REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 89 



COOPERATION OF SPECIALISTS AND LOAN OF COLLECTIONS. 



The Museum continued, as in previous years, the custom of lending 

 specimens to specialists engaged in scientific investigations. The 

 activity in this direction among mammalogists was about the same as 

 last } 7 ear. Seventeen lots, comprising 31*> specimens, were sent out to 

 eight persons. Among the specimens were live types. The principal 

 loan consisted of 244 bats, which were sent to Mr. J. A. G. Rehn, of 

 Philadelphia, who is engaged in the study of the American species of 

 this order. Among the remaining classes of vertebrates the transac- 

 tions of this kind were less numerous, amounting in all to nine or ten 

 lots, comprising somewhat more than 50 specimens. 



The loans of insects and lower invertebrates were far more numer- 

 ous, amounting to more than 5,500 specimens in the case of the former. 

 Among them the most extensive were 1,914 Coleoptera, sent to Dr. 

 F. E. Blaisdell, of San Francisco, California; 1,709 Orthoptera to Mr. 

 J. A. G. Rehn, of Philadelphia; 4!>3 Rhynchota to Prof. P. R. Uhler, 

 of Baltimore; and 440 Diptera, of the family Tabanida?, to Prof. 

 James S. Hine, of the Ohio State University. Columbus, Ohio. 



The collections of marine invertebrates made during the investiga- 

 tion of the salmon fishery of Alaska by the Bureau of Fisheries in 1903, 

 were sent to the following specialists for identification and report: 

 Siphonostoma to Prof. Charles B. Wilson; Pycnogonida to Dr. Leon 

 J. Cole; Schizopoda to Dr. A. E. Ortmann; Amphipoda to Dr. S. J. 

 Holmes; Cirripedia to Prof. H. A. Pilsbry. Doctor Ortmann also 

 received the Schizopoda collected by the Bureau of Fisheries steamer 

 Alhatroax in 1891, for use in connection with the report on the collection 

 of 1902. A number of starfishes from Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean 

 were sent to Prof. A. E. Verrill for use in connection with his report on 

 the starfishes of the Harriman Alaska Expedition. Several lots of 

 actinians were sent to Dr. J. E. Duerden, who is preparing a report 

 for the Bureau of Fisheries on the forms found in the Hawaiian 

 Islands, and also on species held in the claws of certain crabs. Fifty 

 bottles of surface towings from the Woods Hole region were sent to 

 Dr. K. W. Genthe, from which to sort out copepod crustaceans for a 

 report on that group. 



The general collection of Cumacea was forwarded to Dr. W. T. 

 Caiman of the British Museum for study. 



Loans of plants from the National Herbarium were about as numer- 

 ous as last year, comprising 43 lots, containing 2,873 sheets, as com- 

 pared with 35 lots, containing 2,704 sheets, sent out in 1902-03. The 

 principal loans were as follows: 



To Dr. Janet Perkins, at the Berlin Botanical Garden, 1,150 Philip- 

 pine plants; to Dr. B. L. Robinson, (nay Herbarium, Harvard Uni- 

 versity, 423 sheets of Mexican plants and specimens of Xyris and 



