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3.
A. E. Verrill, of Yale College, who has also had the immediate direction of most of the dredging operations upon the New England coast. To him we are also indebted for all the published reports upon the Mollusca, Echinodermata, Anthozoa, and Annelida. Prof. S. I. Smith, also of Yale College, has described the Crustacea of all classes, excepting the Isopoda, which have been published by Mr. Oscar Harger, and Dr. E. B. Wilson has reported upon the Pyenogonida. 
Prior to 1880, in consequence of Prof. Verrill being located at New Haven, Conn., and of the lack of proper storage room at Washington, the new Museum building not then existing, the collections of marine invertebrates obtained were all shipped to the Peabody Museum at New Haven. Since then, however, large quantities of material are sent direct to Washington every year, and the specimens worked up at New Haven are constantly being transferred to this Museum. 
The Explorations of the Fish Commission have been fully discussed from time to time, but a brief account of what has been accomplished in that line will serve to indicate the character of the collections which it has turned in to the Museum. 
Established in 1871, the work of investigation was at once entered upon with great activity, and much progress was made during the first season. The appropriations were very small in the beginning, and for two years most of the dredging and trawling was done from a small sail boat or steam launch, though the services of a revenue cutter were occasionally obtained, through the courtesy of the Treasury Department. The third year, a small naval tug, the Blue Light, was placed at the disposition of the Commission, and in 1877 she was replaced by a larger naval tug,