Report of the President 59 



EXISTING INVERTEBRATES 



Henry Edward Crampton, Curator 



Department of Invertebrate Zoology. — The past year 

 has witnessed marked progress in all lines of activity. New 

 and elaborate exhibits have been placed in the halls, much 

 constructive work has been accomplished in cataloging and 

 arranging the study collections, and several scientific investiga- 

 tions have been pushed forward and some of them have been 

 published. Mr. Grossbeck has been assigned to the imme- 

 diate oversight of Lepidoptera, in place of Mr. Beutenmiiller. 



Extensive additions have been made to the study collec- 

 tion. Most of the new material has been secured through our 

 own expeditions, of which four were sent out during the year, 

 while additional field work in our more immediate neighbor- 

 hood was prosecuted by three officers. As before, all field 

 work has been coordinated through its relation to the exten- 

 sive studies which the department as a whole has instituted, 

 namely, those of the distribution, evolution and migration of 

 the invertebrate organisms of North and South America. 

 Especially valuable are the results of Mr. Grossbeck, assisted 

 by William T. Davis, in southwestern Florida. A new field for 

 comparison of northern and arctic forms was entered by Mr. 

 Leng, who devoted several weeks to collecting in Labrador 

 and Newfoundland. Mr. Miner spent four weeks in making a 

 detailed biological study of the Greylock Range of the Berk- 

 shire Hills and obtained many insects and myriapods. Later 

 he spent some weeks at Woods Hole, Mass., with members of 

 the preparation room staff to complete the observations and 

 preliminary sketches for projected groups of Bryozoa inhabit- 

 ing shallow water. Early in the year, Professor Wheeler 

 carried on field work in Central America. In November Pro- 

 fessor Crampton made a reconnoissance of New Providence in 

 the Bahama Islands for the collection and study of terrestrial 

 molluscs especially, and to ascertain how desirable it might be 

 for the department to give fuller attention to this outlying 

 region. During the summer Dr. Lutz, Professor Treadwell 

 and Professor Crampton also prosecuted field work in regions 

 nearer New York City. 



