43 



REPORT ON THE INVERTEBRATA (EXCLUSIVE OF 



INSECTS). 



By Walter Faxon. 



A good deal of time has been spent during the past year in 

 rearranging and extending the exhibition collections of Inverte- 

 brata. A change of plan was decided upon early in the year, by 

 which the marine forms were to be eliminated from the rooms 

 assigned to illustration of the Continental Faunae. Space was 

 thereby gained for a fuller display of land and fresh-water types, 

 and much unnecessary duplication of species exhibited in the 

 rooms devoted to the Oceanic Faunae was avoided. This radical 

 change of plan involved a complete overhauling of the Invertebrata 

 in the North American, South American, and Europaeo-Siberian 

 Rooms. An entirely new series of land and fresh-water shells has 

 been selected, mounted, and placed on exhibition in the African, 

 Australian, and Indian Faunal Rooms ; another collection of ter- 

 restrial shells from the Polynesian Islands has been placed in one 

 of the cases in the Pacific Ocean Room. The preparation of these 

 collections for exhibition was intrusted to Misses Clark and 

 Parker. The Pacific Ocean faunal collection, though far from 

 completed, was brought up to a condition such as to warrant 

 opening the room to the public last winter. 



Material for study has been sent from the Museum to F. E. 

 Schulze, Berlin, C. Pictet, Geneva, F. Meinert, Copenhagen, G. 

 W. Miiller, Naples, and R. P. Bigelow, Baltimore. A collection 

 of corals has been given to the Bigelow School, Marlborough, 

 Mass. Gifts of specimens have been received from the California 

 Academy of Sciences, the Boston Society of Natural History, the 

 U. S. National Museum, A. Agassiz, Cambridge, Ign. Bohrar, 

 Madrid, G. S. Miller, Jr., Cambridge, and C. J. Maynard, Boston. 



An elaborate final Report on the Museum collection of Pagu- 

 ridae dredged by the " Blake " Expeditions of 1877-80 has been 

 prepared by Professor Alphonse Milne-Edwards and Mr. E. L. Bou- 



