78 REPOET OF ISTATIONAL MUSEUM, 1919. 



ward J. Brown, of Los Angeles, California, forwarded 137 skins and 

 4 skeletons from California, among which were a goodly number of 

 well-prepared gulls and wading birds. 



Early in July, 1918, at the time preparations were being made for 

 closing the exhibits to the public, a number of rare and extinct birds 

 were removed from the exhibition halls and brought to the office for 

 safe-keeping. At the same time search was made for certain type 

 specimens in the mounted collection, two being recovered, namely, a 

 sparrow from Cuba and a species of Petroica from Australia. Not 

 much has been attempted in arranging the eggs and nests received 

 in recent years, but Mr. B. H. Swales, who was designated honorary 

 custodian of the section of birds' eggs during the year, has started 

 work on the collection. All of the material received during the year 

 was catalogued and stored in temporary quarters. The numerous 

 foreign alcoholic specimens received during the year were catalogued 

 and supplied with tin tags, determined as far as the ma,terial would 

 allow, placed in suitable containers, supplied with fresh alcohol, and 

 labeled. Unfortunately, the number of uncleaned skeletons is in- 

 creasing each year, owing to the fact that the preparators are not 

 able to keep up with the accumulation of material, so that a number 

 of rare genera from Celebes, Santo Domingo, etc., remain unavail- 

 able for study. Mr. Wetmore, of the Biological Survey, has gener- 

 ously continued to look after the arrangement of the skeleton col- 

 lections. 



The curator. Dr. Eobert Ridgway, continued his work on the .un- 

 completed portion of Bulletin 50, The Birds of North and Middle 

 America. A very considerable part of the time during the year 

 was employed in correcting proof sheets and superintending prepara- 

 tion of the index of part 8, which was published before the end of 

 the year. Work on part 9 has consisted of descriptive work relating 

 to the first major group to be treated, namely, the Gruiformes. The 

 associate curator. Dr. Charles W. Richmond, was occupied as usual 

 very largely with routine and miscellaneous duties partlj^ relating to 

 seeing part 8 of Bulletin 50 through the press, partly furnishing 

 the curator with data for the groups to be treated in part 9, and 

 continued his work on the office card catalogue of species of birds. 

 He also made considerable progress toward correcting and com- 

 pleting early records of the office and its collections, such as piecing 

 together and filling out records for the United States Exploring Ex- 

 pedition material, some interesting data having been obtained from 

 Peale's original journals in the Library of Congress. He also began, 

 with Mr. Swales, the accumulation of data for a report on the birds 

 of Santo Domingo and Haiti, during which work he formulated 

 a list of desiderata of materials and facts for the use of Doctor Abbott 

 in future trips to the island. 



