REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY. 
By LEoNHARD STEJNEGER, Head Curator. 
IMPORTANT CHANGES IN ORGANIZATION AND STAFF. 
The hope expressed in my last annual report that “in the near 
future” it might be possible to subdivide further the large division 
of marine invertebrates was partly realized, when, on February 1, 
1921, the old division of mollusks was reestablished, which since 
October 16, 1914, had been combined with the division of marine 
invertebrates for economical and administrative reasons in a single 
division under the latter title. By the new arrangement the curator 
of the combined division, Dr. Paul Bartsch, remained curator of the 
division of mollusks, while the associate curator, Mr. Waldo L. 
Schmitt, was promoted to curator of marine invertebrates. For 
administrative reasons the collection of living, madreporarian 
corals, and the helminthological collections remain for the present 
under the curator of mollusks. The name “ division of marine inver- 
tebrates” has thereby become a misnomer more than ever; but as 
there is no satisfactory collective term for the heterogeneous collec- 
tions consisting of crustaceans, worms, sponges, etc., all together or 
in part, and including fresh-water as well as terrestrial animals in 
addition to the truly marine forms, it has been thought best to retain 
the old designation without qualification until further subdivisions 
in the future shall have made a more suitable nomenclature possible. 
Unfortunately, this separation of the divisions could not be accom- 
panied by any increase in the scientific staff. It is not only humili- 
ating for the leading scientific institution of the Nation to have to 
depend upon the generosity of other museums and private individuals 
for aid in answering the numerous inquiries as to the identity of en- 
tire phyla of the lower animals and in classifying and reporting upon 
its own unsurpassed collections, but it is positively detrimental to the 
progress of science, applied as well as unapplied, that there are cer- 
tain important groups of animals of which we have not a specialist 
in this country so situated that they can be worked up. It is not 
pleasant to have to confess that, to mention an example, we have in 
Washington no person who can classify and identify our spiders and 
our myriapods, but it seems almost incredible that, in spite of the 
efforts which have been made for fully 15 years, it has as yet been im- 
possible to find the means for having the unrivaled collection of 
sponges in the National Museum named and described by an Ameri- 
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