OPHIURANS OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS AND 

 ADJACENT WATERS 



By Rene Kcehler, 



Professor of Zoology in the University of Lyon, France. 

 [Manuscript translated by Austin H. Clark.] 



INTRODUCTION. 



The United States National Museum has been so kind as to entrust 

 to me for study the important collection of ophiurans brought to- 

 gether by the United States Fisheries steamer Albatross in the course 

 of her investigations among the Philippine Islands during the years 

 1907-1910. First of all I wish to thank my colleagues of the National 

 Museum for the honor which they have done me in requesting me to 

 undertake this work, and at the same time I wish again to apologize 

 to them for the unavoidable delay in submitting my report. I had 

 hoped that it would be finished in 1915, but the terrible events which 

 have occurred since 1914 have made that impossible. 



The collection sent to me included, in addition to the ophiurans 

 collected in the Philippines, several species from Japan and a few 

 specimens from the Samoan Islands ; these last I have included with 

 the first. 



The total number of species represented is considerable, there being 

 no less than 227, of which 68 are new, including representatives of 5 

 new genera. 



The interest attaching to the collection arises not alone from the 

 rather large proportion of new forms, but quite as much from the 

 presence among those already known of a number of species hitherto 

 insufficiently described and poorly figured. I have taken advantage 

 of this opportunity to redescribe these in detail. 



The plates are made up of photographic figures exclusively. The 

 further one advances in the study of systematic zoology the more one 

 becomes convinced of the importance, I may even say the necessity, 

 of reproducing photographically the objects themselves, and not con- 

 tenting oneself with drawings, which are inevitably more or less 

 schematic and can not give a rigorously exact idea of the general 

 appearance of the species. It has appeared to me advisable in many 

 cases not to limit myself to photographing a single specimen, and I 

 55269— 22— Bull. 100 1 1 



