100 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914. 
tion to the committee on classification and nomenclature of the 
American Ornithologists’ Union, which spent three days in the divi- 
sion, many members of the union availed themselves of the oppor- 
tunity to study various specimens during the annual meeting which 
was held at the Museum in April, 1914. 
Among ornithologists who conducted more or less extended re- 
searches in the laboratory were Mr. W. deW. Miller and Mr. J. T. 
Nichols, of the American Museum of Natural History; Mr. R. C. 
Murphy, of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; Mr. W. H. 
Osgood, of the Field Museum of Natural History; Mr. W. E. Clyde 
Todd, of the Carnegie Museum; Dr. Thomas Barbour, of the Museum 
of Comparative Zoélogy; Mr. H. K. Coale, of Highland Park, W1.; 
Dr. Jonathan Dwight, jr., and Mr. C. H. Rogers, of New York; Mr. 
J. H. Fleming, of Toronto, Canada; Mr. Harry Highbee and Mr. 
I. H. Kennard, of Boston, Mass.; Dr. L. C. Sanford, of New Haven, 
Conn.; Mr. George Shiras, 3d, and Lord Percy of the British Em- 
bassy, Washington; and Mr. Otto Widmann, of St. Louis, Mo. The 
collection of birds’ eggs was consulted by Mr. H. H. Bailey, of 
Newport News, Va.; Mr. R. M. Barnes, of Lacon, IL; Mr. George 
H. Lings, of Nyack, N. Y.; Mr. J. Parker Norris, jr., of Philadel- 
phia, Pa.; Mr. Roswell S. Wheeler, of Oakland, Cal.; and Mr. John 
Willams, of Iowa City, Iowa. Access to the collection of skeletons 
was granted to Mr. Loye Holmes Miller, of Los Angeles, Cal., and 
Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, of Washington. 
A large number of specimens were lent for study to institutions 
and individuals as follows: Mr. F. M. Chapman, of the American 
Museum of Natural History; Mr. W. E. Clyde Todd; Mr. R. C. 
Murphy; Dr. Thomas Barbour, and Mr. Outram Bangs, of the Mu- 
seum of Comparative Zodlogy; Mr. H. S. Swarth, of the Museum of 
History, Science, and Art, Los Angeles, Cal.; Mr. Joseph Grinnell, 
of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of Califor- 
nia; the Colorado Museum of Natural History, Denver, Colo.; Mr. 
H. K. Coale; Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, of Ithaca, N. Y.; Mr. H. H. 
Kopman, of the Conservation Commission, New Orleans, La.; 
Dr. W. L. Sclater, of the British Museum of Natural History; 
Dr. Josef Gengler, of Erlangen, Germany; and Mr. Frank Bond. 
of Washington. 
Reptiles and batrachians.—Mention has already been made of ma- 
terial received from the Bureau of Fisheries, the Biological Survey, 
and Prof. A. M. Reese. To Dr. J. C. Thompson, United States Navy, 
the division is indebted for a large number of specimens collected by 
himself on the west coast of Mexico and in California, including all 
of those on which was based his intensive study of the variation of a 
species of gartersnake on the peninsula of Sausalito, published by 
the Museum during the year. Several rare species were obtained by 
