REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 59 



IJasin. Ill all, upward of 0,000 specimens wew added to the collec- 

 tion during- the year. 



Old and recent collections of Japanese and Chinese fishes, not in- 

 stalled with the general collections, as well as collections made hy the 

 Albatross and from other sources, in the West Indies and around the 

 coasts of Florida, have been given a temporary place in the basement 

 storage rooms. Duplicates from the deep sea collections have been 

 l^rovided with metal tags and numbered, the species being separated 

 in jars systematically arranged. Several large collections have been 

 catalogued, including some resulting from the dredgings of the Alba- 

 tross in the Pacific Ocean, and received during the previous year. 

 Perhaps the most important work has been the vselection and arrange- 

 ment of the deep sea material with a view to the preparation of the 

 duplicates into sets for distribution to educational establishments. By 

 this process of elimination the study series is now in a much more sat- 

 isfactory condition. This series has also been improved by the acces- 

 sion of new and well preserved material, including a number of types 

 of new and rare forms. 



No special change has been effected in the exhibition series, which 

 consists of five cases of casts of fishes, exhibited in the west hall of 

 the Smithsonian building, and a large number of casts placed on the 

 tops of cases containing corals, besides two cases of alcoholic speci- 

 mens preserved in rectangular jars. 



Mr. Bean has i^repared a list of the European fishes in the collec- 

 tions, and a list of the types of fishes i^reserved in the collections is 

 now receiving his attention. Dr. Theodore Gill has examined a num- 

 ber of Enropean fishes. Work upon the deep-sea fishes has been con- 

 tinued by the Assistant Secretary and Dr. Bean, in connection with the 

 preparation of Special Bulletin No. 2, "Oceanic Ichthyology." The 

 assistant curator and Mr. B. W. Evermaun, of the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion, have in preparation a bibliographical list of the fishes recorded 

 from the fresh waters of North America north of the United States. 



Accessions of fishes resulted from the work of field parties of the 

 Department of Agriculture in the Death Valley and in Mexico, the 

 United States and Mexican Boundary Survey in California, and the ex- 

 plorations of Messrs. Scovell and Woolman in Mexico in 1801. In addi- 

 tion, collections were made in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence 

 River during July and August, 1S94; also in Lake Champlain and in 

 various streams of northeastern New York, by Messrs. Evermann, 

 B. A. Bean, and others, under the auspices of the U. S. Fish Commission. 

 These will be added to the Museum collections after examination. 



Material from this department has been lent to several specialists to 

 aid them m their researches, and four collaborators of the Museum 

 have studied the collections in the building. 



Twelve ])apers, based wholly or in part on the collections, have been 

 published during the year. The authors were Dr. G. Brown Goode, 



