142 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



catalogues are in the same condition as when last reported upon, except 

 that the new accessions have been entered upon them. 



A series of antlers of North American deer was prepared for and sent 

 to the Minneapolis Exposition. 



A general bibliography of works upon the Mammalia, commenced 

 some time ago, now comprises about fifteen thousand titles. All the 

 titles cited in the Zoological Record, the first and second parts of Carus 

 and Englemann's Bibliotheca, the Zoologischer Anzeiger, and Fried- 

 lander's catalogues are included, as well as references to the brief but 

 often valuable notes to be found in the American Sportsman^ Forest and 

 Stream, and other journals of like character. This is, of course, only 

 a beginning, but I have already found the catalogue of much service 

 in connection with the work of the department. 



As a foundation for the work of representing graphically the geo- 

 graphical distribution of our North American mammals, copies have 

 been made of all the available faunal lists, about sixty-seven in num- 

 ber, which have appeared from time to time in various works on the 

 Nearctic fauna. 



The curator obtained some additional information regarding the type- 

 specimens of different species of dolphins during a short journey in 

 Europe in the early part of the year, and has added to his review of 

 the family a synopsis and materials for figures of all the species. The 

 paper has not yet been published. He also prepared descriptions of 

 two new rodents from Padre Island, Texas, and of the Sandwich Island 

 bat, some notes on Vesperugo hesperus (Allen), and a review of the 

 changes in the catalogue of North American mammals in the last ten 

 years. None of these papers have been published during the j^ear. 

 The curator and Mr. E. W. Nelson have published a report upon the 

 mammals obtained by Mr. Nelson in Alaska, 1877-'81. 



The following figures show the number of specimens in the different 

 series on June 30, 1887, and June 30, 1888, respectively. 



It will be noticed that the exhibition series is smaller than at the 

 close of the previous year. This is due to the fact that when the new 

 exhibition cases were received a large number of old mounted skins, 

 which were in a more or less dilapidated condition, were withdrawn 

 from exhibition and placed among the duplicates. This replacement 

 of defective specimens by good ones must go on gradually for several 

 years, until the collection is entirely renovated. The number of speci- 

 mens actually added during the year was thirty-two. 



