Report of the President 65 



to the limited capacity of the hall temporarily assigned to the 

 exhibition of fishes, improvements must consist chiefly in the 

 replacing of old and poorly prepared fishes with specimens 

 modeled or mounted by approved modern methods. 



The identification and cataloguing of new material and of 



the study collections have gone on apace. A number of 



researches are in progress, and several papers 



_ „ . relating to these will shortly be ready for press. 



Collections _ S TT , , , . , , . . . 



Curator Hussakof has continued his mvestiga- 



( tions on the extinct sharks known as Pleura- 



canths, on the Arthrodires and on lungfishes. 



Mr. Nichols has in preparation a paper on the fishes which he 



collected during the summer in Porto Rico. In addition, a 



number of short articles were published during the year, 



including seven papers in the Bulletin. 



Considerable progress has been made on the bibliography 



of fishes, which is in preparation by the department, and one 



section, including titles of all papers prior to 1800, is ready 



for printing. This important and extensive 



. ^. , work was begun by Professor Bashford Dean 



of Fishes & j 1 1 



twenty years ago and has been carried on by 



him and Dr. Hussakof during the past three years with a view 

 to its publication. It now consists of more than 40,000 titles. 

 Since Professor Dean retired from active work in the depart- 

 ment, the bibliography has been continued by Dr. Hussakof and 

 more recently by Dr. Charles R. Eastman, and has been 

 carried on through the research and publication fund voted to 

 Professor Dean by the Trustees. 



REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS 



The new accessions in herpetology number 144 reptiles and 



36 amphibians. They include the valuable specimens secured 



on the Roosevelt South American Expedition 

 Accessions 



and on the Porto Rico Survey and a purchase 



to supply genera much needed for comparison. Also valuable 



material has come to hand through the courtesy of the New 



York Zoological Society. 



