10 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



Pamphlets have been issued from time to time descriptive of some 

 of the new or specially interesting forms of animals and plants col- 

 lected by the survey, and as soon as the mass of material has been 

 worked up it is proposed to publish general accounts of all the vari- 

 ous collections, and also one or more volumes containing a summary 

 of the whole fauna and flora of the Canal Zone. 



As an indication of the biological value of the survey of the zone 

 I may mention that of grasses alone about 150 species were collected, 

 being four to five times as many as were previously known from that 

 region. In the collections of birds and mammals there are likewise 

 many forms new to science. 



SIBERIAN EXPEDITION. 



Through the liberality of a friend, Mr. Theodore Lyman, of Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., the Institution has been enabled to participate in a 

 zoological expedition to the Altai Mountain region of the Siberia- 

 Mongolian border. Central Asia, an exceedingly interesting territory, 

 from which the National Museum at present has no collections. A 

 Museum naturalist was detailed to accompany him, the expenses of 

 the expedition being borne by Mr. Lyman, and the natural-history 

 collections obtained to be deposited in the National Museum. Al- 

 though this expedition had not completed its work at the close of the 

 fiscal year, yet I may here anticipate some of its results by stating 

 that the Museimi will probably be enriched by a large num.ber of 

 interesting specimens of birds and mammals. 



The scene of the survey and exploration, the Altai Mountain re- 

 gion, is a particularly wild country and quite unsettled, although it 

 is well stocked with game. These mountains are inhabited by the 

 largest of the wild sheep, which, with the ibex, will form the prin- 

 cipal big game animals sought by the party, but a general collection 

 of smaller mammals and of birds will also be made. 



BORNEO EXPEDITION. 



For more than 10 years past Dr. W. L. Abbott, of Philadelphia, has 

 been exploring the Malay Archipelago and has given all his natural- 

 history and ethnological collections to the Smithsonian Institution 

 for the LTnited States National Museum. These collections, so far as 

 the vertebrates are concerned, are the most important ever received 

 by the ]\Iuseum from any one person. Through illness, Dr. Abbott 

 has been obliged to abandon his exploration, but his interest in the 

 Institution has not abated. He has engaged the services of a col- 

 lector and placed at the disposal of the Institution funds for 

 continuing the explorations he had begun in Borneo. 



The field work will be carried on in eastern Dutch Borneo, the 

 natural histor}' of which is practically unlmown. Nothing relating 



