32 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1910. 



contents of about 4,400 jars, containing about 15,000 specimens, 

 were entered in this way, the task involving the critical examination 

 by the curator of all the specimens and of the records relating to them. 

 The entire collection of North American batrachians and the majority 

 of the North American lizards were gone over in this manner before 

 the close of the year. On account of these routine duties, tlie curator, 

 Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, had little time for scientific investigations, 

 though some progress was made in his study of the herpetology of the 

 Philippine Islands. 



Fishes. — The division of fishes received about 37,000 specimens. 

 The transfers from the United States Bureau of Fisheries were excep- 

 tionally large and valuable, representing important investigations 

 and containing many types. They may be summarized as follows: 

 A collection of 1,297 specimens from the expedition of the steamer 

 Albatross to the south Pacific Ocean in 1899-1900; over 1,285 spec- 

 imens from the Albatross expedition to the eastern Pacific Ocean in 

 1904-5; specimens from Lake Maxinkuckee, Indiana, and vicinity, 

 collected in 1899 and 1900; specimens from Ohio, Lake of the Woods 

 Basin, and the Panama Canal Zone; and miscellaneous collections 

 from various localities, aggregating about 28,000 specimens. About 

 100 specimens were received from the Smithsonian African Expedi- 

 tion, and many examples from the field work of Mr. Bryant and Mr. 

 Palmer in Java. A valuable series of several hundred specimens 

 collected in British Guiana by Dr. C. H. Eigenmann was obtained 

 in exchange from the Carnegie Museum. The International Fish- 

 eries Commission, through Dr. D. S. Jordan, contributed a collection 

 of white fish, trout, etc., from the Great Lakes; and the Gulf Bio- 

 logic Station at Cameron, Louisiana, presented the type and cotype 

 of Leptocerdale longipinnis. JMr. A. C. Weed, aid in the division, 

 while conducting investigations on the pickerel and allied forms at 

 Sodus Bay, Lake Ontario, prepared a well-selected series of the 

 fishes of that region for the Museum collection. 



The routine work on the collection of fishes, which has now grown 

 to an immense size, was chiefly in the direction of placing it in such 

 condition that upon its removal to the new building, expected to 

 occur during the summer of 1910, it could be quickly arranged in 

 systematic order and made conveniently accessible for reference and 

 study. This has long been impossible in the old quarters, which are 

 both inadequate and unsuitable, and space vacated by other divisions 

 was temporarily assigned for the purpose. The sorting and sepa- 

 rating of specimens and groups, especially of types, and the marking 

 of the latter in a definite manner, has been a slow and difficult task. 

 In all cases, and they are many, where a particular specimen has 

 been designated as the type, this has been preserved apart even if 

 previously associated with other specimens from the same locality, 



