174 EEPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



estiug as beiug a totally new locality for this attractive imported spe. 

 cies. 



Among fossils, James Shepard, esq., has contributed a box of very 

 beautiful silicified shells from the well-known deposit, described by Cou- 

 rad many years ago, on the Hillsboro' Bay arm of Tampa Bay, West 

 Florida. 



On the whole the accessions of the year, while not including auy col- 

 lection of extraordinary size, have brought to the department of Mol. 

 lusks a full share of valuable and interesting material, more than in 

 many previous years, if not so much as in a few exceptional seasons, 

 and, as usual, more than the present force could deal with while still 

 hard at work on the arrears of previous seasons. 



The routine work of the department consists in the unpacking, clean- 

 ing, assorting, classifying, labeling, registering, putting on exhibition or 

 in its proper place in the study series, of each lot of new material which 

 comes in ; besides eliminating duplicates and packing them in such 

 sha])e as to be conveniently accessible when needed for distribution. 



Specimens which have been studied or named before being received 

 have part of the above work already done, but in general the above is re- 

 quired for each lot or a series from each lot of specimens. The smaller 

 species are put in vials, corked, to save them from dust or injury, to- 

 gether with a slip bearing the registration number, which also appears 

 upon the label, or if the shell is large enough and has a proper surface 

 is indelibly written on the specimen itself. Fossils generally require 

 to be treated with a solution of shellac before they will bear marking, 

 but the old and objectionable method of mounting specimens on tab- 

 lets has, for the study collection of the U. S. lsI"ational Museum, been 

 definitely abandoned. It will be noted, therefore, that each speci- 

 men or lot of specimens which are entered under one registration 

 number (and always comprising but one species or variety from one 

 locality) undergoes seven or eight different bits of treatment, and re- 

 quires, before it is put aside, a traj'^, a label, a number, a corked vial 

 (or a number written on), and a line in the registration book. In the 

 ideal condition of the collection to be attained hereafter, each lot will*- 

 also have its place on a card which will form one of a series or card cata- 

 logue, embracing all the specimens which are or at any time have been 

 in the Museum, and recording the data relating to them. This, how- 

 ever, in the present state of the force, can only be anticipated, at 

 least for departments including such a vast quantity of material as is 

 embraced under the general head of Mollusks. 



Besides the routine work on the recent and fossil shells which ap- 

 l)ear in the form of donations or exchanges, or arrears of past years, 

 which are still formidable, there is the administrative work of the de- 

 partment. This includes its relation to the Museum as a whole, and 

 to the objects of the Museum as exemplified in the use of the material 

 in its possession. 



