10 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



For its research collections the Museum has acquired some sel- 

 achians of unusual interest; fragments of fossil fishes from the 

 Lower Old Red Sandstone of Scotland; fossil vertebrates from the 

 Cretaceous of western Kansas; and additional series of Rotifera. 



Drs. Clark and Bigelow collected for two weeks in August, 1910, 

 at Grand Manan, and the same length of time was spent at the 

 same place in July, 1911, by Dr. Clark. Though the results of the 

 dredging and of the surface collecting were rather meagre, some 

 interesting forms were obtained by shore work. Dr. Clark also 

 made quite an advance toward a satisfactory preparation of 

 starfishes. During the past summer Dr. Bigelow devised and 

 tested satisfactorily a closing net for horizontal towing. This 

 work was carried on in Massachusetts Bay and in the Gulf of 

 Maine, and for the opportunity to undertake it as well as the 

 expedition to Grand Manan in 1910, acknowledgment is due Mr. 

 Joseph S. Bigelow, Jr., who most kindly placed his yacht at the 

 disposal of Drs. Bigelow and Clark. 



Dr. G. M. Allen and Mr. C. T. Brues collected, during their 

 stay of five weeks in Grenada, B. W. I., many desirable mammals, 

 birds, and reptiles, together with some invertebrates of excep- 

 tional interest. The generosity of Dr. Thomas Barbour enabled 

 Messrs. Allen and Brues to undertake this work for the Museum. 



The Library contains 48,019 volumes, and 44,442 pamphlets; 

 the accessions for the year are 1,095 volumes, and 1,075 pamphlets. 



An Audubon plate of peculiar interest, a gift of Mr. John E. 

 Thayer, has been hung in the Library; it represents three Clapper 

 Rails in place of two shown in Audubon's published works; both 

 the arrangement of the birds and the background differ from the 

 Ha veil plate. The plate given by Mr. Thayer was printed by 

 Childs and Inman, Philadelphia, and is dated 1832; the date of 

 the Havell plate is 1834. 



There have been placed in the Library two noteworthy records 

 of Mr. Agassiz; one the original manuscript from which the 

 abstract of his first scientific paper on the mechanism of the flight 

 of Lepidoptera, Proceedings Boston society of natural history, 

 February, 1859, was made, and the other a case with a number of 

 beautiful drawings on wood, the work of Mr. Agassiz during the 

 early years of the Museum; these figures were drawn for a text- 

 book of zoology, proposed, but never carried to completion, by his 

 father. The manuscript is the property of Mrs. George R. Agassiz 

 and has been kindly loaned by her. 



The publications of the year are listed on pages 38-39; these 



