REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. 65 



is also worthy of note. Approximately 5,000 cards have been written 

 during the year, among them complete bibliogi'aphies of the South 

 American Corbiculidae, the AmpuUaridae of world-wide distribu- 

 tion, and the important genera of Philippine fresh-water shells. 

 This saves an enormous amount of time when working with the col- 

 lections mentioned. The card catalogue gazetteer of the Philippine 

 Islands has been brought up to date. This is of material assistance 

 in working with the Philippine mollusks. 



In the division of echinoderms considerable progress has been made 

 in overhauling the crinoid collection. The entire collection of dried 

 ophiurans has been rearranged in accordance with the classification 

 used by H. L. Clark in his Catalogue of Recent Ophiurans, and a 

 synopsis of the new arrangement has been prepared and hung upon 

 the cases so that anyone can now find any species or specimen of 

 ophiuran in the collection regardless of whether they know anything 

 about these animals or not. All of the specimens have been examined 

 and checked up with the card catalogue. To bring the collection into 

 line with present concepts it was found necessary to transfer many 

 species to new genera and to rename many others which are now 

 placed in synonymy. The entire collection of dried echinoids has also 

 been rearranged in accordance with the classification used in Agassiz 

 and Clark's Hawaiian and other Pacific Echini, and all of the speci- 

 mens have been examined and checked up with the card catalogue; 

 a number of the specimens have been reidentified, and the generic 

 allocation of many of the species has been revised and brought up to 

 date. 



Curatorial work in the division of plants has proceeded satisfac- 

 torily during the past fiscal year. In particular, Mr. Standley, in 

 the course of his work upon the Mexican trees and shrubs, has identi- 

 fied a large amount of Mexican material which had been mounted 

 but not named beyond the genus, and has redetermined many speci- 

 mens from the same region which had previously been misidentified. 

 Similar important work of revision has been done in several other 

 groups, notably in the composites by Dr. S. F. Blake, the willows by 

 Dr. C. R. Ball, the grasses by Dr. A. S. Hitchcock and Mrs, Agnes 

 Chase, and the ferns by Mr. Maxon. As in several recent years, ma- 

 terial has been received more rapidly than it could be mounted and 

 prepared for the herbarium. This fact and the need of economizing 

 greatly in case room has led to the careful scrutiny of recent acces- 

 sions and the elimination of much material which, under more favor- 

 able circumstances, would have been added to the herbarium. For 

 similar reasons it has seemed desirable to select for immediate mount- 

 ing and installation material in certain groups under investigation 

 (for example, ferns, grasses, cacti) and from tropical America gen- 

 erally, in order to facilitate special investigations previously under 



