Richard Rathbun. 759 



and on his return from Brazil in 1878 lie again joined 

 the Commission as a regularly appointed scientific 

 assistant. His interest was thereby diverted from the 

 paleontological field to that of recent animal life, and 

 from this time on his zoological papers deal exclusively 

 with living forms. 



He first followed Alexander Agassiz, with whom he had 

 been associated at Harvard, in the study of Echinoids, 

 and his first paper in this new field comprises a list of 

 eleven species of Echinoids from the coast of Brazil. 12 

 This was followed by a more detailed account of the geo- 

 graphical distributions of all the species of echinoderms 

 known from that locality 13 with descriptions of species 

 new to science. Other papers on echinoderms include 

 reports upon the echini and stalked crinoids collected by 

 the U. S. F. C. steamer Albatross in the Caribbean Sea 

 and Gulf of Mexico, 14 the species of starfishes of the 

 genus Heliaster represented in the IT. S. National 

 Museum, 15 and a catalogue of the collection of recent 

 echini in the U. S. National Museum, with notes on geo- 

 graphical distribution. 16 



Rathbun 's connection with the U. S. Fish Commission 

 continued until 1896, during which time he published 

 numerous papers describing the results of dredging 

 expeditions off the eastern and southern coasts of the 

 United States, and some of the new species of various 

 groups of invertebrates secured. 



In 1879-1880 he was detailed to New Haven, where, 

 under the direction of Professor Verrill, he prepared 

 many duplicate sets of the various species of marine 

 invertebrates represented in the Fish Commission's 

 extensive collections for distribution to museums and 

 other institutions of learning. At the same time he 

 served as Assistant in Zoology at Yale, but in the follow- 

 ing year the work was transferred to Washington, where 

 he was appointed curator of the Department of Marine 

 Invertebrates of the U. S. National Museum. Three 

 large series of these sets were eventuallv prepared and 

 the lists of species in each published in the Proceedings 

 of the U. S. National Museum. 17 



Under Rathbun 's direction collections of marine in- 

 vertebrates were later prepared bv the National Museum 

 for various exhibitions. The catalogue of the collec- 

 tion of economic crustaceans, worms, echinoderms and 



