REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 11 
PUBLICATIONS 
The Institution’s publication program has again emphasized ma- 
terial pertaining to the war or to Latin America as a part of its 
endeavor to make every phase of its activities serve a useful wartime 
purpose. 
The papers in the series Smithsonian War Background Studies 
continued to be in great demand, particularly from Army and Navy 
organizations and personnel. Seven numbers were issued during the 
year—Nos. 13 to 19—and No. 20, on China, appeared soon after the 
close of the year. A list of these, as well as other publications of the 
year, will be found in appendix 10. The demand for the War Back- 
ground papers continued to increase until it became necessary to make 
a charge for copies requested by civilians and for large lots of copies 
ordered by service organizations, while continuing the free service 
distribution of single copies and small lots. Soon after the close of the 
year the total number of copies of Nos. 1-20 printed by the Institution 
had reached 203,500, and 211,525 additional copies have been ordered 
for the Army and Navy, a grand total of nearly half a million books. 
A pocket-size field collectors’ manual was published with the aim 
of providing a worth-while activity for service personnel stationed in 
areas not actually in the fighting zones. The manual gives detailed 
directions for preparing, preserving, and packing specimens of 
animals, plants, and minerals. This book also is given free to service 
personnel and sold to civilians. 
In the Miscellaneous Collections series, a paper intended chiefly 
for the use of medical officers was issued under the title “The Feeding 
Apparatus of Biting and Disease-carrying Flies: A Wartime Con- 
tribution to Medical Entomology,” by R. E. Snodgrass. Several 
hundred copies were made available to Army and Navy medical per- 
sonnel. Also for use in connection with wartime medical problems 
in the Pacific theater, it was necessary to reprint an edition of a 
previous paper, “Molluscan Intermediate Hosts of the Asiatic Blood 
Fluke, Schistosoma japonicum, and Species Confused with Them,” by 
Paul Bartsch. 
Many papers in all series of Smithsonian publications dealt with 
studies in biology and anthropology of the other American republics, 
as a part of the Government’s program of improving cultural rela- 
tions between the Americas. In the Miscellaneous Collections a sur- 
vey of existing archeological knowledge of the Andean region ap- 
peared under the title “Cross Sections of New World Prehistory: A 
Brief Report on the Work of the Institute of Andean Research, 1941- 
1942.” by William Duncan Strong. The Smithsonian Annual Report 
included a comprehensive papér on the “Past and Present Status of 
the Marine Mammals of South America and the West Indies,” by 
