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XIV. — On Ostracoda collected by H. B. Brady, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., in the South Sea 

 Islands. By George Stewardson Brady, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. (Plates I.-IV.) 



(Read 3rd December 1888.) 



Excepting the few species noticed in the Report on the Ostracoda of the "Challenger" 

 Expedition, scarcely anything, so far as I know, has been published respecting the 

 Ostracoda of the South Sea Islands. Prof. G. M. Thomson has indeed published in the 

 Transactions of the New Zealand Institute (1878), a paper on Crustacea, which includes 

 a few marine and fresh-water Ostracoda of New Zealand ; and the Rev. R. L. King, in the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemens Land (1855), described numerous 

 species of Entomostraca, amongst which were several fresh-water, but no marine, 

 Ostracoda. Dr Baird also published a species of Cypridina from New Zealand. I have 

 myself contributed to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1886) a 

 paper on Entomostraca collected in South Australia, chiefly by Professor Ralph Tate of 

 Adelaide, including a considerable number of fresh- water Ostracoda ; and in a French 

 publication (Les Fonds de la Mer), edited by the Marquis de Folin, there are likewise, by 

 myself, descriptions of a few species taken at Noumea, New Caledonia. There are also, in a 

 paper of mine published in the Transactions of the Zoological Society (1865), notes of 

 a few Australian marine species. This, I think, represents the sum of our present know- 

 ledge respecting the Ostracoda of these regions. 



The collection to be noticed in this memoir was taken entirely from material obtained 

 either between tide-marks, or from very small depths of water — not as a rule exceeding 

 6 fathoms. The material so obtained was, however, not collected with any view to the 

 Ostracoda, and having been preserved in a dry condition, it has been impossible to obtain 

 details of internal structure, as might have been done with spirit preparations. Besides 

 the fact of a large proportion of the species being new to science, the collection presents 

 the following points of interest: — First, some species, notably Bairdia amygdaloides and 

 Bairdia foveolata, were found in considerable numbers, in fine condition and in various 

 stages of growth, so that I have been able better to define and emphasise their characters, 

 and so to place those species on a more stable foundation. It would have been interest- 

 ing, had space permitted, to have given a series of drawings representing stages of growth 

 and other variations in those species, but the more important points will be found briefly 

 noticed in the text. Secondly, it would seem, from their abundance in some of these 

 gatherings, that various Cypridinidse occur in the living condition in great numbers 

 between tide-marks. I am not aware that in the Northern Hemisphere any member of 

 this family has ever been taken * except by the dredge, or in the tow-net over deep 

 water. Professor G. M. Thomson, however, mentions a species (Philomedes agilis) as 



* Except once in Herm, by the Rev. Dr Norman. 

 VOL. XXXV. PART II. (NO. 1 4). 4 M 



