224 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



(d) WORK ON EXHIBITION SERIES. 



Owing to the fact that access to the exhibition collection has been, 

 during the entire year, practically cut off by the transfer of the Smith- 

 sonian offices to the main hall, no work of any consequence has been 

 done on the exhibition series. About 300 specimens have been mounted 

 during the year, and these have, when possible, been placed in the 

 cases where they properly belong, but many of them have been tem- 

 porarily arranged in cases in the southwest gallery. The accessions 

 include many birds of great interest, among which may be mentioned 

 the type specimen of Wurdemann's heron (Ardea wurdemanni), a fine 

 adult of the great white heron (Ardea occidentalis), a fine adult female 

 of the American flamingo, the type specimen of a supposed new sea 

 eagle from the Commander Islands (Raliaetus hypoleucus Stejneger), a 

 fine series of pheasants and other Japanese birds, collected by Mr. P. L. 

 Jouy, and other interesting specimens, too numerous to mention. 



Bibliography of publications based upon Museum material. 



See Bibliographical Appendix, under the names of L. Belding (4), 

 William Brewster (2), Elliott Coues (2), Pierre Louis Jouy (1), Eobert 

 Bidgway (7), Howard Saunders (1), P. L. Sclater (2), and Leonhard 

 Stejneger (2). 



The total number of papers published is 31 ; the number by each 

 writer is indicated by the figures in parentheses following the names in 

 the above enumeration. 



Present state of collections. 



The present state of the collections is first class, except in the case of the 

 duplicate collection, which is chiefly included within cases affording no 

 protection from insects, but partly packed in large boxes, and thus very 

 inconvenient of access when exchanges are to be made. That portion 

 accommodated in the unsuitable cases above mentioned requires con- 

 stant watching and frequent use of bisulphide of carbon, a very efficient 

 insecticide when put in tightly closed drawers or cases, but of only tem- 

 porary utility in open receptacles, on account of its rapid evaporation. 

 The exhibition collection is also in constant peril, the cases being in 

 every respect unsuitable for the safe keeping of specimens. It is, in 

 fact, a great risk to put valuable specimens inside of them. 



Number of specimens in the collection. 



It is impossible to give at the present time an exact statement of the 

 number of specimens in the several series of the collection, which would 

 require a special inventory. The approximate total can however be 

 ascertained by simply adding to that existing at the end of the year 1882 

 the number of specimens catalogued in 1883, and subtracting therefrom 

 those distributed. This gives a total of 47,216 specimens to December 



