﻿36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 'J'J 



were closed to us. Yellow Dragon Gorge was a fine place for birds and insects, 

 but a great festival had just been held there, in which aborigine and Chinese 

 hunters from all directions had joined in the chase, and wood cutters were 

 busy in the woods cutting timber for the new temples that are being con- 

 structed. The mammals had been scared away. 



In addition to the material collected on the Songpan trip, Mr. 

 Graham had native collectors at work in other districts, about whose 

 activities he writes : 



This year's catch is bigger than that of last year. There are 50 boxes of 

 specimens on hand, and I expect to send them off by parcel post as early as 

 possible. Besides the 50 boxes just mentioned, there is the entire catch of the 

 netter Ho for at least three months, who has been collecting about Beh Luh Din, 

 Chengtu, and Kuanshien during the summer, and specimens now being secured 

 by two collectors on Mt. Omei, one at Shin Kai Si and one on the higher 

 altitudes. 



The material obtained on the Songpan trip inckided about 5,000 

 insects, of which the two-winged flies and butterflies and moths 

 constituted an important element, many of them being either new to 

 the Museum or new to science. The birds, 558 in number, were 

 received at a late date, and have not been fully examined, though to 

 date about a dozen species new to the ]\Iuseum have been detected. 



About 250 mollusks and a lesser number of mammals, fishes, rep- 

 tiles and batrachians, earthworms, plants, etc., comprise the remainder 

 of the shipment. 



VISIT OF MR. GERRIT S. MILLER, JR., TO THE LESSER ANTILLES 



During February and March, 1924, I visited the Lesser Antilles, 

 more for the purposes of vacation and of getting a personal impression 

 of the islands than with any plan for definite research. Two weeks 

 were spent on Barbados and a month on Grenada ; while each of 

 the principal islands was visited for a few hours during the southward 

 and return voyages. Some miscellaneous collections were made, 

 chiefly of ferns, cacti, and lizards. 



Much detailed work in zoology and botany remains to be done on 

 the islands of the Lesser Antillean chain. As a striking illustration 

 of this fact, it may be mentioned that, in a group of plants so con- 

 spicuous as the cacti, and so well monographed as these have recently 

 been in the elaborate work of Dr. N. L. Britton and Dr. J. N. Rose, 

 nine species (7 genera) were found growing wild on Grenada, from 

 which island these authors had actually examined only two. One of 

 the common Grenadan cacti was described in 1837, but had remained 



