20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 39 



at the White House, was received by transfer. The division of phys- 

 ical anthropoloiry received important material from sites in the Poto- 

 mac River Valley, Alaska, and Georgia. An outstanding gift was 

 received from the National Geological Survey of China — a set of 

 casts representing the remains of the fossil ape man Sinanthropus. 



Biology. — More than 318,000 biological specimens were accessioned 

 during the year. Important marine-mammal material received, 

 which was obtained through the cooperation of the United States 

 Coast Guard, included two complete sets each of whalebone from the 

 Australian and the Alaskan humpback whales; seven fetal skulls of 

 blue whales and finbacks; a pair of lower jaws measuring 24 feet 

 long and weighing a ton each, from a 92-foot Antarctic blue whale; 

 and 13 skulls and skeletons of narwhals, walruses, seals, and por- 

 poises from the 1938 Bartlett Greenland expedition. Many repre- 

 sentative series of land mammals were also added, mostly from 

 Africa, India, British Columbia, and the Southeastern United States. 



Important avian accessions included birds collected in Veracruz 

 by Dr. Alexander Wetmore, a collection of over 3,000 skins made 

 by the late Dr. Stuart T. Danforth, about 1,050 birds from Kentucky 

 collected for the Museum by W. M. Perry go and associates, and 35 

 birds from Clijiperton Island taken during the Presidential cruise 

 of 1938. 



Large increase in the Museum's herpetological series resulted from 

 extensive collections made in Mexico by Dr. Hobart M. Smith, pres- 

 ent incumbent under the Walter Eathbone Bacon traveling scholar- 

 ship of the Smithsonian Institution. Another valuable collection 

 of reptiles and amphibians received was made by Dr. W. Gardner 

 Lynn in Jamaica. More than 3,200 fishes, mostly from Panama 

 and Nicaragua, and including many holotypes and paratypes, were 

 transferred from the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and 4,600 

 from the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Presidential cruise 

 yielded 242 fishes from the Galapagos region. In addition. Dr. 

 L. P. Schultz and E. D. Reid collected nearly 6,500 fishes in ; Vir- 

 ginia for the Museum. Other valuable ichthyological specimens 

 came from the International Fisheries Commission, the Bass Bio- 

 logical Laboratory, the British Museum, and the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia. 



The more important accessions of insects include the following: 

 The Blackmore collection of Lepidoptera comprising about 7,000 

 specimens, of which 2,100 were recorded last year; about 600 South 

 American insects collected by Edward Brundage; 75,000 miscel- 

 laneous insects transferred from the United States Bureau of Ento- 

 mology and Plant Quarantine; the Charles R. Ely collection of 

 Microlepidoptera — 2,600 pinned specimens and 400 slides; a coUec- 



