Excerpt from Contributions to the Biology of the Philippine Archipelago and Adjacent Regions, Vol. 5: Ophiurans of the Philippine Seas and Adjacent Waters The United States National Museum has been so kind as to entrust to me for study the important collection Of ophiurans brought to gether by the United States Fisheries steamer Albatross inthe course Of her investigations among the Philippine Islands during the years 1907 - 1910. First of all I wish to thank my colleagues of the National Museum for the honor which they have done me in requesting me to undertake this work, and at the same time I wish again to apologize to them for the unavoidable delay in submitting my report. I had hoped that it would be finished in 1915, but the terrible events which have occurred since 1914 have made that impossible. The collection sent to me included, in addition to the ophiurans collected in the Philippines, several species from Japan and a few specimens from the Samoan Islands; these last I have included with the first. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.