REPORT OF THE SI^CRETARY. 41 



for more s[).ace is especially loud from the oruitliologisis, who miglit 

 readily fill it with material suitable for exhibition. 



V (B). Department of Ooloijy. — Tlie collection of egj^s and uests of 

 birds has been under the honorary curatorshij) of Capt. Charles E. 

 Beudire, U. S. Army, and very much has been accomplished during the 

 year in its classification and arrangement. The total number of speci- 

 mens added is 2,55G in 253 lots, and there are now more than 44,000 speci- 

 mens in the collection, of which 1,491 arc in the exhibition and 31,124 

 in the reserve collection, the remainder having been set aside as dupli- 

 cates. The most important accession of the year was obtained in ex- 

 change from Capt. B. F. Goss, of Pewaukee, Wis., G41 specimens. 111 

 species. Captain Bendire has continued his own gifts to the Museum. 

 Another important accession is the collection obtained by tha Albatross 

 in the Bahamas in ISSO. The oological collections are arranged in an 

 inconvenient apartment in the I\luseum, and, if sjiace allowed, should 

 be assigned an apartment at least twice as large, in ])roximity to the 

 ornithological collections. 



YI. Department of Eeptile.^, — The department has continued under the 

 honorary curatorship of Dr. II. C. Yarrow. The collections are massed 

 together in a small basement room, and a series of painted casts of the 

 largest species of snakes and turtles of IsTorth America is the only por- 

 tion of the collection displayed to the public. This collection is ex- 

 ceedingly ricl), nearly every species of North American reptiles and batra- 

 chians being included, and the total number of specimens being estimated 

 at 25,334. An exhibition series of 750 specimens has been selected, but 

 there is no room for its display. Dui-ing the year Prof K. I). Cope, of 

 Philadelphia, who has been occupied, under the direction of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, in the preparation of a report upon the reptiles of 

 North America, has completed the identification of the Museum collec- 

 tion of batrachians, and has identified and described in Museum pub- 

 lications collections made by the various corresiiondents of the Museum 

 in Mexico and Central and South America. 



YII. Department of Fishes. — In no department of the Museum perhajis 

 is there so great a discrepancy between the extent of the collections 

 and the amount of space available for their administration, and the 

 progress toward an ideally satisfactory arrangement is therefore greatly 

 retarded. Good progress has been made during the year, however, and 

 the curator, Dr. T. IT. Bean, reports that all the material under his charge, 

 except recent collections made by the U. S. Pish Commission in tlie 

 deep-sea regions of the Atlantic, has been catalogued, the total number 

 of entries at the end of the year being 37,893, of which G62 have been 

 made during the yeai . The work of preparing illustrations of the most 

 important of the American species has been carried forward l)y tlie cura- 

 tor, and drawings of 7S species have been made. 



