REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 4] 
published by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, namely: On the 
starfishes collected during the cruise of 1899-1900, by Dr. H. Ludwig; 
on the pelagic tunicates from the same cruise, by Prof. W. E. Ritter 
and Miss Edith S. Byxbee; and on a remarkable new genus of Cysto-- 
flagellata from the cruise of 1904-5, by Dr. Charles A. Kofoid. 
In accordance with an arrangement between the Bureau of Fisher- 
ies and Doctor Agassiz, the entire Museum collection of deep-water 
sponges from the Pacific Ocean, mainly obtained in the course of 
investigations by the steamer A/batross, were sent to Dr. R. yon Len- 
denfeld and Dr. F. Urban, of Prague, Austria, for working up in con- 
nection with other material from the Bureau of Fisheries and the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology. Doctor Agassiz has generously 
agreed to assume the expenses attendant upon the preparation and 
publication of this extensive work, which will occupy several years. 
The equally large and important collection of starfishes from the 
North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, but including the shore and shal- 
low-water species as well as those from greater depths, was turned 
over to Mr. W. K. Fisher, of Stanford University, for study and 
report. To Dr. C. B. Wilson, of Westfield, Massachusetts, whose 
reports on the Argulide and Caligine have already been published, 
were sent the specimens belonging to the other groups of parasitic cope- 
pod crustaceans. The Museum collection of barnacles is being studied 
by Dr. H. A. Pilsbry, of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences; the 
bryozoans from Bering Sea and other northern waters, by Dr. H. 
Kluge, of the Museum fiir Naturkunde, Berlin; and the extensive 
collection of foraminifera from the Pacific deep sea, by Mr. Joseph 
A. Cushman, of the Boston Society of Natural History. The collec- 
tion last mentioned, resulting chiefly from soundings and dredgings 
by the steamer A/batross and cable surveys by the United States Navy, 
is exceedingly rich and diversified. 
Eleven contributions by the staff of the division of plants were 
published during the year. Dr. J. N. Rose, associate curator, was 
chiefly occupied in working up the Mexican plants, collected mainly 
by himself in recent years. He prepared two papers on this material 
in conjunction with Mr. J. H. Painter, and described certain umbellif- 
erous plants from Georgia. In cooperation with Dr. N. L. Britton, 
director of the New York Botanical Garden, he has begun upon a 
monograph of the cactus group. Capt. John Donnell Smith, associate 
in botany, described 23 new Central American species, and identified 
several hundred Guatemalan plants in the Herbarium, with the assist- 
ance of Baron von Piirckheim. He also completed for the press the 
eighth part of his enumeration of the plants of Guatemala. Mr. W. R. 
Maxon, assistant curator, prepared six papers on ferns, in which were 
described new species from Mexico, Guatemala, Porto Rico, and 
