312 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



specimens have been returned to Porto Rico and are deposited in the 

 herbarium of the Insular Experiment Station. 



In zoology study has been continued by several investigators from the 

 collections already made; they plan coordinating the results already 

 reached, and thus ascertaining where the gaps exist which need to be filled 

 by further field operations. A large collection of mollusks has been 

 returned to Porto Rico for installation in the new museum room, in the 

 Carnegie Library Building at San Juan. Very important preliminary 

 papers on the fossil mammals obtained by our collectors from the floors 

 of caves have been published in the Annals of the Academy by Dr. J. A. 

 Allen, Dr. W. D. Matthew and Mr. H. E. Anthony, including the de- 

 scription of an apparently new family, a new genus, and several new 

 species, results which were entirely unexpected. The study of the rich 

 entomological collections, by several experts, has yielded scientific in- 

 formation of high importance and several preliminary papers are in 

 course of preparation. 



The study of the anthropological collections made during 1915 has 

 yielded proofs of the use of some of the caves as burial places by the 

 aborigines, and the great quantities of one of the few species of extinct 

 mammals found in the caves indicate this animal was extensively used 

 by them for food. Further progress was also made on the survey of the 

 ancient settlement of Capa, the most important of all archsological local- 

 ities thus far examined in Porto Rico. The reduction of the anthropo- 

 metric data obtained has been continued; these are as yet incomplete, 

 requiring additional field observation ; their completion would give us 

 information regarding the differences in the rate of physiological and 

 mental development of children here and in the temperate zone, which 

 would be of highly educational importance in arranging school curricu- 

 lums in Porto Rico. The voluminous folk-lore records accumulated in 

 1915 by Mr. J. A. Mason have been referred to Professor Aurelio M. 

 Espinosa, of Leland Stanford University, who reports that this material 

 is more extensive than all hitherto published Spanish folk-lore literature,, 

 and that it gives us for the first time the means of a careful comparison 

 of Spanish and other European folk-lore. Dr. Herbert J. Spinden prose- 

 cuted ethnological observations in several parts of the island during the 

 season, and made extensive additional collections. 



At the request of the Committee, the Council of the Academy has 

 set aside volumes of the Annals, commencing with Volume 33, for the 

 final Porto Rican reports to be published in the sequence: (1) Geology 

 and Invertebrate Palgeontology, (2) Botany, (3) Zoology and Vertebrate 



