REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. 65 
is also worthy of note. Approximately 5,000 cards have been written 
during the year, among them complete bibliographies of the South 
American Corbiculidae, the Ampullaridae of world-wide distribu- 
tion, and the important genera of Philippine fresh-water shells. 
This saves an enormous amount of time when working with the col- 
Jections mentioned. The card catalogue gazetteer of the Philippine 
Islands has been brought up to date. This is of material assistance 
in working with the Philippine mollusks. 
In the division of echinoderms considerable progress has been made 
in overhauling the crinoid collection. The entire collection of dried 
ophiurans has been rearranged in accordance with the classification 
used by H. L. Clark in his Catalogue of Recent Ophiurans, and a 
synopsis of the new arrangement has been prepared and hung upon 
the cases so that anyone can now find any species or specimen of 
ophiuran in the collection regardless of whether they know anything 
about these animals or not. All of the specimens have been examined 
and checked up with the card catalogue. To bring the collection into 
line with present concepts it was found necessary to transfer many 
species to new genera and to rename many others which are now 
placed insynonymy. The entire collection of dried echinoids has also 
been rearranged in accordance with the classification used in Agassiz 
and Clark’s Hawaiian and other Pacific Echini, and all of the speci- 
mens have been examined and checked up with the card catalogue; 
a number of the specimens have been reidentified, and the generic 
allocation of many of the species has been revised and brought up to 
date. 
Curatorial work in the division of plants has proceeded satisfac- 
torily during the past fiscal year. In particular, Mr. Standley, in 
the course of his work upon the Mexican trees and shrubs, has identi- 
fied a large amount of Mexican material which had been mounted 
but not named beyond the genus, and has redetermined many speci- 
mens from the same region which had previously been misidentified. 
Similar important work of revision has been done in several other 
groups, notably in the composites by Dr. 8. F. Blake, the willows by 
Dr. C. R. Ball, the grasses by Dr. A. S. Hitchcock and Mrs. Agnes 
Chase, and the ferns by Mr. Maxon. As in several recent years, ma- 
terial has been received more rapidly than it could be mounted and 
prepared for the herbarium. This fact and the need of economizing 
greatly in case room has led to the careful scrutiny of recent acces- 
sions and the elimination of much material which, under more favor- 
able circumstances, would have been added to the herbarium. For 
similar reasons it has seemed desirable to select for immediate mount- 
ing and installation material in certain groups under investigation 
(for example, ferns, grasses, cacti) and from tropical America gen- 
erally, in order to facilitate special investigations previously under 
