REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. ot 
distinction of adding two species of birds to the known avifauna of 
this continent, in addition to describing several previously unrecog- 
nized subspecies. 
Palmer’s skill and knowledge as a natural history collector caused 
him to be detailed on various expeditions where the best results 
were required, and in this capacity he visited Funk Island in 1887 
with Doctor Lucas in a very successful search for remains of the 
extinct great auk. In 1890 he was detailed to make collections on 
the Pribilof Islands, and in 1900, 1902, and 1916 to visit Cuba. He 
accompanied Mr. Owen Bryant on a very productive collecting 
expedition, though one fraught with numerous privations, to western 
Java, in 1909 and 1910. In the aggregate, he collected many 
thousands of specimens of animals and plants, as well as fossil 
remains and miscellaneous material, not only on official expeditions 
but on those prosecuted on his own account, and most of this material 
has found its way into the National Museum series over a long period 
of years. By the terms of his will, Mr. Palmer has also bequeathed 
his private collection of birds to the Museum. 
In recent years Mr. Palmer had become much interested in 
vertebrate fossil remains in the deposits at the Calvert Cliffs, near 
Chesapeake Beach, Md., and made many trips there in search of 
material, both officially, and in his own time. He was engaged 
in studies of cetacean remains from this locality at the time of 
his death. 
Mr. Palmer was a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, 
a member of several scientific socities, and the author of over 50 
papers and notes on ornithological and other biological subjects, 
