68 REPOET OF KaTIO:NAL museum, 1921. 



possible after they are received, and held ready for installation, when- 

 ever one or more specialists can be secured. 



UESEARCHES FOB THE BENEFIT OF THE; MUSEUM. 



It is mainly by the quality and amount of its research work upon 

 the material intrusted to its care that the reputation of this Museum 

 rests and its existence is justified. I am happy to say that the past 

 year in no wa.y falls short of the traditions of the Institution. The 

 appended bibliography clearly demonstrates this. It does not, how- 

 ever, fully represent the work accomplished during the current year, 

 as of necessity many of the papers published in 1920-21 were prepared 

 previously, nor does publication necessarily reveal the extent of the 

 research work going on. Briefly, the scientific activities of the staff 

 will be enumerated below, but before taking up the work in the divi- 

 sions I wish to call attention to the signal honor which was bestowed 

 by the National Academy upon a member of the staff for one of the 

 publications issued by the Museum. During the April meeting of 

 the academy this year, the Daniel Giraud Elliot gold medal, together 

 with the honorarium, was voted to Dr. Robert Eidgway in recogni- 

 tion of the eighth volume of The Birds of Middle and North America, 

 which forms part 8 of Bulletin 50 of the United States National 

 Museum, an award which is open to the zoologists and paleontologists 

 of the world. When announcing the award the chairman of the 



Elliot medal committee said : 



In undertaking this great work Ridgway was not only placing the crown on 

 his labors of a third of a century, but was giving expression to a plan made 

 by Baird a half century before. Ridgway was therefore doubly inspired when, 

 in 1901, he undertook the stupendous task of preparing a 10-volume treatise 

 on all the birds of the Western Hemisphere north of South America. With 

 imremitting zeal, and always maintaining the standard of thoroughnesg and 

 accuracy set by the first volume of the series, he continued his labors until 

 eight volumes have appeared, the last in 1919. Each volume contains about 

 850 pages, a total of 6,800 pages in all. Nearly 900 genera are defined and 

 over 3,000 species and subspecies described. 



While giving expression to his exceptional powers of analysis and description 

 trained by years of experience and observation, Ridgway has produced a work 

 which in method, comprehensiveness, and accuracy, as well as in volume, has 

 never been surpassed in the annals of ornithology. 



This will give you an idea of some of the work which is being 

 quietly and unostentatiously performed in the divisions of this 

 Museum. Taking them up one by one the work of the scientific staff 

 may be epitomized as follows: 



Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, jr., found but little time for scientific investi- 

 gation during the past year. Some progress was made, in conjunc- 

 tion with the late William Palmer, in investigating the characters 

 of the whale from Pablo Beach, Fla., and in conjunction wath Mr. 



