40 RETORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1905. 



there and made an important report upon their buildings, installa- 

 tion, and administration. 



A study of the bats of the genera Glossopliaga and Ilemiderma was 

 begun by Mr. Walter L. Halm, aid in the division of mammals. 



The collections in this division were utilized by the Biological 

 Survey of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and specimens were 

 lent for study to Air. Knud Andersen, of the British Museum; Dr. Paul 

 Matschie and Dr. M. Hilzheimer, of the Royal Zoological Museum, 

 Berlin; M. Charles Mottaz, of Geneva, Switzerland; Dr. C. I. 

 Forsyth Major, of the British Museum, London; Mr. Glover M. Allen, 

 of the Boston Society of Natural History; Mr. Outram Bangs, of 

 Boston; Prof. F. W. Putnam, of the Peabody Museum of Harvard 

 University; Dr. John M. Ingersoll, of Cleveland, Ohio; and Dr. 

 Franklin P. Mall, of Johns Hopkins University. 



Dr. E. A. Mearns, U. S. Army, on sick leave from the Philippines, 

 spent about four and one-half months in this division, working up 

 the material obtained by himself in those islands and completing the 

 first part of his report on the mammals collected on the Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



Volume 3 of Bulletin No. 50, entitled the Birds of North and Mid- 

 dle America, by Mr. Robert Ridgway, curator of birds, was com- 

 pleted and published during the year, and about one-half of the 

 manuscript for volume 4 was finished. The latter volume will com- 

 prise the families of thrushes, mocking birds, starlings, weaver birds, 

 ]arks, sharp bills, tyrant flycatchers, manakins, and chatterers. Mr. 

 Ridgway also published descriptions of new species of birds from 

 tropical America. During his visit to Costa Rica, elsewhere referred 

 to, he made extensive studies on the collection of birds in the 

 National Museum of that country, the results of which will be 

 embodied in his work. 



The assistant curator of birds, Dr. Charles W. Richmond, continued 

 the study and determination of the birds collected by Dr. W. L. 

 Abbott on several islands off the west coast of Sumatra, and added 

 several thousand cards to the general catalogue of genera and species 

 of birds for reference purposes in the division. Three papers by him 

 on nomenclature and a description of a swiftlet were published during 

 the year. Mr. J. II. Riley, aid in the division of birds, was mainly 

 employed in making measurements of specimens and compiling refer- 

 ences for the use of the curator, but he also reported on a collection 

 of birds from the islands of Antigua and Barbuda and on the birds 

 of the Bahama Islands, the latter while serving as an assistant on 

 the expedition of the Geographical Society of Baltimore. Air. H. C. 

 Oberholser, of the Biological Survey, completed studies on the birds 

 obtained by Dr. W. L. Abbott in Kilimanjaro, East Africa, and has 



