 

 devoted to this end. The vertebrates, as well as the lower organisms, 

 added materially to our catch. Among plants, special attention was 

 given to the cacti, of which a number of very interesting forms 

 were secured. A general account of the expedition, " The Log of 

 the Tomas Barrera," by Mr. Henderson, is almost completed, and 

 detailed reports on results of the expedition, by various specialists, 

 are to follow. 



The party consisted of Mr. John B. Henderson, member of the 

 Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution ; Dr. Paul Bartsch, 

 curator of marine invertebrates, U. S. National Museum ; Dr. 

 Carlos de la Torre of the University of Havana; Mr. George H. 

 Clapp of Pittsburgh, Pa. ; Mr. Charles T. Simpson of Little Rivers, 

 Fla., formerly of the Museum staff; and of Mr. Gill, the Museum 

 colorist, and Mr. Victor Rodrigues, preparator at the University of 

 Havana. 



It is expected that this expedition to western Cuba will be followed 

 by a series of similar explorations in other parts of the Antillean 

 regions looking primarily to the enrichment of the Museum collection 

 in the fauna of the West Indies, in order that we may gain a clearer 

 understanding of the faunas and faunal relationship of the West 

 Indies. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH CERIONS IN THE FLORIDA KEYS 



Brief accounts have been published in previous Smithsonian 

 exploration pamphlets * of the Bahama Oerion colonies planted on 

 the Florida Keys by Dr. Paul Bartsch of the U. S. National Museum, 

 under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. As 

 regards the development of the new generation of these shells in a 

 new environment, it was stated last year that " judging from the 

 young collected which were born on these keys (fig. 38), the first 

 generation will be like the parent generation, unless decided changes 

 should take place in the later whorls, which have not as yet been 

 developed." On Dr. Bartsch's visit to the colonies in April, 1914, 

 however, adult specimens of the new generation were found at 

 several localities, and these fully developed adults enable him to 

 state that a decided change has taken place. So pronounced are the 

 departures from the parent generation that the specimens would 

 undoubtedly be considered by one unfamiliar with the history of the 

 material as distinct species and not closely related to the parent 



1 Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 60, No. 30, pp. 58-62 ; Vol. 63, No. 8, pp. 27-30. 



