CHAPTER I 
PREPARATION 
Twenty-five years ago the ‘‘Bahama Expedition’’ fram the 
University of lowa attained a gratifying success.* It not only 
furnished a life-long inspiration to the twenty members of the 
party and contributed substantially to our knowledge of the 
region visited, but it also supplied valuable material for class- 
room work for a full quarter of a century. 
From that time to this numerous expeditions have gone forth 
from the University, covering the North American continuent 
from the Arctic coast to Costa Rica and from Maine to Calli- 
fornia and still westward to mid-Pacific. . Hach has been suc- 
cesful and each has added its quota to the scientific equipment 
of the University. None, however, had included so large a party 
nor proposed so ambitious a program as the ‘‘Bahama Expedi- 
tion,’’ until the Barbados-Antigua Expedition was proposed 
and carried to a successful conclusion. 
The proposal came from two sources. In the first place 
President Jessup cf the University had suggested that it was 
‘‘about time for another Bahama Expedition.’’ In the second 
place, certain members of the Zoology Club of the University 
flatly put the question to the writer “‘Can’t we have another 
expedition along the lines followed by the one of which we 
have heard so often, and thus secure another lot of good 
zoological material ?’’ 
There was no dodging such an inquiry put formally and 
directly. It was a ease like that of the celebrated parrot that 
‘‘talked too much.’’ The writer having been guilty of repeated 
lectures and references to that enterprise of more youthful 
days, and having impressed it upon generations of classes with 
lantern-slides and specimens labelled “*‘Bahama Expedition,’’ 
found himself unable to side-step when face to face with a rep- 
resentative committee of his most progressive students. He 

*Narrative and Preliminary Report of the Bahama Expedition, by C. C. Nutting, 
Towa City, Iowa, January, 1895. This work has been long out of print. 
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