34 REPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



USE OF THE COLLECTIONS. 



The zoological and botanical collections have been made use of to a 

 very large extent during the year by naturalists from all sections of 

 the United States. Some investigators have visited Washington for 

 this purpose, and in other cases collections have been sent out of the 

 Museum temporarily to investigators both at home and abroad. 



Among those who made use of the ornithological collections should 

 be mentioned Mr. E. W. Nelson, Mr. H. C. Oberholser, and Mr. 

 W. H. Osgood, of the Department of Agriculture; Mr. Outram Bangs, 

 of Boston, Massachusetts, and Miss Florence Merriam, of Washing- 

 ton, District of Columbia. 



Mr. Oberholser, at the request of the Museum, determined the col- 

 lections of birds recently received from Liberia, the Kameruns, 

 Madagascar, and Kashmir. The committee on nomenclature of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union spent a week in stud3nng new sub- 

 species for the purpose of determining their claims to i-ecognition. 



Frequent use was made of the collections of fishes l)y the officers of 

 the U. S. Fish Commission, especially by Doctors Evermanu, Smith, 

 and Kendall. 



Sir Charles Elliot, British commissioner to Samoa, prosecuted inves- 

 tigations on the Nudibranch mollusks. Mr. G. A. Drew, of Johns 

 Hopkins University, studied and published on the mollusks of the 

 family Ledids. 



The collections of insects have been very largely consulted by ento- 

 mologists throughout the country. 



Miss Harriet Richardson continued her studv of the isopod crusta- 

 ceans during the greater part of the year, and prepared a special 

 report on the isopods of the Pacific coast of North America, which has 

 recently been published in the Proceedings of the Museum. Mr. T. 

 Wayland Vaughan, of the U. S. Geological Survey, began an investi- 

 gation of the West Indian corals, and Dr. H. F. Moore, of the U. S. 

 Fish Commission, studied the isopod crustaceans collected bj^ the Com- 

 mission in Porto Rico. Mr. W. P. Hay assisted in determining the 

 crayfishes recently received, and described a new form of isopod from 

 a well in Irvington, Ind. 



The herbarium has received a good share of attention from bota- 

 nists. Special mention should be made of the services of Prof. E. L. 

 Greene in determining various specimens for the Museum. 



The practice of lending material for study to recognized experts not 

 residing in Washington was continued as heretofore. A large amount 

 of material was sent out, but only the principal loans can be noticed here. 



Dr. Howard Ayers, of the University of Missouri, obtained the 

 myxinoid fishes in the collection for use in connection with a mono- 

 graph of that group which he has in preparation. 



Specimens of Dinolestes, AtherinajMis, Apogon^ and Exoco&tiis were 



