INTRODUCTION. 3 



ZoOlogy, where also library and other facilities were kindly given me 

 by the director, Mr. Samuel Henshaw. 



Of private collections, Mr. Charles T. Ramsden, of Guantanamo, 

 Cuba, loaned some very choice material from Cuba, including 

 Clypeaster cotteaui, Echinolampas anguilla, and the species Clypeaster 

 placentoides and Cardiaster cubensis, which are here described as new. 

 Dr. Carlotta J. Maury, of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, collected 

 in the Dominican Republic, in 1917, three choice Echini, Clypeaster 

 dalli and two specimens of Clypeaster caudatus, the latter here de- 

 scribed as a new species. These, with other material, she has kindly 

 presented to the U. S. National Museum. Mr. G. J. Mitchell loaned 

 some Echini that he collected in Porto Rico, namely, Clypeaster 

 rosaceus and Hemiaster berkeyi, the latter described as a new species. 



To these several institutions and individuals I would express warm 

 thanks for the loan of material and facilities accorded me. To Dr. 

 T. Wayland Vaughan I would express very special obligations for 

 numerous letters giving facts in regard to the material and the local- 

 ities and for his great patience under a protracted research. 



Photographs illustrating specimens in the Guppy collection were 

 taken in Washington as above stated. Photographs of other specimens 

 were by Mr. F. A. Saunderson or Mr. E. N. Fischer, both of Boston. 

 Mr. Saunderson took the photographs illustrating plates 4, 6 to 8, 17, 

 and 18, also 17 photographs scattered through other plates. Mr. Fischer 

 took the photographs illustrating plate 2, figures 2 to 5, plate 3, and 

 plate 1 2 , figure 1 . The few text-figures were drawn by Mr. J . Henry Blake. 



Besides the species described, there were in the various collections 

 studied many Echini too imperfect for identification, but which 

 indicate that in future the West Indian fossil fauna of this group may 

 be much enriched by new material. 



In regard to new material turning up, it is of interest that a new 

 species of Eupatagus has been received (too late to describe here) 

 from the foraminiferal limestone (doubtless Oligocene) on the summit 

 of Bissex Hill, Barbados. Collected by the Honorable A. P. Haynes, 

 it was kindly given to the U. S. National Museum by Sir John B. 

 Harrison, formerly stationed at Barbados, who has done much to 

 further science in the West Indies. 



Of the previously published records of fossil Echini occurring in 

 the West Indies, Guppy in 1866 published notes and a few new species. 

 Cotteau in 1875 described many new species from the islands of St. 

 Bartholomew and Anguilla, and in 1881 and 1897 published large 

 papers on the fossil Echini of Cuba. Lambert in 1915 published on 

 a collection of Echini from the islands of Anguilla and Antigua. This 

 material, which is in the British Museum, was collected by J. W. 

 Gregory, with the addition, as Lambert says, of some Miocene Echini 

 from Anguilla included by Bather. Two new species are described, 



