84 Report of the President 



EXISTING REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS * 

 G. K. Noble, Assistant Curator, in Charge 



The study collections have grown rapidly during the year, 

 and, while the increase has fallen a little short of the excellent 

 record made during the preceding year, 3,571 

 r r ?i Wt ri°* specimens were received and catalogued. In 

 addition, a collection of nearly a thousand speci- 

 mens has arrived too late to be accessioned and included in 

 the total number. Only a very small part of this material has 

 come to the Museum through purchase, 1,309 specimens having 

 been received as gifts. These specimens came from China, 

 Australia, Spanish Guinea, Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil, and various 

 parts of the United States, special effort being made to secure 

 neotropical material. In some cases a small amount of money 

 was advanced to meet the expenses of the collectors. 



Effort has been made to bring the Department into closer 

 relations with other institutions through exchange of material, 

 and thus 1,943 specimens have been received. Several 

 Museums in South America, the Institute of Comparative 

 Anatomy at Genoa, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Cambridge, the University of Colorado, and Princeton Univer- 

 sity have been the most generous contributors. More than a 

 thousand specimens have been loaned the Department for 

 study and identification, many of which it is hoped will be 

 retained permanently. These specimens have been sent 

 through the courtesy of several institutions, chiefly the United 

 States National Museum, the Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 and the Brooklyn Museum. Return courtesies in the form of 

 loans have been extended to the two former institutions and 

 loans have been made to the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 

 ton and Oberlin College. 



No extensive field work was undertaken during the year, 



* Under the Department of Herpetology (see also pages 219 to 221). 



