REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY 



(Leonhakd Stejneger, Head Curator) 



The past year promises to open a new era in the development 

 of the divisions which deal with marine fauna, especially of the 

 deeper waters of the ocean. Thanks to Eldridge R. Johnson's 

 initiative and offer of the use of his yacht Caroline, together with 

 generous funds for its equipment for oceanographic work, the first 

 Johnson-Smithsonian Deep-Sea Expedition, under the direction of 

 Dr. Paul Bartsch, curator of mollusks, made a successful cruise of 

 exploration of the Puerto Rican Deep, which resulted in greatly 

 enriching the Museum collections, in addition to giving observations 

 bearing on biological, chemical, and physical problems of the ocean. 



Capt. G. Allan Hancock generously offered the Museum participa- 

 tion in the Hancock Galapagos expedition on the yacht Velero III 

 during a 3-months' oceanographic cruise to the Galapagos Islands 

 and the western coast of Central America. Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, 

 curator of marine invertebrates, was detailed for this service and 

 returned with much valuable material, chiefly crustacean, for the 

 Museum collections. 



ACCESSIONS FOR THE YEAR 



There were 1,200 accessions for the year with a total of 295,782 

 specimens, more than double the number received during the previ- 

 ous year. Through the two expeditions alluded to, the scientific 

 importance of the invertebrate material is probably greater than 

 that of the vertebrate, though the high scientific value of some of 

 the fish collections should be emphasized, as well as the acquisition 

 of material of various classes from French Indo-China, important 

 on account of the locality being hitherto poorly represented in the 

 Museum. Dr. Hugh M. Smith's collections of Siamese mammals, 

 birds, and mollusks maintain their standing as first-class contribu- 

 tions, and the first collections from Dr. D. C. Graham after his 

 return to his old field in China are coming up to the expectations 

 raised by previous experience. Many of the plant collections ac- 

 cessioned during the year are scientifically of a high order. 



Mammals. — The outstanding accession was the skull, with six 

 blades of baleen, of the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), col- 

 lected by J. A. Ford at Point Barrow, Alaska. This is the first 

 skull of its land to come to any museum from the Pacific side of 

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