66 EEPORi^ OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, l9l§. 



purpose of observing the development of new generations of these 

 shells in a new environment were visited by him for the third time in 

 the latter part of June. 



Mr. Arthur de C. Sowerby continued his explorations in Man- 

 churia and northeastern China and forwarded a number of valuable 

 collections of vertebrates and insects. Mr. Copley Amory, jr., col- 

 laborator in zoology, joined an expedition to northeastern Siberia, 

 which sailed from Seattle about the end of June, 1914, in the schooner 

 Eagle. It was the intention to winter not far from the river Kolyma. 

 General biological collections were to be made, though Mr. Amory 

 expected to pay special attention to mammals. A^Tien last heard 

 from, the expedition had reached its destination, but no results have 

 yet been reported. Dr. Fred Baker, of Point Loma, Cal., continued 

 his collecting and exploring work in the Orient throughout the year 

 and sent various interesting contributions, notabl}' a collection of 

 fishes from Formosa. 



In August and September, 1914, Mr. Paul C. Standley, of the Mu- 

 seum staff, and Mr. H. C. Bollman, of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 visited northern Xew Mexico and spent some time camping in the 

 mountains of a little known region at the Brazos Canyon in Rio 

 Arriba County, where they secured about 790 specimens of plants for 

 the Museum, among them a number of species not previously re- 

 corded from that State. Mr. James Zetek, of Ancon, Canal Zone, 

 who conducted field investigations for the purpose of obtaining ex- 

 hibits for a Panama Canal exposition to be held on the Isthmus, 

 presented valuable duplicate material in return for the identification 

 of species. 



Government explorations by which the department of biology was 

 benefited were mainly those of the Bureau of Fisheries and of several 

 bureaus of the Department of Agriculture. The commission of three 

 naturalists sent to the Pribilof Islands by the Department of Com- 

 merce to study and report on certain questions in the life history of 

 the fur seals brought back a splendid series of the skulls of these 

 animals. The biological survey of San Francisco Bay, which is be- 

 ing conducted by the steamer Albatross of the Bureau of Fisheries, 

 is destined to result in collections of vast extent. The greater part 

 of the crustaceans so far collected and sent to the Museum for study 

 aggregate some 9,000 specimens. From a survey of the fishing banks 

 off the coast of Oregon and Washington, by the same steamer, about 

 800 specimens of miscellaneous invertebrates have been received. 

 Finally the hj^drographic and biological explorations in the Gulf of 

 Maine by the steamer Fishhawh of the same Bureau, under the direc- 

 tion of Dr. H. B. Bigelow, were productive of a large amount of in- 

 teresting material mainly from the plankton, including about 275 

 specimens of Meduste identified by Dr. Bigelow. 



