28 | ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
Sharpe’s Hand List has been begun. As the birds are assembled 
in the new order they are placed in new cases of large size and 
improved pattern, where they will be more easily accessible than 
they have been heretofore. The families thus far dealt with ex- 
tend from Struthionidae to Stercorariidae. 
In the Report for 1899-1900 (p. 29), and again in that for 
1902-19038 (p. 23) I mentioned the receipt by the Museum, from 
the Bryant-Bigelow families of Boston, of a large number of 
skins, chiefly of North American and West Indian birds. These 
were at first placed in the Museum on deposit, but they have 
since come into our possession as an unconditional gift. Within 
the past few months I have reviewed most of them for cata- 
loguing and relabelling. While working on them I have become 
more and more deeply impressed with the value and impor- 
tance of the collection. It contains a number of exceptionally 
rare specimens, among which are a European Teal shot on Curri- 
tuck Sound, a hybrid between the Mallard and Wigeon, a Caro- 
lina Paroquet, taken April 24, at Bald Island, Nebraska — where 
the species has long since ceased to occur, and several Pas- 
senger Pigeons — now almost if not quite extinct. Especially 
interesting to ornithologists of the present day are the birds which 
formed the original nucleus of the collection and which were ob- 
tained by Dr. Henry Bryant, forty or more years ago, chiefly in 
the Bahamas, in Florida, and at various localities in New England 
(especially near Boston) and in the Middle States. There are 
also very many skins, bearing his original, clearly-inscribed, — 
manuscript labels, which he must have secured by purchase or 
exchange, and which came from parts of North America at that — 
day remote and seldom visited by collectors, such as the region — 
about Hudson Bay, the Rocky Mountains, and the northwest 
coast. Among these northern and western birds, then but im- 
perfectly known, as well as among the species which Dr. Bryant 
himself obtained along or near the Atlantic seaboard, I have yet 
to find a single specimen which was incorrectly named by him. 
What other ornithologist of his time — excepting possibly Pro- 
fessor Baird —has left so remarkable a record! 
Dr. Bryant’s reputation for exceptional ability and acumen as 
an ornithologist has been too long established, of course, to re- 
quire confirmation from evidence such as that just mentioned. 
It is perhaps not equally well known, however, that he was one 
of the very first —if not actually the first — of American orni- 


