190 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



June 2, 1886. Coleoptera (25 species), luiLued for George F. Curtiss, 

 Boston, Mass. 



Juue 30, 1880. Coleoptera (IG species), lor Charles W. Leiig, New 

 York City. 



Juue 30, 1886. Lepidoptera (38 species), for William H. Ashmead, 

 Jacksonville, Fla. 



No attempt lias yet been made to carry on a definite system of ex- 

 changes, as this can only be done to advantage when once the study 

 collection in any order, or more limited group, has been fully re- 

 arranged, when our own desiderata and the duplicates we have to spare 

 in exchange can be fully ascertained. A great deal of good duplicate 

 and exchange material has already been separated, and I hojie to make 

 use of it in the near future. 



Prior to the time when I was placed in charge of the department 

 a very large amount of alcoholic material of all kinds had accumu- 

 lated, some of it ten, fifteen, or twenty years old. Much of it had been 

 soaking, uuprotitably, in the Department of Agriculture, but a good 

 deal Avas from time to time discovered in the basement of the Smith- 

 sonian. The examination of this material and the mounting and pres- 

 ervation of the useful or well i^reserved specimens required fully three 

 months of steady labor, resulting in a weeding out of useless and cum- 

 bersome material, and an arrangement or classification of that part of 

 the material which for any reason it was deemed advisable to pre- 

 serve. Some of this material was labeled with accession numbers 

 \Ahich, so far as could be ascertained, bore no relation to the present 

 system of accession records, and were consequently of little value. A 

 list has, however, been kept of all material thrown away. It consists 

 chiefly of the larger Myriapods and Arachnids many times multiplied 

 and unfit for use. The discovery that among this old material there were 

 some lyi)ical specimens of scorpions led to a close examination of this 

 part of the collection, and a fine series of scorpions has been selected 

 and arranged. There are still many undetermined specimens, and it is 

 probable that new species will be found among them. Dr. George Marx 

 has promised to study and report ui)on them. 



The principal routine work of the year has been on the exhibit col 

 lection. The material from the Kew Orleans exposition which, as 

 stated in my last year's report, had arrived in fairly good condition, has 

 been put in place, as also the exhibit of forest tree insects which I 

 prepared for the International Forestry Exhibit at Edinburgh in 1881. 

 The additional work done on this exhibit collection is indicated in the 

 collections. The most noteworthy are the cases illustrative of the gen- 

 eral classification of Arthropods and those devoted to a more full ex- 

 position of the classification of the order Lepidoptera. A series of 

 fifty-six framed pictures representing various kinds of machinery or 

 preparations for destroying insects Avas prepared and placed on exhi- 

 bition, and a further series of thirty pictures, representing methods of 



