82 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1885. 



No case suitable for large seals has yet been planned. The difficul- 

 ties here are fully as great as with the ruminants. B^ing wide and low, 

 the specimens cannot be placed on, high shelves. If arranged in low, 

 broad cases, having a single shelf at the center of height, the parallax 

 is such that the central and further portions of the floor of the case are 

 hidden by the shelf. Low cases without shelves hold but little in pro- 

 portion to the floor-space they occupy. In the British Museum, high 

 cases with one or two shelves are employed, but the effect is not all that, 

 could be desired. 



WORK IN THE GENERAL COLLECTION. 



At the beginning of the year the office and laboratory of the depart- 

 ment were removed from the south balcony to the first floor of the south- 

 west pavilion. The large skins, the alcoholics, and a certain part of the 

 smaller skins were brought together in the laboratory. A case was also 

 planned to contain the remainder of small skins. Before the end of the 

 year the whole of the duplicate and reserve series will be brought to- 

 gether in this room. The advantages of this change are very great. 



Little work was done upon the reserve series beyond that of poison- 

 ing newly acquired skins and selecting series of specimens desired by 

 different parties for study, dissection, &c, or to serve as exchanges 

 Beference to these exchanges will be found on page 84. 



The standing rule that the entry of freshly acquired specimens must 

 take precedence over other work was strictly observed, and the records 

 are now fully up to date. 



Considerable work was done in connection with the osteological series, 

 a statement of which will be found in the report on the Department of 

 Comparative Anatomy. 



No additions to the office force have been made. The curator and one 

 assistant (Dr. W. Gr. Stimpson) have carried on the entire work of the 

 department, at the same time registering and caring for the collections 

 in comparative anatomy and to a certain extent those of vertebrate 

 paleontology as well. 



INVESTIGATIONS IN PROGRESS. 



The subject of porpoise fishing has recently attracted considerable 

 attention in this country. The curator responded to numerous letters 

 of inquiry and also read a paper before the American Fisheries Society 

 relative to the fishery at Cape Hatteras (reported in Forest and Stream, 

 June 18, 1885). 



In June he was requested by the Director to report on the distinguish- 

 ing characters of the scalps of the wolf and the different species of foxes y 

 it having been discovered that in a certain county in Illinois unscrupu- 

 lous hunters were attempting to secure bounty on fox scalps by repre- 

 senting them to be those of wolves. 



