REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 

 IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892, 



By Frederic A. Lucas, Assistant Curator. 



The general work of the year has been, as heretofore, mainly in the 

 preparation and arrangement of osteological material, but much has 

 been accomplished for the department of vertebrate fossils, the work 

 of that department being, so far as the Museum is concerned, carried 

 on by the Department of Comparative Anatomy. 



The most important accession of the year was the skeleton of a young 

 sperm whale, obtained through the courtesy of the Life-Saving Service, 

 from the station at Green Run Inlet, Capt. J. J. Dunton, keeper. Many 

 fishes have been received from the IT. S. Fish Commission in connec- 

 tion with their work for the World's Columbian Exposition, among 

 them a fine tarpon and a specimen of the opah, Lampris lima, the 

 latter having a special value as being the first example taken near our 

 coast. From the Fish Commission also came an adult bastard logger- 

 head turtle, Colpochelys Jcempi, one of the special desiderata in this 

 department. A second skeleton of the rare fork-tailed gull, Creagrus 

 furcatus, together with other desirable skeletons of birds, was procured 

 by Mr. C. H. Townsend, of the Fish Commission steamer Albatross. 



In addition to the regular routine work a new catalogue of verte- 

 brate fossils has been commenced, and the greater part of the material 

 in that department has been recatalogued, a task that has entailed 

 much comparison of specimens with published figures, reference to 

 other catalogues, and some necessary identifications. 



This has taken a great deal of the time of the assistant curator, as, 

 owing to the smallness of the force, nearly all the work, even to its 

 simplest details, has devolved upon him. Twenty lots of recent and 

 fossil bones have been reported on, and work has been continued on 

 the synoptic exhibition series of invertebrates, both in the preparation 

 of specimens and of labels. Comparatively few additions have been 

 made to the exhibition series, as the work of the preparators has been 



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