USNM Curators Annual Reports: Department of Marine Invertebrates, Annual Report 1881

Curator Richard Rathbun (1852 - 1918) filed this report, the very first annual report from the Department of Marine Invertebrates covering its activities during the United States National Museum's first year of operations. Rathbun continued to lead the department for over a decade of collection growth, research discoveries and scientific publications. Help us transcribe this curator's annual report as part of the effort to make all of the Department of Marine Invertebrates' annual reports more accessible for researchers and the public.