KEPORT OF THE SECRETARY 19 



Cast of a Neanderthal child skull from Uzbekistan, a neolithic skull 

 from Siberia, 8 trephined skulls from Peru, and casts of upper paleo- 

 lithic crania from the Choukoutien caves near Peiping, China. 



Biology. — A total of 168,673 biological specimens were accessioned 

 during the year, a number less than last year owing presumably to the 

 disturbed condition of the world. Important mammalian material 

 consisted of 8 Weddell and 2 crab-eating seals and 1 leopard-seal 

 skull from the Antarctic, several cetacean skulls and fetuses from 

 Alaska and the Antarctic, 101 bats from Mexico and Guatemala, 10 

 mammals from the Smithsonian-Firestone Expedition to Liberia, and 

 many small mammals collected from North Carolina, District of Co- 

 lumbia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. The George S. Huntington 

 collection of nonhuman skeletons was transferred from the Army 

 Medical Museum. 



Avian accessions from Veracruz and Indochina were outstanding. 

 Over 1,000 bird specimens resulted from the field work conducted by 

 the Museum in North Carolina. Other lots were representative of 

 Italian, Chilean, Paraguayan, Antarctic, and Samoan forms. 



Large collections of reptiles and amphibians were made in Mexico 

 by Dr. Hobart M. Smith under the Walter Rathbone Bacon traveling 

 scholarship of the Smithsonian Institution. Forty-one specimens 

 from Liberia were sent by Dr. W. M. Mann from the Smithsonian- 

 Firestone Expedition; 240 Maryland reptiles and amphibians were 

 donated; and an important lot of Jamaican and Cayman Island 

 material was purchased. 



The most noteworthy ichthyological addition consisted of 14,000 

 fishes collected by Curator Leonard P. Schultz as a member of the 

 Navy Surveying Expedition to the Phoenix and Samoan Islands in 

 1939. Dr. W. M. Mann forwarded 462 fishes collected at Gibi Moun- 

 tain, Liberia. A large nmnber of paratypes of fishes was received in 

 exchange from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the 

 Bernice P. Bishop Museum at Honolulu, the Field Museiun of Natural 

 History at Chicago, and the British Museum of Natural History. 



In insects several large collections were added : The E. D. Ball col- 

 lection of approximately 75,000 specimens of Hemiptera ; about 63,000 

 miscellaneous insects transferred from the Bureau of Entomology and 

 Plant Quarantine, and 20,000 more received directly by specialists or 

 additions resulting from collecting trips; about 30,000 specimens of 

 mites (on 3,000 slides) from the collections of the late A. P. Jacot, 

 transferred from the Forest Service; 6,000 Chinese insects from Dr. 

 D. C. Graham ; and an important collection of about 2,000 coccinellid 

 beetles of the genus Hi'p'podaniia from the distinguished coleopterist 

 Prof. Th. Dobzhansky. 



280256—41 3 



