58 EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1924 



as opportunity permitted, a total of 11,371 specimens now having 

 been distinctly labeled, catalogued, and placed apart in individual 

 covers, constituting the so-called type herbarium. This has been 

 fumigated at intervals. The general herbarium has been fumigated 

 once. The condition of the cryptogamic herbaria is as reported a 

 year ago, except that Mr. Leonard, by giving a day to the work each 

 week, has finished incorporating in the moss herbarium a former ac- 

 cumulation of about 19,000 specimens. The collections of hepaticae, 

 algae, and fungi are seriously in need of similar curatorial work. 

 The condition of the plant collections in general is satisfactory, 

 making due allowance for the crowding of specimens in the cases and 

 the extreme congestion of cases in a too limited area. It has seemed 

 for several years past as if the actual limit of installing new cases 

 has been reached, and the crowding is now so great as to render 

 unduly difficult such ordinary curatorial work as it is possible to un- 

 dertake with the small staff. 



The work of the taxidermists in so far as it has been incorporated 

 into the exhibition series has already been mentioned. It is, however, 

 the least part of the work accomplished in the shops, as it represents 

 only the time saved from routine work for the preservation of the 

 study collections, which, of course, must take precedence. Material is 

 received from all over the world in all sorts of states of preservation, 

 and to save from spoiling and place it in better shape for study may 

 take weeks or months. Then again the repair work on old .speci- 

 mens in the collections, both on exhibition and in the magazines, re- 

 quires much time. In addition to his mammal work, Mr. Brown 

 mounted 39 birds and degreased and made up 60 bird skins. Mr. 

 Aschemeier, besides assisting in the mammal work, made up 288 

 bird skins from China and 64 other bird skins, some of them from 

 distant Pacific Ocean islands, but mounted only 13 birds for exibi- 

 tion. In addition to the small mammals mounted for the exhibition 

 series of this department, Mr. Marshall mounted 5 mammal carriers 

 of the bubonic plague slated for extermination in California, for 

 exhibition in another department of the Museum. Mr. Scollick 

 spent all his time in cleaning bifd skeletons and the more delicate 

 mammal skulls and skeletons, cleaning 431 objects, 284 of which 

 were full skeletons of birds and mammals. 



Alexander Sprunt and E. B. Chamberlain, of the Charleston, 

 S. C, Museum, spent some time in our taxidermist laboratories 

 studying the processes of mounting and preserving birds and mam- 

 mals, adopted in the National Museum. So far from hindering the 

 work of our taxidermists, it is a pleasure to report that the time 

 spent in showing them our methods was more than repaid by their 

 assistance in the work going on, always willingly and intelligently 

 given. 



