86 EEPORT OP THE SECRETAKY. 



Dr. F. y. Coville, while engaged in field work Tor the Department of Agricul- 

 ture in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, obtained many plants which have 

 since been transferred to the Museum, and Prof. O. F. Cook made botanical 

 collections in Guatemala." Mr. W. R. Maxon was in Jamaica during the first 

 part of the year, and later, accompanied by Mr. Robert Hay, in Guatemala under 

 detail to the Department of Agriculture. In June, 1905, Dr. J. N. Rose, with 

 Mr. Joseph H. Painter, left on a collecting trip to Mexico, which will be con- 

 tinued during the summer. 



The Department of Geology was enriched from several localities through 

 cooperative work with the United States Geological Survey, participated in by Dr. 

 George P. Merrill, and Dr. R. S. Bassler ; and in June Mr. Charles W. Gilmore 

 accompanied one of the field parties of the Survey to New Mexico, where he ob- 

 tained a small but interesting series of fossil vertebrates. 



Researches. — The classified arrangement of the collections prescribed by 

 law calls for a large amount of research work in the study and naming of speci- 

 mens, although a greater or less proportion of the material received has already 

 been identified. A full compliance with this requirement has at no time been 

 possible, since the attention of the scientific stafi: on its past and present basis 

 has been mainly absorbed in the mere care and preservation of the collections, 

 and the maintenance of the exhibition featui'es. Much help is obtained, how- 

 ever, from the scientific men of other institutions, many of whom are interested 

 in one or other of the subjects represented in the Museum, and they may visit 

 Washington or have collections sent to them for the purposes of investigation. 

 The results of most of the inquiries conducted in the Museum laboratories are 

 only indicated in the manuscript records, which are virtually a descriptive 

 history of the national collections, constantly in progress, but the working up of 

 a collection from any particular locality or region, or of a group of objects, 

 large or small, may lead to a positive contribution to knowledge, meriting dis- 

 semination through the medium of publication. Some of the more important 

 investigations of the past year, both by assistants of the Sluseum and by others, 

 have been as follows : 



In the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Walter Hough began a detailed 

 study of the very extensive Piieblo collections, continued his observations upon 

 the primitive uses of fire, and nearly completed a report on the Hopi Indians 

 of Arizona. The collections in archeology were utilized by Mr. W. H. Holmes 

 in preparing subjects and illustrations for the Handbook of North American 

 Indians and by Dr. J. W. Fewkes in working up the results of his recent 

 archeological explorations in the Antilliau region. Several lines of research 

 in physical anthropology occupied the attention of Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, and a 

 paper descriptive of the Howland loan collection of Buddhist religious art 

 was written by Dr. I. M. Casanowicz. 



In the Department of Biology, Dr. F. W. True prepared a diagnosis of the 

 fossil skull of a new genus and species of sea lion from Oregon and began a 

 report on the collection of ziphioid whales in the Museum. Mr. Gerrit S. 

 Miller, jr., spent several months at the natural history museums of London, 

 Paris, Berlin, and Leiden in completing his studies and identifications of the 

 very extensive East Indian collection of mammals belonging to the National 

 Museum and of material from other regions. Dr. E. A. Mearns, while in Wash- 

 ington during the winter, studied and described the unique collection of 

 mammals and birds which he brought from the Philippines and completed 

 the first part of his report on the mammals obtained in connection with the 

 Mexican boundary survey. 



Mr. Robert Ridgway continued the preparation of his monograph on the 

 birds of North and Middle America. The birds obtained by Dr. W. L. Abbott 



