444 Stimpson on the Crustacea and Echinodermata 



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Art. XXVII. — On the Crustacea and Echinodermata of 

 the Pacific Shores of North America. By Wm. Stimpson. 

 Part I. Crustacea. 



There is no part of the world in which so large acces- 

 sions to our knowledge of Zoology and Botany have been 

 made within the past five years, as in that part of our con- 

 tinent which lies west of the Rocky Mountains. The 

 results of the numerous government surveys, as elaborated 

 by Baird and Girard, and the investigations of Cassin, 

 Ay res, and the Calif ornian naturalists, have brought to light 

 hundreds of new and interesting Vertebrates, while the 

 Insects have been extensively studied by Le Conte and the 

 Testacea by Gould. The Marine Invertebrata have how- 

 ever as yet excited but little attention among our natural- 

 ists. With the exception of the descriptions of Crustacea 

 by Dana and Randall, nothing has been done here in this 

 department, while in Europe several articles having more 

 or less relation to the subject have recently appeared in 

 various scientific periodicals. 



It is with the view of calling attention to this interesting 

 division of our western fauna, and of opening a rich field, 

 that I have been led here to give something more than a 

 description of the novelties collected by Mr. Samuels ; — in 

 fact, to present a view of the present state of our knowledge 

 of the Crustacea and Echinodermata of the West Coast.* 



* The following works have been consulted in the preparation of this article : 



Eor the Crustacea : — 



Ar. Er. Wiegmann. Beschreibung einiger neuen Crustaceen des Berliner Mu- 

 seums cms Mexico, etc. Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte, 1836, i. 145-151. 



J. W. Randall. Catalogue of the Crustacea brought by Thomas Nuttall and 

 J. K. Townsend from the West Coast of North America, with descriptions and 

 figures of new species. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, vol. viii. 1839, pp. 106-147. PI. Ill— VII. 



E. Owen. The Zoology of Captain Beechey's Voyage, Crustacea. (1839.) 



M.M. Milne-El>wards et H. Lucas. Description des Crustacds nouveaux ou 

 peu connus. Archives du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 1841, ii. 461. 

 APRIL, 1857. 



