150 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



mens as seemed 10 need it. Shelves for the storage of empty jars have 

 been erected and prove a great convenience. 



Only an insignificant number of specimens, with the exception of the 

 Soricidce, remain unidentified. Jt has been deemed best to postpone the 

 identification of the shrews until the publication of the third part of Dr. 

 G. E. Dobson's work upon the insect ivora, which will probably appear 

 during the coming year. 



The registers are complete to date, so far as the curator is aware. 



During the fall a considerable number of worthless specimens were 

 removed from the collection and destroyed. This was done only after 

 very careful examination of the records, and with the consent of the 

 director. 



The curator has had the assistance, as hitherto, of a single clerk, Dr. 

 W. G. Stimpson. He has continued to act as before in the capacity of 

 librarian and curator of the department of Comparative Anatomy and 

 also as secretary of the advising committee on publications. The force 

 of taxidermists was reduced in the spring to two by the resignation of 

 Mr. J. Richardson. 



The curator has continued his studies upon the toothed whales dur- 

 ing the year and has published several papers, which, together with 

 other papers based partly on museum material by naturalists not con- 

 nected with the Museum, arc noticed in Part IV of this report. (See 

 under 0, Hart Merriam, li. W. Shufeldt, and Frederick W. True.) 



In May, by invitation of the U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fish- 

 eries, the curator visited the porpoise fishery of the Wilmington Oil and 

 Leather Company at Hatteras, N. C, and obtained much valuable in- 

 formation regarding the life-history of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Tursi- 

 ops tursio, which is caught in great numbers at that point for the manu- 

 facture of leather and oil. 



The Alaskan collections of Mr. E. W. Kelson and the late 0. L. Mc- 

 Kay were identified, and annotated lists of the species were prepared. 

 The notes upon Mr. Nelson's collection will be published in his report; 

 those relating to Mr. McKay's collection, in the Proceedings of the 

 Museum. 



In the course of his work upon Mr. Nelson's specimens the curator had 

 occasion to compare the skulls of the American species of Lynx and was 

 fortunate enough to discover certain cranial characters which render L. 

 canadensis readily distinguished from L. rufus and its varieties. The 

 discovery was made the subject of a note in Science, Vol. vir, p. 390. 



During an examination of the collection of insectivores a single 

 specimen of an apparently undescribed mole from Japan was found. 

 A description of the specimen has been prepared for the Proceedings 

 of the Museum, under the name of Dhmecodon pilirostris. 



The curator has also made a new study of the Kangaroo Rats (Dipod- 

 omys) resulting in the establishment of two species, D. philllpsil (Gray) 

 and D.agilis Gambel,the former having four toes on the hind foot, and 

 the latter five. 



