REPOKT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 71 



Etheostomoids; Drs. Torrey and Gray, the exploring expedition plants, 

 &c. None of the collections, stated last year to be out of the build- 

 ing, have yet been returned. 



Much progress has been made upon the descriptive works on North 

 American Diptera, by Dr. Loew and Baron Osten Sacken; on Neuroptera, 

 by Dr. Hagen; on Hymenoptera, by Mr. De Saussure; on Coleoptera, by 

 Dr. Leconte; on Hemiptera, by Mr. Uhier; and on Lepidoptera, by Dr. 

 Morris,- based, to a greater or less extent, on specimens supplied by the 

 Smithsonian Institution. It is hoped that nearly all these works will be 

 submitted to the Institution during 1860; and their publication can- 

 not fail to give an impetus to the study of entomology, so important 

 in its application to the interests of agriculture. In this connexion it 

 may be proper to state that a circular has been drawn up by Mr. 

 Uhler,and published by the Institution, embodying numerous queries, 

 having for their object the eliciting such information respecting 

 the habits and history of the grasshopper tribes of North America as 

 may serve as a basis of operations in restraining their ravages. 



A circular intended to secure contributions of shells from different 

 localities in North America, and a new edition of the circular in ref- 

 erence to North American eggs, have also been prepared for distribu- 

 tion. 



PRESENT CONDITION OF THE COLLECTIONS. 



In the last report I presented a list of all the great collections 

 constituting the bulk of the museum of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and the additions since then are enumerated in the following pages.* 



s:s For convenience of reference, it may be well to continue the enumeration here from 

 page 55 of the report for 1858 : 



50. Collections made in Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah, by Captain J. H. Simpson, U. S. A. 



51. Collections made on the South Pass wagon-road route, under F. W. Lander, esq. 



52. Collections made on the El Paso and Fort Yuma wagon-road route, by J. B. Leech, esq. 



53. Collections made on the wagon-road route from Walla- Walla to Fort Benton, by 

 Lieutenant John Mullan, U. S. A. 



54. Collections made during an exploration of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone, by 

 Captain J. W. Raynolds, U. S. A. 



55 Collections made during the exploration of the San Juan and Upper Colorado, by 

 Captain J. N. Macomb, U. S. A. 



56. Collection made in an exploration of Cape St. Luc is, Lower California, by John 

 Xantus, esq. 



57. Collections made at Fort Crook, by John Feilner, esq. 



58. Collections made in tbe Arctic regions, by Robert Kennicott, esq. 



59. Collections made in Illinois, by J. W. Tolman, esq. 



60. Collections made in Central Florida, by Dr. J. B. Bean. 



61. Collections made in Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah, by Dr. Suckley, U. S. A. 



62. Collections made in the Bahamas, by Mr. William Cooper. 



63. Collections made in the Bahamas, by Dr. H. Bryant. 

 <54. Collections made in South Florida, by Dr. J. G. Cooper. 



•65. Collections made in the Tortugas, by Captain H. G. Wright, U. S. A. 



66. Collections made in the Tortugas, by Captain D. P. Woodbury, U. S. A. 



67. Collections made in the Tortugas, by Dr. Whitehurst. 



68. Collections made in Louisiana, by the professors and students of St. Charles College 



69. Collections made on the Isthmus of Panama, by James McLeannan, esq. 



70. Collections made in the West Indies and in Newfoundland, by Theodore Gill. 



71. Collections from the Saskatchawan, by Captain John Blakiston, R. A. 



72. Collections made by Commodore Perry on the Japan expedition. 



