REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 49 



return of the main party under the commissioner was announced, and 

 hrief mention made of the important collections gathered during the 

 survey. The party engaged on the western portion of the line, under 

 Lieutenant N. Michler, arrived in Washington early in the present 

 year. The natural history collections were made by Arthur Schott, 

 esq. , and were in very great variety ., embracing many species new to 

 the fauna of the United States ; thus rendering still more just the 

 remarks made in my last report upon the comprehensiveness and 

 value of the natural history results of the United States and Mexican 

 houndary survey. 



Fort Yuma. — An important addition to our knowledge of the zool- 

 ogy of the Mexican boundary line was made by Major Gr. H. Thomas, 

 United States army, assisted by Lieutenant Dubarry, United States 

 army, in a series of the animals of Fort Yuma. This embraced sev- 

 eral new species ; the most important of which was a Phyllostome bat, 

 the first member of that family ever found within the limits of the 

 United States. 



• b. — REGIONS WEST OF THE MISSOURI. 



The government parties engaged in the regions north of the Mexi- 

 can boundary line and on or west of the Missouri river, and from 

 which collections have been received in 1856, are three in number ; 

 the results of which were important and satisfactory in a high degree. 

 The labors of other parties of a more private character working within 

 the same field have also yielded fruits of great value. 



1. The exploration of the Llano Fstacado, under Captain J. Pope, 

 United States army. — This expedition was sent out in 1854 for the 

 purpose of testing the practicability of artesian borings for water 

 in the desert plains of Texas. It returned in October, 1856, after 

 having succeeded in accumulating a large mass of facts and ob- 

 servations respecting the geology, geography, topography, mag- 

 netism, meteorology, and other physical features of the climate 

 and soil of the staked plains. But the results of most interest here 

 consist in a very extensive collection of the animals of that little 

 known region, embracing full series of its vertebrata and insects. 

 The collection, in respect to the latter, is indeed of hitherto unexam- 

 pled extent in the history of government expeditions ; Captain Pope 

 having directed particular attention to specimens in this obscure de- 

 partment of American zoology. The result is to be found in sixty 

 boxes of pinned insects of all orders, in great excellence of preserva- 

 tion, and furnishing, not only ample materials for the study of geo- 

 graphical distribution, but likely to throw much light on the charac- 

 ter, habits, and changes of many species of western insects, already 

 possessing a painful prominence for their devastations of plants of 

 both wild and cultivated growth. 



Complete collections of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes of 

 this region were also made ; among them several species entirely new, 

 and others not previously known, except in very different localities. 



4 s 



