material^ — 66 specimens. Some of these came from our expeditions 

 (see page 40). Others were purchases, exchanges, or gifts that 

 range from single specimens to comprehensive collections. Some 

 of the more noteworthy items are mentioned here (materials received 

 by the Department of Zoology during the year are listed at the end 

 of this Report, page 121). 



A collection of 968 specimens of reptiles and amphibians pur- 

 chased from William Hosmer, of Melbourne, is not impressively 

 large in numbers, but it is the sort of collection we like to acquire 

 because its 250 species are remarkably selected and represent nearly 

 three-quarters of the species known from Australia, Our herpe- 

 tological representation from Formosa, which has a good endemic 

 fauna, was practically nil until we began to identify reptiles and 

 amphibians for Dr. Robert E. Kuntz, who is working on parasites 

 and medical research there. During the past year we received, 

 among other specimens, 1,248 reptiles and amphibians for our 

 collection, a good representation of the Formosan fauna, in exchange 

 for identifications. 



We have had a replica of the strange coelacanth fish known as 

 Latimeria chalumnae that was reconstructed from photographs and 

 published measurements shortly after this "living fossil" was dis- 

 covered in the Mozambique Channel. This year we purchased from 

 the National Museum in Paris a plaster cast of an actual specimen. 

 Differing in many details from the reconstruction, the cast gives a 

 rather different and much better idea of this strange deep-water fish 

 of which only about a dozen have been collected. 



A notable gift of insects was made by Research Associate Seevers. 

 The Museum recently published his monograph on the rove beetles 

 that live with termites (Fieldiana: Zoology, volume 40, 1957), and 

 Dr. Seevers has now donated to the Museum the collection on which 

 this study was based. The collection contains 2,131 specimens, 

 including the types of 68 species of these rare beetles, and is the 

 most important and complete collection of its kind in existence. 

 The true bugs (Heteroptera) were one of the favorite groups of the 

 late Curator Emeritus William J. Gerhard. Before his death in 

 December he gave us, from his private collection, a final lot of 1,065 

 North American Heteroptera. A purchase of 14,581 insects from the 

 collector, Fritz Plaumann, of Brazil, is the raw material for much 

 further research, containing as it does many specimens of the groups 

 in which our specialists are interested. Some 41,700 insects col- 

 lected by the Philippine Zoological Expedition of 1946-47 have been 

 prepared and accessioned. This completes the accessioning of this 

 collection, which amounts in its entirety to about 80,000 specimens. 



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