REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 27 



performed within the walls of the Museum, and therefore extraneous 

 co operation is no longer so necessary a feature of the work of the 

 establishment. 



The applications for specimens this year numbered 83, most of which 

 were filled, besides 46 which remained on file from previous years. 

 The distributions for this year consist for the most part of material 

 sent as gift to needy colleges and museums, or in exchange for material 

 received. These amounted to 327 packages, among which were included 

 3,460 specimens of marine invertebrates (32 sets), 1,573 rocks, 1,462 

 birds, 1,168 minerals, 1,029 mollusks, 555 paleozoic fossils, 543 ethno- 

 logical objects, 165 ores, 148 birds' eggs, 133 mammals, 106 reptiles, 94 

 fishing implements, and 84 fishes. Forty-nine boxes and pne package, 

 containing materia medica specimens, animal products, pottery, and 

 fossil plants, were also included in the distribution. In addition to this, 

 13 sets of plans and drawings of Museum cases and bottles, 95 pho- 

 tographs of Museum specimens, and 9 musical instruments were also 

 given or lent. 



Among the most important distributions of the year have been those 

 of the buffalo heads, skins, and skeletons which formed a part of the 

 result of the Smithsonian exploration into Montana, and which were 

 presented to corporations and individuals who had materially assisted 

 in bringing the expedition to success. A large number of axolotls, for 

 the most part presented to the Museum by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. 

 Army, were given away to various applicants for purposes of study. 



Foreign Exchanges. 



A collection of 112 specimens (105 species) of birds and 24 mammal 

 skins was sent to tbe museum of the municipal library in Kurrachee, 

 India, in exchange for collections of drugs, reptiles, and mammals re- 

 ceived. A skull and 11 bones of Bhytina together with additional 

 skeletons of mammals and birds and some insects, were sent to M. 

 Beauregard, of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, in exchange 

 for 18 mammal skeletons and a small series of insects received. Four- 

 teen pieces of Chiriqui pottery were sent to M. Lauth, director of the 

 establishment of Sevres, France, in exchange for material received ; 

 and a bust of Osceola and a Sioux head-dress were transmitted to the 

 minister of public instruction for the Trocadero Museum in Paris, in 

 part exchange for a valuable collection of Sevres porcelain received 

 from the French Government. The negotiations which for some time 

 have been pending with the Annecy Musee, Haute-Savoie, have been 

 completed during this year by the transmission of a collection of eth- 

 nological objects and a series of fossils in exchange for a collection of 

 minerals, rocks, etc., received last year. A buffalo-skin was sent to 

 Dr. Tor Helliesen, curator of the zoological department of the Stavan- 

 ger Museum in Norway. A sea lion skin was sent to the Bergen Mu- 

 seum in Norway. A small and varied collection of fossils, moa bones, 



