No. 17. Tlie Echinoderms of Peru. By Hubert Lyman Clark. The following report, prepared at the request of the Ministerio de Foinento, of the Peruvian Government, as a contribution to the knowl-edge of the aquatic resources of Peru, is for use in connection with marine investigations in that country, though the needs of the general zoologist and particularly of those chiefly interested in the fishes and fish-eries of Peru, have been kept in mind. The keys are therefore as simple as possible and are based, so far as practicable, on obvious external char-acters ; they are consequently very artificial. Tlie report is based pri-marily on the collection of echinoderms made by Dr. Robert E. Coker in 1907-08, and I am glad to express my thanks to him for the oppor-tunity to study the collection, and for the use of his field notes and other data. In addition to the species found in this collection I have included all the echinoderms actually known to occur south of the equa-tor and north of 40° S. latitude, and which may therefore be reasonably expected to occur on the coasts of Peru. I have not included any .wecies described from such indefinite localities as "west coast of South Amer-ica," "Chile," "Ecuador," or "west coast of Colombia," unless they have since been recoi'ded from the given coastal area, excepting such rare cases as Holothuria chilensis, where the genus is a tropical (or sub-tropical) one and the species is described as from Chile. The collec-tion in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which contains many South Amei-ican species, a large number of which were brought home by the " Hassler " expedition, has been of great assistance. In it were found two new starfishes. The Peruvian echinoderra fauna is not a rich one. There are no crinoids known from the region, and only seven holothurians and ten ophiurnns. The echini are repre.sented by a dozen species, and the starfishes by twice that number. Clearly the starfishes are the predominating fea-ture, and this would be even more striking if the numerous species de» scribed from Ecuador and Colombia, some of which may ultimately be found on the northern coast of Peru, were included. It is interesting to note that tlie Peruvian marine fauna is made up of two quite different elements, that from the Panamic region and that from the Chilean. The latter furnishes all of the echinoderms found south of Aguja Point,
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