rl02 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The fishes in the museum consist of two series of specimens, 

 one of which, collected by Spencer F. Baird, was sent from the 

 Smithsonian many years ago, and the other was collected by Dr 

 T. H. Bean on Long Island in 1898. All the specimens were in 

 the exhibition cases, but, as the two series contained many dupli- 

 cates, it was decided to remove these, and leave only the best 

 specimens of the others on exhibition. 



Among the invertebrates, the very fine collection of shells pos- 

 sessed by the museum needed considerable cleaning, owing to 

 the dust caused by the extensive repairs made in the building. 

 No change was made in its arrangement. The fine collection of 

 corals which occupied seven of the eight cases on the north side 

 of the hall was found to contain many duplicates, which were 

 removed, and the rest were cleaned and replaced in the four nar- 

 row window cases. This left vacant three large cases in which 

 to place invertebrates. The sea fans and sponges were also 

 placed in the window cases. 



The collection of echinoderms, which contains a fairly repre- 

 sentative series of southern starfish and sea urchins, was also 

 cleaned and the duplicates removed. 



The old alcoholic collection of invertebrates being in poor con- 

 dition, it was thought best to remove it entirely from exhibition. 

 A number of the forms have been replaced in systematic order, 

 with order and family labels, by specimens collected on Long 

 Island by Dr Tarleton H. Bean and Mr G. G. Scott. The fact 

 that the museum was closed to the public during the entire time 

 covered by this report made it possible to make a number of 

 changes of this kind without interfering with visitors. 



The collection of mounted skeletons, which makes a very good 

 nucleus for a comparative anatomic collection, was carefully 

 gone over and cleaned and some broken or misplaced bones 

 mended or replaced. 



A considerable portion of the time of the assistant in zoology 

 has been spent in completing the card catalogues of the zoologic 

 collection of the museum, which had been commenced bv his 

 predecessor, Dr Farr. These have been entirely completed, and 



