REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1912. 45 



S. ,F. Clarke. The Smithsonian biological survey of the Panama 

 Canal Zone transferred several hundred specimens of aquatic inver- 

 tebrates, mostly crustaceans, collected by Dr. S. E. Meek and Mr. 

 iS. F. Hildebrand, and 283 bottles of fresh-water plankton, collected 

 'hy Dr. C. Dwight Marsh, of the Department of Agriculture. xVbout 

 500 specimens, chiefly of crustaceans and echinoderms, dredged by 

 'liim in the Straits of Florida and among the Bahama Islands in 1911 

 and 1912, were contributed by Mr. John B. Henderson, jr., of Wash- 

 ington; and over 1,000 specimens of various groups were received 

 as the result of collecting work in Casco Bay, Me., by Miss M. J. 

 Kathbun and Miss Violet Dandridge during August, 1911. The 

 Indian Museum at Calcutta presented 225 specimens of crinoids rep- 

 resenting 48 species, and the Australian Museum at Sydney 184 speci- 

 mens of the same group representing 14 species. From the Royal 

 Zoological Museum at Berlin 35 specimens, representing 20 species 

 of crinoids, and several ascidians, including cotypes, were obtained in 

 exchange. 



The work of the year was mainly directed toward improving the 

 condition of the extensive reserve collections and furthering their 

 systematic arrangement in the new quarters. It included extensive 

 cataloguing and labeling, the cleaning of glass and other receptacles, 

 and the replenishment and strengthening of the alcohol, besides other 

 purely manual labor. In the small, crowded storage rooms of the 

 Smithsonian building such a general overhauling had not been 

 possible for a long time, and a large share of the collections had, in 

 fact, become practically inaccessible, but in the new building, with its 

 ample accommodations, difficulties of this kind are not likely soon 

 to occur. While much of the older material, and especially the 

 echinodenns, remains to be catalogued, the registering of current 

 accessions has been kept well in hand. Under a revised system of 

 cataloguing, red cards are being used for type specimens, blue cards 

 for those that have been figured, and buff cards for such as are placed 

 on exhibition, while white cards are emploj^ed for all other entries. 

 The dried specimens hastily stored in the attic the previous year were 

 systematically arranged, and the drawers and cases labeled. The 

 corals from the Philippine Islands, filling about 100 shipping boxes, 

 were unpacked and transferred to unit drawers in the dust-proof 

 storage room constructed for that class of material. 



Miss Mary J. Rathbun, assistant curator of the division, reported 

 on a small collection of crustaceans obtained in Cuba by Dr. Thomas 

 Barbour, identified the decapod and stomatopod crustaceans obtained 

 in the Panama Canal Zone in 1911 by Dr. Meek and Mr. Hildebrand, 

 and made considerable progress in the study of the Ocypodidse, or 

 fiddler-crabs, collected at the Philippine Islands by the steamer 

 Albatross, in connection with which the general collection of that 



