200 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



RESEARCHES. 



This department bas been greatly benefited during the year past by 

 the researches of Prof. A. E. Verrill and Prof. S. I. Smith, of New Haven, 

 Conn., on the deep-sea invertebrates obtained by the Fish Commission 

 in its recent explorations. An account of the materials identified by 

 them and received from New Haven and from the Wood's Holl station, 

 has been given above. Professor Verrill has devoted most attention 

 during the year to the Mollusca, but he has also studied large numbers 

 of Echinoderms and Anthozoa, and several new species in those groups 

 have been described by him in the reports cited under his name in the 

 bibliography. The Museum collection now contains nearly all the spe- 

 cies of Echinoderms and Anthozoa discovered in the deep water off the 

 eastern coast, so far as they have been worked up. The studies of Pro- 

 fessor Smith have been mainly upon the higher Crustacea, of which he 

 has turned over to the Museum a large number of species. 



Mr. Sanderson Smith, of New York, a member of the Fish Commis- 

 sion party during each summer, spent about two months at the Museum 

 after the close of last season's explorations, sorting and identifying the 

 Mollusca collected on the last cruise of the Albatross. The Hon. Theo- 

 dore Lyman has also, in the leisure time at his disposal, continued his 

 studies of the Ophiurans obtained by the Albatross in the Gulf of 

 Mexico and Caribbean Sea from January to May, 1884. 



Mr. James E. Benedict, the naturalist of the Albatross, has carried 

 on his investigations of the Annelids on board that steamer or at his 

 house, and will soon have material ready for transfer to the Museum. 

 Mention may here be made of the fact that the Foraminifera of the Fish 

 Commission collection are in the hands of Prof. L. A. Lee, of Bowdoin 

 College, for study, and that the Entozoan parasites of fishes have been 

 referred to Prof. Edwin Linton, of Washington and Jefferson College; 

 but it is yet too early to expect reports from these gentlemen. 



The curator, while at Wood's Holl during the summer, identified the 

 described species of parasitic Copepods contained in the Museum col- 

 lection, and which were mainly obtained by the Fish Commission. An 

 annotated list of the same has been published in the Proceedings of the 

 Museum for 1884. Drawings and preparations of several new species 

 not yet published were also made. He has also worked up the species 

 of Echini belonging to the collection made by the Fish Commission 

 steamer Albatross from January to May, 1884, in the Gulf of Mexico 

 and Caribbean Sea. Although no new species were discovered, the col- 

 lection is a valuable addition to this department. The work of identi- 

 fying and revising the Museum collection of Echini, one of the largest 

 and most important of its kind in the world, has been continued through 

 the year, and it will probably be possible during 1885 to prepare and 

 publish a complete catalogue of the species it contains. 



The preparation of reports upon the marine invertebrate fishery in- 

 i}ust?ies and the fishing grounds of Nortfy America, including the cor- 



