382 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



During the greater part of the year, the west hall in the Smithsonian 

 building, assigned to this department for exhibition purposes, was used 

 for storing the general dried collection, pending the renovation of the 

 bird hall, in one of the galleries of which it is regularly kept. This 

 work being finished in the spring, the exhibition hall was again made 

 ready for the public, the cases being newly painted on the inside, and 

 the display collections re-arranged by the curator. The alcoholic speci- 

 mens in the basement store-rooms were all gone over during the year, 

 and the following groups, including both the identified and unidentified 

 specimens, were arranged in systematic order, namely: the crustaceans, 

 worms, holothunaus, ophiuraus, crinoids, hydroids, molluscoids, and 

 sponges. This places the collection in better shape for reference than 

 ever before, and the remaining groups will be taken up in the same 

 manner during the next fiscal year. The collection of duplicate speci- 

 mens was also revised and the card catalogue of the same completed. 



A collection of marine forms representing some of the investigations 

 of the Fish Commission was prepared and transmitted to the Cincinnati 

 Exposition during the summer of 1888, as a part of the exhibit accredited 

 to the Commission. It consisted mainly of large showy specimens, but 

 also contained examples of fish food and many microscopic preparations. 

 After its return to Washington, in the autumn, the more interesting por- 

 tions were added to the display series in the exhibition hall. When 

 the collections of natural history, made during the cruise of the steamer 

 Albatross from Norfolk to San Francisco, were received at Washington, 

 in the winter of 1888-89, the new Fish Commission laboratory had not 

 been constructed, and these collections were largely assorted and pre- 

 pared for study in the work-rooms of this department, with such assist- 

 ance as we were able to render. The curator has had but one assistant 

 during the year, Miss M. J. Bathbun, on whom have devolved not only 

 the care and preservation of tlie collections, but also, for the most part, 

 the general supervision of the department, and its excellent condition 

 at the present time is due chiefly to her conscientious labors. 



The Curator has given a limited amount of time to the study of the 

 Madreporarian corals, and particularly those collected by the steamer 

 Albatross in the Gulf of Mexico and on the voyage from Norfolk to San 

 Francisco. Otherwise no special researches have been carried on in the 

 department. Prof. A. E. Verrill and Prof. S. I. Smith are still con- 

 tinuing their work upon the Fish Commission collections stored at the 

 PeabodyMuseum of Yale College, the same beingnow the property of the 

 National Museum. Prof. Edwin Linton is also giving his attention to 

 the large series of internal parasites of fishes collected chiefly by him- 

 self at the Wood's Holl station of the Fish Commission. Arrangements 

 have been made with Prof. Walter Faxon, of the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to report upon the crayfishes 

 added to the department since his memoir published in 1885; and Mr. 

 J. Walter Fewkes has completed a paper on certain of the Albatross 

 medusic obtained in the region of the Gulf Stream. 



