RiEPORT ON NATIONAL MtfSEUM. 139 



of fishes made at Johnston's Island, Pacific Ocean, and Mr. Swain pre- 

 pared i^apers on Syngnathince and Stolephorus. 



As in years past, the curator of this department has acted as editor 

 of the "Proceedings" and "Bulletins" of the United States National 

 Museum, also performed the duties of editor of the Fish Commission 

 Bulletins until April 1882, at which date this work was transferred to 

 Mr. C. W. Smiley, of the Fish Commission. 



DEPARTMENT OF MOLLUSKS. 



Mr. William H. Dall, of the United States Coast Survey, has continued 

 his voluntary supervision of this department. No assistants, however, 

 having been assigned to him this year, and his own time having been 

 largely occupied by his oflElcial duties elsewhere, including an investi- 

 gation of the deep-sea mollusks collected by Mr. Alexander Agassiz on 

 the Blal-e, little has been done on the general collections, which are 

 in the main stored in the drawers of the table cases in the main Smith- 

 sonian hall and its galleries. The mollusk laboratory on the fourth 

 floor of the main central tower of the Smithsonian building has, how- 

 ever, been entirely refitted and refurnished, and is now the most com- 

 pletely equipped of all the special laboratories. A great quantity of 

 material belonging to this department, including the Binney collection, 

 the collection of freshwater shells identified and labeled by Mr. 

 James Lewis, and that portion of the collection labeled by Mr. Eobert 

 E. C. Stearns, which has already been received, together with many 

 other valuable lots, is stored in packing-boxes in the general storage 

 room in the central basement of the Smithsonian building. During the 

 year the boxes containing mollusks have been separated from the others 

 in storage and have been included in the card catalogue of the storage 

 rooms prepared by the registrar. Our collection of mollusks is exceed- 

 ingly rich, and it is hoped that during the present year steps may be 

 taken toward its final arrangement. Mr. E. E. C. Stearns, of Berkeley, 

 CaL, who had been expected to assume the curatorship, has hitherto been 

 prevented by ill health. Mr. Dall in his report for the year presents a 

 history of the department and suggestions for its administration, which 

 it seems desirable to place on record : 



The collection of the mollusca has suffered many vicissitudes in the past. It is 

 about eighteen years since I first became interested in the mollusk collection of the 

 Institution. It is about fourteen years since I first took charge of it, and my connec- 

 tion with the duties of the position has been (except during about fourteen months 

 in 1870-71) that of a volunteer -worker, struggling to keep from deterioration a val- 

 uable typical collection, without clerical assistance, without any of the mechanical 

 aids to labor employed in all museums of equal importance, without any regular al- 

 lowance whatever for the needs of the department, with a building and cases which 

 rendered the work of preservation more than ordinarily difficult, and with the ne- 

 cessity of supporting myself by other work which occupied nearly all the ordinary 

 workiiag-hours of the day. It is obvious that under such circumstances the curator 

 vrho succeeded in making any impression on the material which was added from 



