REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1908. 41 



porcupines, and South American octodont rats, as well as the squirrel 

 skulls and bat skeletons, were rearranged, and the cases and trays 

 containing them furnished with typcAvritten labels. Considerable 

 attention was given to the large and mediiun-sized skulls, and the 

 alcoholic series, especially the large collection of bats, was much im- 

 proved in arrangement and labeling. Some 3,200 skulls, chiefly large 

 ones, were cleaned ; about 100 large skins were tanned and folded, and 

 38 smaller ones made over. 



A practically complete skeleton of the very rare Baird's beaked 

 whale, Berardius Itah'dii, from California, about 40 feet long, was 

 mounted for the osteological hall. It is probably the only one of its 

 kind exhibited in any museum, and this and another received from 

 the Pribilof Islands represent the largest beaked Avhales thus far 

 recorded. A Kashmir stag was added to the series representing large 

 game, and 9 small mammals were incorporated in the general ex- 

 hibition series. It was found necessarj'^ to replace the floor in the 

 large wall case on the east side of the south hall, requiring the tem- 

 l^orary removal of all the specimens, which were overhauled and 

 renovated. 



Dr. F. W. True, head curator of the department, and three assist- 

 ants made several visits to the Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, in search 

 of fossil cetaceans, of which they obtained a large amount of material, 

 including a nearly complete skeleton of a fossil porpoise, discovered 

 by Mr. AVilliam Palmer. Doctor True continued his investigations 

 on the recent North American forms belonging to this group, pre- 

 paring papers on some of the species, on the Zeuglodont genus Doru- 

 don and on the classification of the Cetacea. He has also about com- 

 pleted a majRiscript treating of the recent beaked whales. Dr. M. W. 

 Lyon, jr., assistant curator, prepared two papers, one on the horns 

 and systematic position of the American antelope, the other on the 

 mammals collected by Doctor Abbott along the east coast of Sumatra, 

 the latter containing descriptions of 13 new forms. He also began 

 work on Doctor Abbott's latest collection from the Rhio-Linga Archi- 

 pelago, and southwestern Borneo and nearby islands. A list of the 

 type specimens of mammals preserved in the Museum, including 

 those in the collection of the Biological Survey, was compiled for 

 publication jointly by Doctor Lyon, Mr. "\V. H. Osgood, and Doctor 

 True. 



To Dr. E. A. Mearns, who has begun studies preliminary to a 

 manual of the mammals of the Philippine Islands, was sent a number 

 of fruit bats, and sj^ecimens of the Almiqui {Solenodon) were lent to 

 Dr. J. A. Allen, of the American Museum of Natural History, who is 

 working up the Haitian species. Many European mammals were 

 forwarded to Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, jr., who is now at the British 

 Museum, preparing a general work on the European fauna, and some 



