34 KEPORT OF THE SECEETAEY. 



including many personal military relics and examples of the wearing apparel 

 and other articles of the colonial period in Maryland and New York. 



Mention may here be made of the large oil portrait of the Empress Dowager 

 of China, painted by Miss Katheriue A. Carl and presented to the United 

 States by the Government .of China, with appropriate ceremonies at the White 

 House. The picture, encased in its heavy and elaborately carved frame of 

 camphor wood, was transferred directly to the custody of the Museum and 

 temporarily installed in the lecture hall. 



About 217,538 specimens were acquired by the Department of Biology, the 

 principal increases as regards number of specimens being in the divisions of 

 Plants, Insects, and Mollusks, though in other branches the additions were not 

 less important. The Division of Mammals received large collections contain- 

 ing many novelties from Malaysia and the Philippine Islands, besides many 

 interesting specimens from southern Eui-ope, Brazil, and Japan, the Kamerun 

 district of West Africa, and Bewean Island in the Java Sea. The most impor- 

 tant additions to the Division of Birds were from the Philippine Islands, 

 Malaysia, and Costa Rica. Of reptiles, collections were obtained from Japan, 

 Formosa, the Philippine Islands, Malaysia, China, France, Switzerland, 

 Jamaica, Guatemala, and several parts of the United States. The Division of 

 Fishes received by transfer from the United States Bureau of Fisheries type 

 collections from Samoan waters and Hawaii, and a very large number of 

 specimens from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America. 



The Bureau of Fisheries was also the largest single contributor to the Divi- 

 sion of Mollusks, having transferred some 5,000 specimens from recent dredg- 

 ings of the steamer Alhat)oss on the coast of California. Other important 

 accessions comprised land and fresh-water shells from Texas, California, and 

 Montana ; about 1,500 identified specimens of Philippine shells from the collec- 

 tion of the late Herr Mollendorff, and uiany marine mollusks from Alaska. 

 While no single large collection was received by the Division of Insects, yet 

 as a whole the additions were of average importance, aggregating over 34,000 

 specimens from many parts of the world. 



The Division of Marine Invertebrates obtained from the Biu'eau of Fisheries 

 300 lots of foraminifera from the region about the Hawaiian Islands and a 

 large collection of crustaceans and samples of ocean bottom from the Albatross 

 cruise of the winter of 190-J— 5 in the eastern part of the Central Pacific. 

 The most important additions to the Helminthological Collection was a series 

 of parasites fromi Egypt. 



The past j'ear has been especially noteworthy as regards the increase of the 

 collection in the Division of Plants, the additions having been very much greater 

 than in any previous year in the history of the Museum, embracing 750 acces- 

 sions and 143,690 specimens. This was chiefly owing to the generous gift by 

 Capt. John Donnell Smith, of Baltimore, of his entire private herbarium, 

 which alone contained 100,889 specimens from different regions, but mainly 

 from tropical America. This large and valuable donation, the work of many 

 years in assembling, was accompanied by a choice botanical library of over 

 1,500 volumes. The next important contribution was by transfer from the 

 United States Department of Agi-iculture of 13,965 specimens from many parts 

 of the United States, and from Alaska, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, 

 Europe, and India. 



The Department of Geology acciuired by gift at the Louisiana Purchase Expo- 

 sition important series of ores, minerals, and economic products from Bra.zil, 

 Siam, Ceylon, Greece, and several of the States, and through other sources, 

 many interesting minerals and cut gems. 



