SECRETARY'S REPORT 21 



Oil mountain shoulders around the valley. The field studies terminated 

 at the beginning of April, when administrative matters recalled Dr. 

 Wetmore to Washington. 



Under the income of the W. L. Abbott fund, M. A. Carriker, Jr., 

 continued ornithological collections in northern Colombia from De- 

 cember to the end of the fiscal year. The work this season extended 

 into the difficult and poorly known area of the western slopes of the 

 Choco in the northwestern part of the country. From Buenaventura 

 Mr. Carriker went to the lower Rio San Juan where he made important 

 collections at Punto Muchimbo. On January 19 he moved to Nuqui, on 

 the Pacific coast at the mouth of the Rio Nuqui, and later continued 

 inland to a base at the highest point to be reached by canoe travel 

 in the foothills of the Baudo Mountains. His collections covered the 

 area from the river to the crest of the range. Maps of the region are 

 incorrect, as the altitudes are lower than recorded and the summit is 

 a narrow steep-sided ridge without extensive level ground. In March 

 Mr. Carriker traveled farther north to Jurubida where again he lo- 

 cated inland at the end of canoe navigation whence he had access to 

 the Baudo range. The work here terminated early in April, and the 

 party returned to Medellin. The latter part of the season was devoted 

 to the region in the vicinity of Sonson near the Rio Magdalena. The 

 collections made this year represent more than 400 species of birds, a 

 number of forms being new to the National Museum series. 



Grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, and special research funds of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution enabled Dr. Herbert Friedmann to devote 5 months to a study 

 of the habits and life histories of the honey-guides and parasitic 

 weaverbirds in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. At the request 

 of the U. S. Army Medical Department Graduate School, Dr. David 

 H. Johnson was detailed to accompany a medical research unit en- 

 gaged in an intensive study of the mammalian and other hosts involved 

 in the transmission of scrub typhus, and part, at least, of this field 

 study will be carried on in the vicinity of Mount Kinabalu, British 

 North Borneo. Under a cooperative arrangement with the Office of 

 Naval Research, Dr. Henry W. Seizor departed from Washington for 

 the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow, Alaska, on June 3 

 to make an ecological survey during the summer months of the mam- 

 mals inhabiting the Arctic slope of Alaska. O. L. Cartwright made an 

 intensive study of the insect fauna in the vicinity of the Inter- Amer- 

 ican Institute at Turrialba, Costa Rica. 



During March and April, C. V. Morton was the guest of the Escuela 

 Agricola Panamericana, of the United Fruit Co., located at 

 El Zamorano in a mountahi valley some 25 miles from Tegucigalpa, 

 Honduras. Collecting trips for ferns were made to the cloud forest 



