REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19 



ral history discussed and in the resulting contributions to our knowledge 

 may properly be here noticed. The present Secretary being at the head 

 of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, and the work 

 accomplished by this agency in increasing and diffusing scientific as well 

 as practical information being quite within the objects and province of 

 the Institution, much of the material would legitimately form a portion 

 of the Smithsonian Contributions or Miscellaneous Collections. These 

 reports are, however, published by the government, and are distributed 

 by Congress. 



Four volumes of this series have been published, each being of octavo 

 size and comprising about 1,000 pages. The last of these reports, pub- 

 lished in 1878, contains 1,089 pages, and embraces : (A) General con- 

 siderations on the progress of operations ; (B) Inquiry into the decrease 

 of the food-fishes ; (C) The propagation of food-fishes, as the shad, the 

 salmon, the white-fish, and the carp; (D) Tables showing the distribu- 

 tion of shad, salmon, &c, the places, dates, and quantities hatched by 

 the United States Fish Commission from 1872 to 1876. The Appendix 

 contains a number of important papers, the most elaborate of which is a 

 history of the American whale fishery, by Capt. Alexander Starbuck. 

 This is followed by one on the carp and its culture, by Kudolph Hessel. 



Smithsonian annual report. — The Annual Eeport of the Institution for 

 1877 was transmitted to Congress on the 6th of February, 1878, and 

 10,500 extra copies of it were ordered to be printed, 1,000 for the use 

 of the Senate, 3,000 for the House of Eepresentatives, and 6,500 for the 

 Institution. It forms an octavo volume of 500 pages, with 49 wood-cut 

 illustrations. The principal articles in the Appendix are a list of the 

 more important explorations and expeditions, the collections of which 

 have constituted the main sources of supply for the National Museum 

 from 1850 (and even earlier) to 1877 ; a translation of Holmgren's memoir 

 on color-blindness, in connection with which is reprinted an article on 

 the same subject by Professor Henry, published in 1815; translations of 

 the reports of the transactions of the Geneva Society of Physics and 

 Natural History for 1875, 1876, and 1877, of Weisman's article on the 

 change of the Mexican Axolotl to an Ambly stoma, and of short memoirs 

 on meteorological subjects, by Hann, Eeye, Sohncke, Colding, and Pes- 

 lin ; notes on the history and climate of New Mexico, by Thomas Mc- 

 Parlin, and brief articles on ethnological topics, by C. Eau, George L. 

 Cannon, Moses Strong, J. N. de Hart, E. E. Breed, M. W. Moulton, Mrs. 

 Gilbert Knapp, W. H. E. Lykins, James Shaw, J. Cochrane, George W. 

 Hill, H. B. Case, F. Miller, Joseph Friel, W. M. Clark, Charles C. Jones, 

 jr., W. B. F. Bailey, A. S. Gaines, K. M. Cunningham, S. S. Haldeman, 

 A. M. Harrison, S. P. Mayberry, William M. Taylor, Edwin M. Shepard, 

 George J. Gibbs, F. L. Gait, and Stephen Bowers. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



As in previous years, the subject of the anthropology of North America 

 received special attention from the Institution. Its earliest publica- 



\S 



