64 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1923, 



all mounted material is now accessible for study. To make possible 

 the mounting of perhaps 40,000 specimens now on hand, special help 

 will be required in gluing. The services of a laboratory helper for 

 part of the next year have already been provided for, and it is de- 

 sirable that assistance be obtained for strapping the specimens al- 

 ready glued. In preparing material for incorporation into the 

 herbarium, great care has been taken to exclude specimens which will 

 not be genuinely useful. Progress has been made in the segregation 

 of type material from the general herbarium, and a total of 11,011 

 specimens have now been distinctively labeled, catalogued, and 

 placed in individual covers, forming the so-called type herbarium. 

 The herbarium has been fumigated with carbon bisulphide twice 

 during the year, and some portions more frequently. Only minor 

 depredations by the herbarium beetle have been noted. The present 

 condition of the herbarium is in general satisfactory, aside from its 

 crowded condition, and the fact that necessary routine duties of the 

 staff preclude desirable work of revision which otherwise would be 

 possible. The phanerogamic herbarium is in exceptionally good 

 condition because of the recent distribution into it of all material 

 ready for incorporation. Space available for placing cases has now 

 nearly all been filled, and room for the normal growth of the col- 

 lections can be obtained only by the erection of a balcony in the 

 west end of the Herbarium Hall, a project which has been under 

 consideration for several years, and for which there is imperative 

 need. As in previous years, because of our small staff, it has been 

 impossible to add to the cryptogamic herbarium more than a small 

 part of the material received during the current year and for several 

 years past. Specimens of the lower cryptogams are made ready for 

 the herbarium as promptly as possible and held ready for incorpora- 

 tion at such time as the services of one or more specialists may be 

 available for the purpose. An assistant curator, or at least an aid, 

 to have sole charge of the cryptogamic herbarium, is greatly needed. 

 Allusion has already been made to the work completed by the 

 taxidermists and preparators for the exhibition series. A large 

 amount of work on the study series of the various divisions has also 

 been accomplished and much repair work. Owing to the difficulty 

 of getting and keeping a junior preparator, much work which could 

 and should be done by him had to be undertaken by the older men. 

 Mr. Brown with the assistance of Mr. Aschemeier was mostly en- 

 gaged upon the mounting of large mammals, and also modeled sev- 

 eral full size bodies for the proposed dikdik group. He also pre- 

 pared several sketch models for a proposed rebuilding of the great 

 Rocky Mountain Goat group. Mr, Marshall was mostly employed 

 in repair work, and the mounting of smaller mammals. A number 



