BEPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 41 



taken up other collections made by Doctor Abbott on islands in the 

 China Sea and neighboring regions. 



The collections and opportunities for research offered by the 

 division of birds were utilized by the Biological Survey, the com- 

 mittee on nomenclature of the Ornithologists Union, Dr. Jonathan 

 Dwight, jr., of New York, and Dr. E. A. Mearns, U. S. Army, the 

 last mentioned giving much time to the identification of the Philip- 

 pine birds of his own collecting. Among those to whom specimens 

 were sent for study were Dr. J. A. Allen and Mr. Frank M. Chapman, 

 of the American Museum of Natural History; Mr. Herbert O. 

 Jenkins, of Leland Stanford Junior University, and Dr. Louis 

 Bishop, of New Haven, Connecticut. 



Mr. Barton A. Bean, assistant curator of the division of fishes, 

 identified the collection of fishes made by himself and others m 

 Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina, in 1904; prepared papers on the 

 history of the whale shark (Rhinodon) and the adult of the goblin 

 shark {Mitsukurina) , and, conjointly with Dr. C. H. Eigenmann, 

 of Indiana University, worked up the collection of Amazon River 

 fishes made by Prof. J. B. Steere in 1901. The specimens of Characins 

 belonging to the Museum and the small collection of fishes obtained 

 in Patagonia some time since by the late Mr. J. B. Hatcher were turned 

 over to Doctor Eigenmann for study and report. A number of speci- 

 mens in several groups of fishes were sent to Leland Stanford Junior 

 University for examination by Dr. C. H. Gilbert, Dr. J. C. Thompson, 

 and Mr. E. C. Starks. Among many experts who have worked upon 

 the collections of fishes in the Museum may be mentioned Dr* 

 Theodore N. Gill, an associate of the Museum; Dr. B. W. Evermann 

 and Dr. W. C. Kendall, of the Bureau of Fisheries; Dr. T. H. Bean, 

 and Mr. E. W. Gudger, of the State Normal School, Greensboro, 

 North Carolina. The investigations of Doctor Evermann had refer- 

 ence mainly to the preparation of a joint report with Dr. D. S. 

 Jordan on the fishes of Hawaii. Dr. C. H. Gilbert came to the 

 Museum in June, 1905, with the expectation of remaining through 

 the summer, for the purpose of working up the Pacific deep-sea 

 fishes represented in the collection. 



Dr. William H. Ashmead, assistant curator of the division of insects, 

 has been mainl}' occupied in finishing his work on the superfamily 

 Formicoidea, or ants, Avith wliich will be completed his classification 

 of the entire order Hymenoptera. His monograph on the North 

 American Braconidse, on which he has been engaged for a number 

 of years past, \vill next be taken up for completion. Mr. D. W. 

 Coquillett, custodian of the Diptera, has spent much time in the 

 preparation of a monograph of the North American mosc{uitoes 

 (Culieidsp). More than forty papers by members of the staff of 

 this division were published during the year. Specimens represent 



