Addison Emery Verrill

"The early literature of has, from very remote times, contained allusions to huge species of s, often accompanied by more or less fabulous and usually exaggerated descriptions of the creatures ... In a few instances figures were attempted which were largely indebted to the imagination of their authors for their more striking peculiarities. In recent times, many more accurate observers have confirmed the existence of such monsters, and several fragments have found their way into European museums. To and to , however, belongs the credit of first describing and figuring, in a scientific manner, a number of fragments sufficient to give some idea of the real character and affinities of these colossal species."

"The following catalogue is intended to include all the now known to inhabit the that are not included in 's edition of 's Invertebrata of Massachusetts, published in 1870. In the "New England Region" I include, on the north, the coasts of Nova Scotia and , and their outlying banks; while on the south, I include the entire region, about 100 to 120 miles wide, between the shore and the , off the southern coast of New England, and embracing all depths down to 600 s. ... I have also included the free-swimming and floating forms, ordinarily inhabiting the same region, which may be considered as meeting and including the innermost edge of the Gulf Stream in summer, but most of these surface forms are usually to be found, in summer, far inside the actual limits of the Gulf Stream. The and the northern parts of the I have considered as extra-limital, for my present purposes. Those localities are inhabited by an extremely , including many species of mollusca that have not yet been found farther south. Among these are several species of ' and allied genera."

"On the first trip of the from , which was made July 16 to 19, four successful hauls were made with a large trawl, in 1,346 to 1,735 s, on the 17th and 18th of July, two each day, besides the soundings and temperature determinations, including series of temperatures at various distances from the surface. On this trip about one hundred and five species of s were obtained, not including the and other minute forms. There were among them fourteen species of ; two of s; twenty-two of s; thirty-eight of ; fifteen of ; one of ; ten of ; one of ; two of s."

"Among these pioneer zoologists the name of Verrill stands out prominently because of the amount and accuracy of his contributions to our knowledge of s. More than a thousand species, including , were discovered and described by him, and their relationships to previously known forms were diagnosed with almost unerring accuracy and with a facility that amounted almost to genius. He was much more than systematic zoologist, however; he was a real naturalist in that he was always interested in the of the animals which he studied as well as the morphological characters which distinguished the species new to science. His work on the natural history of he marine invertebrates of southern New England was the first extensive ecological study of its kind in America, and his Vineyard Sound report (published in 1871) was the standard reference book for all students of the seashore life of the region for more than thirty years."