REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 39 
fishes and on the life history of sea horses; Mr. E. C. Starkes, a list 
of fishes obtained in Ecuador and Peru by Mr. P. O. Simons, and Mr. 
E. W. Gudger, an account of the breeding habits and embryology of 
the pipe fishes. The ichthyologists of the Bureau of Fisheries made 
frequent use of the collections as heretofore. 
Dr. W. H, Dall, curator of mollusks, completed a report on the land 
and fresh-water shells collected by the Harriman expedition to Alaska, 
and several shorter papers on land shells, on Chzton, Callistoma, Crep- 
tdula, and Vitrina, and on questions of nomenclature. Work on 
his revision of the Volutidz was continued. In cooperation with Dr. 
Paul Bartsch, assistant curator, he prepared an extensive series of 
notes on Japanese, Indo-Pacific, and American species of the family 
Pyramidellide. Doctor Bartsch has nearly completed his monograph 
of the same family, and published two short papers on fresh-water 
shells. Some progress was also made in working up the mollusks col- 
lected at the Hawaiian Islands by the Bureau of Fisheries. 
Thirty-three systematic and faunal papers and many articles on 
types of economic interest were prepared by the staff of the division 
of insects and others who worked in the laboratory. A new genus of 
Encyrtide from China was described by the curator, Dr. L. O. Howard, 
who was also the author of a number of economic papers. Among 
the contributions by Dr. W. H. Ashmead were an outline of a new 
arrangement of the families and genera of ants, a new classification 
of the ants of the family Poneride and of the Driver ants, descriptions 
of a large number of new genera and species of Hymenoptera from 
the Philippines and Japan, and of two new Mymaridee from Russian 
Turkestan. He also completed papers on Hymenoptera from the 
Galapagos Islands, and on Proctotrypidee, Cynipoidea, and Bethytidee 
from continental South America, and continued his studies on the 
Braconide. 
Mr. D. W. Coquillet, custodian, submitted a new classification of 
the mosquitoes (Cuculide) of North and Central America, and descrip- 
tions of 3 new genera and 15 new species of this family from the West 
Indies and Central America. A revision of the Hemerobiide of the 
United States and descriptions of many new genera and species of 
neuropterous insects and of American spiders and mites were pre- 
pared by Mr. Nathan Banks, custodian. Mr. J. A. G. Rehn, of 
Philadelphia, contributed to the Proceedings descriptions of new 
species of earwigs, of South American grasshoppers, and of several 
other groups of orthopterous insects from Costa Rica. Mr. F. H. 
Chittenden, of the Bureau of Entomology, described 13 new species 
of Sphenophorus, and Mr. Otto Heidemann, of the same Bureau, a 
new genus and two new species of Rhyngota. Mr. R. H. Johnson, 
of the Carnegie Institution, studied the specimens of Zippodamia and 
other Coccinellidee, in preparation for a treatise on variation of color 
