REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF INVERTEBRATES. 127 



mens of corals. They were sent in exchange for duplicates in the Na- 

 tional Museum. The sponges include only the dried preparations of the 

 larger and commoner species, identified by Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, of Bos- 

 ton, Massachusetts, who has not yet concluded his studies upon the rarer 

 ones. Future installments of the same collection are prom ised at an early 

 date. The following species are represented by numerous varieties: 

 Tuba vaginalis, Hircinia eampana, Spongia tubulifera, Spongia punc- 

 tata, Verongia Jistularis. The corals belong to the following genera: 

 Oculina, Madracis, Mycedium, Meandrina, Diploria, Isophyllia, Porites, 

 Gorgonia, and Millepora. A small lot of corals, comprising about 20 

 species, from the South Pacific Ocean and the West Indies, has also 

 been received from Oberlin College, in exchange, and the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, at Harvard College, has donated 5 species of 

 Stylaster from the dredgings of the Coast Survey steamer Blake, to be 

 used in the identification of Albatross collections. 



Mr. P. L. Jouy, lately of Seoul, Corea, and now an assistant in the 

 Museum, has contributed an interesting series of Crustaceans, Echino- 

 derms, Corals, and Sponges, including several nearly perfect specimens 

 of Syalonema, from Corea and Japan. Mr. C. H. Townsend, who has 

 been collecting for the Museum off Swan Island, in the Caribbean Sea, 

 during the past spring, has already forwarded many finely preserved 

 specimens of Crustaceans, Corals, and Echiuoderms, and additional ma- 

 terials of the same character are expected from him. The following 

 donations are also deserving of special mention : Mr. W. H. Dall, a 

 small collection of Crustaceans, Radiates, Ascidians, and Sponges from 

 Charlotte Harbor, Florida ; Prof. A. Duges, marine and fresh-water 

 specimens from Mexico ; Mr. S. F. Cheney, miscellaneous marine speci- 

 mens from Grand Manan, New Brunswick ; Mr. W. E. Curtis, through 

 the Bureau of Ethnology, specimens of Echinoderms, Corals, and Barna- 

 cles from Peru ; and Mr. S. Kneeland, also through the same Bureau, 

 a fine specimen of Hyalonema, from Enoshima, Japau. 



As in previous years, the curator and his assistants participated in 

 the summer explorations of the Fish Commission at Wood's Holl, Mas- 

 sachusetts, leaving Washington July 4, and returning about the middle 

 of October. During that period work was entirely suspended in this 

 department in Washington, but was actively continued at Wood's Holl. 

 The duties there comprised the sorting and working up of the zoological 

 materials brought in by the steamer Albatross, and by the field parties 

 collecting along the shore. Most of the specimens were at once entered 

 in the catalogue books of the National Museum, whether they were to 

 be sent directly to Washington or to the specialists engaged in study- 

 ing them. By this method, which has now been practiced for several 

 years, a careful record of all the specimens obtained by the Commission 

 is kept under one series of catalogue numbers, by which they may 

 always be recognized. The correcting of proof sheets of the writer's 

 reports on ocean temperatures and the marine invertebrate fisheries 



