REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 



63 



scientific staff in making these identifications is necessarily very great, 

 and has proved especially so in the Divisions of Insects and (reology. 

 Many requests for technical information are received daily. When 

 these relate to subjects coming within the scope of the activities of the 

 Museum, as is very generally the case, they are promptly complied 

 with, though the public little realizes the amount of work which this 

 involves. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



The publications of the Museum issued and distributed during the 

 year Avere the Annual Report for 1890, together with the separates of 

 the several papers composing the appendix to the same; completed 

 volume 20 of the Proceedings (issued in August, 1898); the separate 

 editions of papers numbered from 1140 to 1178, inclusive, constituting 

 volume 21 of the Proceedings; and parts 2 and 8 of Bulletin 47, entitled 

 The Fishes of North and Middle America, by Drs. David Starr Jor- 

 dan and Barton Warren Evermann. Part 4 of this Bulletin, an atlas 

 of plates of fishes, is well under way. 



The Annual Report for 1897 will be in two volumes, the second 

 volume being in the nature of a memorial to the late assistant secre- 

 tary. Dr. George Brown Goode. The proof reading of the first vol- 

 ume has been finished. The second volume and the Annual Report 

 for 1898 are both in the printer's hands. 



The Bibliography, forming Appendix IV of this volume, contains 

 a list of all papers based upon Museum material which have been 

 published during the year. The number of authors represented is 75 

 and the total number of titles given 318. The following table classi- 

 fies these papers in accordance with the subjects treated: 



Subject. 



Administration 



Archaeology 



Biography 



Birds 



Botany 



Comparative anatomy 



Ethnology 



Fishes 



Fossils 



General natural history .. 



Geology 



Insects 



Mammals 



Marine invertebrates 



Minerals 



MoUusks 



Reptiles and batrachians. 

 Miscellaneous 



Total , 



Papers by 

 Museum 

 officers. 



Papers by 

 other 

 investi- 

 gators. 



5 



122 



16 



3 



Total. 



3 

 6 

 1 



46 



10 



2 



6 



10 



18 



2 



8 



153 



17 



10 



1 



13 

 10 

 2 



318 



