134 AOOnJAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



Dr. Robert Zanes Brown, of Johns Hopkins University, spent 6 

 weeks on the island, accompanied by Mrs. Brown as assistant. His 

 main objectives were to obtain additional ecological data on army 

 ants for Dr. T. C. Schneirla, of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, and to locate and check up on the 18 queens of Eciton hama- 

 tum and 9 of E. burchelli that he marked and left with their colonies in 

 the 1948 dry season. He not only found the marked queens but was 

 able to follow their movements day by day. Dr. Brown is also inter- 

 ested in mammalian ecology, and, having the opportunity to see more 

 of the island and its life than he was able to during his 1948 visit, he 

 made valuable observations on population numbers and behavior. 



Dr. A. M. Chickering, of Albion College, Albion, Mich., returned 

 to continue his exhaustive studies on the spiders of the island. Canal 

 Zone, and Panama. This is his fifth visit. He has published 15 

 papers on spiders of the region, the one on the salticids alone number- 

 ing 474 pages. His estimate of the number of species of spiders on 

 Barro Colorado Island is 1,200. 



Dr. Per Host, of Norway, returned to the island to continue his 

 studies of the birds and mammals, as well as the general forest. With 

 his special photographic equipment he made additional motion pic- 

 tures and stills, in black-and-white and color. He also made many 

 wire sound recordings of the voices of the jungle. In addition to his 

 island studies, he revisited the Choc6 Indians of Dari^n and the Cunas 

 of San Bias and made photographic records and sound recordings of 

 the songs, chants, and language. These records, being the only ones 

 in existence, will become increasingly valuable as the customs and 

 language of these Indians are lost through the encroachments of 

 civilization. 



Dr. Eugene Eisenmann, of New York City, continued his study of 

 the birds of the region, with which he is unusually familiar. From 

 the island records he has prepared a list of all the bu'ds known from 

 the island and has added many species to it himself. 



Scott Seegers, of McLean, Va., and Mrs. Seegers, spent a few 

 weeks on the island to obtain first-hand information on the plants 

 and animals, and to consult published papers on studies made there, 

 in connection with the preparation of an article. 



Dr. Lawrence Kilham, Microbiological Institute, Laboratory of 

 Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, spent 4 days on 

 the island, primarily to study the birds, and subsequently the mam- 

 mals. His 12-page report is replete with careful observations and 

 comparisons with conditions and the biota of Northeast Greenland. 

 The number of birds he saw on the island was far beyond his expecta- 

 tion. Of the mammals he records howler monkeys (infested with 



