REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 21 



Work has been continued by the curator and bis assistant in the 

 study of the Nociuidce* and the latter has investigated the Museum 

 material in the lepidopterous family Satumiidw, and also the genus 

 CallimorphaA 



DEPARTMENT OF MARINE INVERTEBRATES. 



Mr. Eichard Eathbun, the curator of this department, reports that 

 advances have been made in the permanent arrangement of the general 

 reserve collection daring the year, and that much material has been 

 prepared for the display series. He has also during the year begun 

 the preparation of a card catalogue of the identified material. Tbis 

 affords an excellent means of reference, and renders it possible to 

 determine at a glance the presence or absence of a given species in 

 the collection. During the summer of 1886 the curator completed, 

 for the Fish Commission, a report upon the surface water temper- 

 atures of the Atlantic coast of the United States. The deep-water 

 and littoral Madreporaria and Ilydracoralhe, obtained by the U. S. 

 Fish Commission steamer Albatross during 1884, 1885, and 1886, have 

 been examined and identified. The determination of nearly all of the 

 corals of the genera Madrepora, Porites, and Synareceahas been completed, 

 and reports based thereupon have been prepared for publication in the 

 Proceedings of the Museum. Mr. Eathbun is now engaged upon a 

 revision of the star-fishes belonging to Asterias and the allied genera; 

 and a description of the species Heliaster, with photographic plates of 

 all the known forms, has been completed. 



The accessions of the year number fifty-five, the largest and most 

 important consisting of the material brought in by the Fish Commis- 

 sion steamer A Ibatross during the summer and fall of 1886, and the col- 

 lection of 484 specimens of sponges and 266 specimens of corals, made 

 by Dr. Gr. Brown Goode in Bermuda, in 1877, for the Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity at Middletown, Connecticut, and now sent to the National 

 Museum in exchange. 



There have been made 5,252 entries in the catalogue of this depart- 

 ment, of which 996 represent Crustacea, 2,611 Worms, 130 Bryozoa and 

 Ascidians, 1,412 Echinoderms and Ccelenterates, and JOS Sponges and 

 Protozoans. 



Thirty-one sets of duplicate series of marine invertebrates from the 

 collections of the U. S. Fish Commission were sent to colleges and 

 schools in various parts of the United States, and special sets were 

 prepared for the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 

 and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. 



DEPARTMENT OP COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 



The collections in this department are under the care of Mr. F. W. 

 True, assisted by Mr. F. A. Lucas, and are increasing very rapidly. 

 The catalogue shows 468 entries of birds, 330 of mammals, 10 of reptiles 



* See Proc. U. S. Nat. Museum, vol. 10, pp. 450-479. 

 t See Proc. U. S. Nat. Museum, vol. 10, pp. 338-352. 



