j6 Report of the President 



Mr. G. K. Noble was appointed a research assistant in June, 



and has been carrying on investigations on the Central and 



South American collections of the Museum. He 



Research and j s at p resen t n leave of absence to complete re- 

 publication r . r 



search begun on Peruvian reptiles at Cambridge. 



One paper has been published in the American Museum Bulle- 

 tin on the status of certain representatives of Eleutherodac- 

 tylus, Cerathyla and Hyla, with a contribution to the discussion 

 of the importance of the terminal phalanges in classification. 

 He has completed, ready for publication, a second paper cover- 

 ing the amphibians of the Nicaragua Collection of the Museum. 

 There is also on hand a completed paper on the snakes of the 

 Nicaragua Collection by Clarence R. Halter, who was pre- 

 vented from carrying out further work by a call to military 

 service. A paper is ready for publication on the turtles, croco- 

 diles and lizards of the Congo Collection of the Museum (1,593 

 specimens, 52 species of 23 genera). Of the ten new forms 

 described, 3 are geckos, 3 lacertids, 2 chamseleons, and 1 repre- 

 sents a new genus of Crocodilia related to the West African 

 Osteolamus. This work is in the hands of Mr. Karl P. Schmidt. 

 Mr. Schmidt has also done the preliminary cataloguing and 

 identification for a paper on the snakes of the Congo. 



Research on the reptile fauna of Lower California, in the 

 hands of the Associate Curator, has led necessarily to a review 

 of the reptile fauna of the Southwest, with critical study of 

 distribution and revision of various genera of desert lizards. 

 New species include three of Sauromalus, large chuckwallas 

 related to the single species so long known from the Colorado 

 Desert, and various island representatives of Sceloporus, Calli- 

 saurus, etc. 



Much bibliographical work has been carried on in connection 

 with research, forming records of permanent value to the de- 

 partment and to herpetology. The bibliographical work has 

 been standardized in accordance with a system compiled from 

 previous researches, including that recently carried out by the 

 department of fishes of the Museum, and it will be brought 

 together from the permanent card indexes for publication in the 

 future by Messrs. Charles L. Camp, George K. Noble and Karl 

 P. Schmidt. The Congo work has covered the cataloguing of 



