REPORT OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR. 63 



The most important accessions to this department in 1884 were pre- 

 sented by Tlonry Uemphill, the United States Signal Office, Dr. Leon- 

 liard Stejnejier, Uvv. 10. Lchnert, Dr. William H. Jones, U. S. N., and 



K. Ellsworth Call. 



{(/) Department of Insects. 



Trol". C V. Kiley has, as in i)revions years, voluntarily assumed the 

 care of the entomological material which has come in, and his own 

 valuable and constantly-increasing collection remains a deposit in the 

 I\liiseuin. A collection of insects injurious to forest trees, mounted in 

 Museum cases, in the style which it is proposed by Professor Riley to 

 adoi)t in the arrangement of our exhibition series when the opportunity 

 conies, was sent to the International Forestry Exhibition in Edinburgh 

 and received a gold medal. Fifty-five accession lots were received 

 during the year, the nfost valuable being the collection made by L. M. 

 Turner, at Ungava Bay, H. B. T. 



There were o5 accessions to this department during the year, of which 

 the collections made by Mr. Lucien M. Turner is perhaps the most val- 

 uable. 



The curator was cnlled n])on by the Department of Agriculture to pre- 

 pare an exhibit for the New Orleans Exposition, and it was agreed that 

 upon the return of this exhibit to Washington it should be incorporated 

 with the Museum collections. It is hoped that the financial condition 

 of the Museum will soon warrant the placing of this very important and 

 long-neglected department upon a footing of equality with the others. 



(//) Department of Marine Invertebrates.* 



In the Department of Marine Invertebrates, exclusive of the moUusca, 

 under the charge of Mr. Kathbun, 240 cases or specimens, enumerated 

 in 72 accessions, have been added during the year. Of these, the most 

 important have been received from the United States Fish Commission, 

 from Dr. Edward Palmer, a colle<5tor emploj^ed in the interest of the 

 New Orleans Exhibition, and from various naval sources. The Fish 

 Commission collections are mainly illustrative of the recent deep-sea 

 explorations of the steamer Albatross, off the eastern coast of the United 

 States, and in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and contain many 

 new additions to science, which have been worked up only in i)art. They 

 fill several thousand jars aiul vials. The collection of Dr. Palmer was 

 made for the purpose of rei)resenting, at the World's Fair in New 

 Orleans, the varied animal resources of the coral reef and sponge re- 

 gions of southern and western Florida. It consists for the most part 

 of finely prepared specimens of commercial and other sponges, orna- 

 mental corals, and the larger sjjccies of crustaceans and niollnsks used 

 as food, and lequired 05 large shipping cases to transjjort it to Wash- 

 ington. Supplemental to this is an extensive collection made by Mr. 

 Henry Hemphill on the western coast of Florida. 



* Exclusive of the mollusca. 



