SECRETARY'S REPORT 13 



Zoology. — As reservoir hosts, transmitters, and carriers of disease, 

 mammals are intensively studied and collected the world over by spe- 

 cial agencies and commissions whose efforts have resulted in some of 

 the more important accessions received by the division of mammals in 

 recent years. This year in cooperation with the Armed Forces Epi- 

 demiological Board and the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. David H. 

 Johnson, curator of mammals, collected 656 specimens of bats and 

 other small mammals in central Luzon, Philippine Islands. More 

 than 500 other mammals from Panama and the Canal Zone accrued 

 to the collection, largely from the field collecting of the personnel of 

 the 25th and 7451st Preventive Medicine Survey Detachments of the 

 U. S. Army, and in part by Dr. Karl B. Koford, Dr. Alexander Wet- 

 more, and by Dr. Robert K. Enders of Swarthmore College. Do- 

 nated by Dr. Enders also were 376 mammals from Alaska, Colorado, 

 Massachusetts, Wyoming, and Saudi Arabia. The Pan American 

 Sanitary Bureau of the World Health Organization contributed 38 

 rodents from Peru. Type specimens were received from Kenneth 

 Walker, Tacoma, Wash., from the Office of Naval Research through 

 the University of Kansas, and from Kenneth S. Norris and William 

 N. McFarland. 



This year's more important ornithological accessions included 118 

 Belgian Congo bird skins, representing 59 forms new to the Museum, 

 received as an exchange from the Institut Royal de Sciences Natur- 

 elles, Brussels ; 23 birds from the Caroline Islands, a transfer from the 

 Pacific Science Board, National Research Council; 10 Venezuelan 

 birds, including the type specimens of 8 new forms, deposited by Dr. 

 William H. Phelps, Caracas ; by deposit from the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution 817 skins, 16 skeletons, 3 nests, and 5 sets of eggs of birds, col- 

 lected in Panama by Dr. A. Wetmore. 



Noteworthy collections of New World amphibians and reptiles were 

 received as gifts from the following donors : Jerry D. Hardy, Catons- 

 ville, Md., 702 specimens from Cuba; William L. Witt, Arlington, 

 Va., 208 reptiles and amphibians; the Naturhistoriches Museum, 

 Vienna, Austria, 98 frogs from Brazil ; Dr. John W. Crenshaw, Jr., 

 Columbia, Mo., 52 turtles; Dr. W. G. Lynn, Washington, D. C, 23 

 frogs from Jamaica and Antigua, B. W. I. For type material in this 

 field the Museum is also indebted to the University of Colorado, to 

 the Natural History Museum of the University of Illinois, and to Dr. 

 Gordon Thurow, Braddock Heights, Md. 



The largest accession to the fish collection was the gift of Dr. Wil- 

 liam R. Taylor, associate curator, representing his comprehensive col- 

 lection of 16,821 specimens gathered from the southern United States 

 over several years. Other sizable fish collections were received as 

 follows: 4,329 specimens from Paraguay donated by Dr. C. J. D. 



