BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY). 83 



(h) Mr. W. J. Potter — a zoological exploration of ex-German 

 New Guinea and New Britain. 



(c) Mr. Willoughby P. Lowe — a zoological exploration of 

 the West Coast of Africa. 



(d) Mr. H. C. Robinson, Director of the Federated Malay 

 States Museums — assistance in a collecting expedition to 

 the mountains of North Luzon and Mindoro, Philippine 

 Islands. 



Pwxhases. 



The grant-in-aid for Purchases has been restored to the pre-war 

 amount, namely, 6,5001. 



The principal purchases made during the year include the skuU 

 and tusks of an African male elephant shot by Major C. Christy in 

 the Belgian Congo ; seven complete skeletons of gorillas ; 158 bird- 

 skins from the Canary Islands and Cape Verde Archipelago 

 (Bannerman collection) ; a collection of isopod crustaceans, including 

 many type specimens ; an exceptionally fine specimen of a large 

 vase-shaped sponge, from Greece ; types of marine, land and fresh- 

 water mollusca ; 3,532 British specimens of minute parasitic 

 Hymenoptera of the family Mymaridse, collected by the late C. 0. 

 Waterhouse, I.S.O. ; 5,000 specimens of Rhynchota and Coleoptera, 

 including 250 types, being the ninth instalment of the Distant 

 collection of insects ; a collection of 93 microscope-slides taken from 

 successive levels in the shallow seam of coal in Staffordshire, with 

 67 mounted micro-photographs of the same ; fossil corals and 

 brachiopods from the carboniferous limestone of Britain and 

 Belgium collected by the late Dr. Arthur Vaughan ; vertebrate 

 fossils from the collection of the late W. E. Balston ; various minerals, 

 including specimens of copper and uranium ores from the Congo ; 

 scheelite (in large crystals) from Arizona ; slices of a meteoric iron 

 found in 1894 at Sams Valley, Jackson Co., Oregon, U.S.A. ; a 

 meteoric stone, weighing 2,797 grams, found near Plainview, Hale 

 Co., Texas, in 1913 ; and a number of botanical specimens, including 

 ferns from New Zealand and the South Sea Islands, and 1,094 

 flowering plants and ferns from Central Paraguay. 



Lantern Slides. 



Series of lantern-slides illustrating protective coloration and 

 economic zoology have been acquired, the negatives being the 

 property of the Trustees. These are frequently lent to approved 

 persons for lecture purposes. 



Exchanges and Gifts of Duplicates. 



Exchanges and gifts of duplicate specimens have been made 

 with various institutions and persons. 



Permission has been given to Lord William Percy to store 

 temporarily in the Museum, at his own risk, nine cabinets of his 

 collection of ducks. 



