REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY 

 By Leonhabd Stejnegeb, Head Curator 



In previous reports attention has been called to the necessity for 

 additional assistance in the divisions of this department that the 

 work may be continued effectively. To indicate the necessity for 

 increase in personnel it is desired to recapitulate briefly the functions 

 of the staff and the handicaps under which it works to uphold 

 the reputation and the traditions of the institution. 



By the fundamental law establishing the National Museum, it is 

 made the final depository for all the collections gathered by the 

 United States Government, and the duties of its scientific staff are 

 to care for, classify, and report upon these collections. All collec- 

 tions relating to recent plants and animals (except man) are in the 

 custody of the Department of Biology and are destributed among 

 a number of divisions, in charge of scientific experts. 



The magnitude of the biological collections may be gathered from 

 the last paragraph in this report which shows in detail the extent 

 of the material in this department. It will be seen that it now 

 embraces approximately 7,345,285 specimens, of which 1,223,400 are 

 plants and 6,121,885 are animals. It is difficult to convey an idea 

 of the immensity of the mere task of handling and caring for this 

 material, aside from its classification and the publication of reports. 

 Preservation, cataloguing, and labeling require unceasing attention, 

 expert knowledge, and unremitting work. To be available for study, 

 these thousands upon thousands of specimens must be so arranged 

 that they can be found when wanted by investigators. In many 

 groups, for instance in mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, 

 each individual specimen has to be catalogued and labeled, both 

 catalogues and labels giving such data as register number, scientific 

 name, exact locality where collected, date when collected, by whom 

 collected, and other information which often is of equal importance 

 with the specimens themselves. The very handling of the material 

 involves an immense amount of work, for while in some classes of 

 animals the specimens are small and may often be moved in lots, 

 in others the opposite holds, as for instance in the division of 

 mammals, where the specimens range in size from mice to elephants 

 and whales. Nor is size always ja proper criterion of the labor 

 involved, for innumerable specimens contained in the collections 



41 



