REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 7 



one of the field naturalists of the Smithsonian African expedition 

 under the direction of Col. Roosevelt, was accordingly detailed to 

 accompany Mr. Rainey, and letters have been received indicating 

 very successful results. 



BIRD STUDIES IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS AND BERING SEA. 



A small party of naturalists made a brief visit to the Aleutian 

 Islands and Bering Sea during the season of 1911, chiefly in the 

 interest of the Smithsonian Institution and the Biological Survey of 

 the Department of Agriculture, especially for a study of land and 

 marine birds. Through the cooperation of the Treasury Depart- 

 ment the party was afforded transportation on the revenue cutter 

 Tahoma. 



The principal results of the visit were the collection of a good 

 series of all the land birds of the islands visited, including a particu- 

 larly fine series of ptarmigan, and a large number of eggs, and the 

 securing of some interesting observations on the distribution and 

 habits of the birds of that region. These observations will be made 

 use of by Mr. A. C. Bent, who has undertaken to complete the work 

 on the life histories of North American birds, two volumes of which, 

 by the late Maj. Charles Bendire, have been published by the Na- 

 tional Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN PERU. 



During the summer of 1910 Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, of the National 

 Museum, visited the great ruins of the temples and city of Pachaca- 

 mac, about 18 miles south of Lima, and also the ruins and cemeteries 

 in the district of Trujillo, Peru, where he collected upward of 3,400 

 crania and a quantity of other skeletal parts. A large percentage 

 of the gathered skulls are free from artificial deformation and there- 

 fore afford a much better opportunity than previous collections for 

 a critical study of the peoples who centuries ago occupied and con- 

 gregated in these regions. 



Pachacamac was a religious center, much like the Egyptian Thebes 

 and the Mohammedan Mecca, to which pilgrims flocked from all 

 parts of Peru. After the destruction of the Temple of the Sun by 

 the Spaniards, the place became a desolate pile of ruins, with from 

 G0,000 to 80,000 graves of pilgrims who had come from widely 

 separated regions. The Valley of Chicama, near Trujillo, with the 

 neighboring country, was the seat of the powerful people known after 

 one of their chiefs as Chimu. 



As to the importance of the material collected, Dr. Hrdlicka 

 remarks : 



Peru may well be regarded, even in its present territorial restrictions, as 

 the main key to the anthropology of South America. Due to the numbers of 

 its ancient inhabitants, and to their far-reaching social differentiations, indi- 



