Report of the President. 2 7 



of a collection is accompanied by an individual label giving 

 common name, scientific name and locality. The collections 

 are especially welcome in the schools of the lower East Side, 

 where we have found as many as 4,000 children in a building 

 and scarcely a single specimen to illustrate nature work. 



A great number of school children, both singly and accom- 

 panied by their teachers, have studied the collections during 

 the year, and a number of lectures, especially designed for 

 school children, have been given by Mr. Sherwood and some 

 of the teachers. 



During the second quarter of the year there were many in- 

 quiries from artists, writers, business men and other visitors, 

 especially foreign travelers, for information concerning sub- 

 jects pertaining to the department. 



Professor W. M. Wheeler assumed his duties as Curator 

 of the department in September. Dr. Duerden, Honorary 

 Curator of Coelenterates, has been engaged in negotiating 

 exchanges in corals with some of the larger museums in 

 England, Ireland and this country. 



The following papers have been contributed by members of 

 the department during the past year: J. E. Duerden, "West 

 Indian Sponge-incrusting Actinians;" W. M.Wheeler, "Some 

 Notes on the Habits of Cerapachys," Psyche, Vol. X, 1903; 

 "Extraordinary Females in Three Species of Formica, etc;" 

 "Some New Gynandromorphous Ants, etc." Bull. Am. Mus. 

 Nat. Hist., Vol. XIX, 1903. 



Department of Books and Publications. — The adoption 

 of the decimal system (a generally approved method of classi- 

 fication) and the placing of the library of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences and that of the American Ethnological 

 Society in our custody have necessitated the classification of 

 the combined libraries and the rejection of much duplicate 

 material. Some idea of the amount of labor involved may be 

 gathered from the fact that the time of six assistants during 

 the entire year has been devoted exclusively to this work. 



The anthropological, archaeological and ethnological books 

 have been brought together and installed in the room of the 



