20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



covered previously, obtaining 1,758 bird skins; Salim Ali of Bombay 

 collecting birds in Gujerat and other areas in India, supplementing 

 the work of the Smithsonian-Yale University Expedition to India 

 and obtaining 556 birds; and Dr. A. Wetmore and W. M. Perrygo 

 making a rather short trip to the interior of Darien, Panama, and 

 returning with 453 bird skins, beautifully supplementing collections 

 made last year by the same collectors in adjacent areas. 



The Smithsonian Institution-Yale University Expedition to India 

 under the direction of S. Dillon Ripley, assisted by E. C. Migdalski, 

 spent 6 months in various parts of India and in Nepal and made a 

 collection of approximately 1,500 birds, which added very signifi- 

 cantly to the Museum's resources in the Asiatic field and will be of 

 great scientific value as much of it comes from old classical type locali- 

 ties. 



Foster D. Smith, of the Socony Oil Co., Caracas, Venezuela, returned 

 to Venezuela early in the fiscal year and will again collect birds for 

 the Museum as time and opportunity allow ; no reports regarding his 

 present efforts have yet been received. 



Locally, in connection with a biological survey of the Patuxent Re- 

 search Refuge maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service, Emery 

 C. Leonard, associate curator of plants, carried on field work on the 

 lower cryptogams, spending 6 days on the project and collecting about 

 800 specimens. This work will be continued during the coming year, 

 the collections to serve as a basis for a report on the cryptogamic flora 

 of the refuge. During August 1946, Drs. Remington Kellogg and 

 David H. Johnson, the curator and the associate curator, division of 

 mammals, collected fossil cetacean material from the Miocene beds at 

 Scientists' Cliffs, Calvert County, Md. Paul S. Conger, associate cura- 

 tor, section of diatoms, spent 2 months at the Chesapeake Biological 

 Laboratory, Solomons, Md., continuing a survey of the Chesapeake Bay 

 diatoms, certain experiments on the growth of single diatoms under 

 natural conditions, and a study of diatoms as oyster food. In order 

 to secure material for the rearing of Hemiptera for the purpose of trac- 

 ing the development of structures useful in taxonomy and in the deter- 

 mination of phylogenetic relationships, W. E. Hoffmann, associate cur- 

 ator, division of insects, carried on considerable field work in and about 

 the city of Washington. 



The first field expedition of the year in the division of invertebrate 

 paleontology and paleobotany was carried on by Curator G. A. Cooper, 

 during the three summer months, in company with Dr. P. E. Cloud, 

 Jr., of Harvard University. Several days at Batesville, Ark., yielded 

 excellent Silurian and Mississippian fossils. After a short time at 

 Muskogee, Okla., collecting Mississippian fossils, the party journeyed 

 to Marathon, Tex., where some 10 days were spent in getting out blocks 



