REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 37 



Mr. William H.Holmes, Honorarj Curator, regards tin- latter col- 

 lection as one of the most important yet received from the Gulf coast. 



.Mr. Holmes has found time to make a study of the pottery of tin- 

 Potomac tide-water region during the year, and lias prepared a paper 

 upon this subject, which will appear in the "American Anthropologist." 



Tbe number of specimens added to the collection during the year is 

 1,100, necessitating 634 entries in the catalogue. 



The Forestry Collection. — This section was established in April, 1889. 

 Dr. B. E. Fernow, chief of the Forestry Division in the Department of 

 Agriculture, has been appointed Honorary Curator. It has not been 

 possible to accomplish very much during the three months of the 

 existence of this section before the close of the fiscal year, but Dr. Fer- 

 now has submitted a report,* in which he gives a brief outline of the 

 scope of the collection which he hopes to make, aud of the manner in 

 which it may best be classified. A series of pictures illustrating the 

 work of the French Forest Administration, and other objects, have 

 already been placed on exhibition on a panel 14 by 12 feet. The Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture has expressed his interest iu the formation of this 

 collection, and the Smithsonian Institution is greatly indebted to him 

 for his co-operation in this branch of the Museum work. 



Department of Mammals. — Special attention has been given in this 

 department to providing better storage facilities for the study series 

 of specimens, which has been largely increased by the collection of 

 North American mammals deposited in the Museum by the Division 

 of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy in the Department of Agri- 

 culture. Groups of prairie-dogs and opossums have been mounted for 

 exhibition and placed in new cases of special design. 



The following contributors are mentioned in Mr. True's report as 

 having presented material of especial value to the collection: Mr. 

 William Wittfield, who presented two specimens of the Florida musk 

 rat, Neofiber alleni; Mr. Loren W. Green, from whom was received a 

 series of skins of the northern variety of Tamias striatus; Dr. R. W. 

 Shufjjldt, who presented a. specimen of Hesperomys truei ; Mr. -lames (i. 

 Swan, from whom was received a specimen of Vespertilio longicrus. 

 Dr. Arthur Edwin Brown, of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 

 contributed a small deer, probably of the species Cariacus gymnotus. 

 The skin of a full-grown moose was obtained by Col. Cecil Clay for the 

 Museum. Several exotic mammals were also secured by gift and pur- 

 chase. Capt. J. L. Gaskell, keeper of the life-saving station at 

 Atlantic City, forwarded to the Museum a specimen of Sowerby's 

 whale, Mesoplodon bidens. Mr. True states in his report that this is the 

 second specimen ever taken in American waters, and is the first fresh 

 specimen ever seen by American naturalists. A few South American 

 mammals were obtained by the naturalists of the 0". S. Pish Commis- 

 sion steamer Albatross. The most important were the skeleton of a 



"See Section n. 



