1870.] 319 [Annual Report. 



entirely eradicated; to accomplish this, four or five per- 

 sons have worked for two months continuously from eight 

 to ten hours per day, extending their labors far into warm 

 weather. Since that time the collection has been repeatedly 

 examined, and very many specimens repoisoned and carefully 

 watched. The Curator now reports them to be in good 

 order. The case for skins has been completely filled, and 

 many unmounted specimens have been stored in some of the 

 transportation trunks for want of a more suitable place. Mr. 

 F. E. Everett has contributed twenty seven interesting skins 

 collected by himself in Colorado, the Smithsonian Institution 

 have added about fifty specimens from various American 

 localities, including some of the rarest birds of Alaska ; and 

 Messrs. S. Mixter, H. A. Purdie and others, have presented a 

 number of specimens from this vicinity. 



Extensive additions have been made to our collections of 

 Bird's Eggs and Nests, mostly by exchange. From Mr. G. L. 

 Layard of the South African Museum at Cape Town, we have 

 received a choice consignment of more than three hundred 

 eggs of one hundred species of birds, several of which are 

 quite rare ; the Smithsonian Institution has sent us a good 

 many European nests and eggs, and very large series of 

 valuable nests and eggs of American birds ; a still larger 

 collection, selected by the Curator on a recent visit to Wash- 

 ington is daily expected. Two invoices of eggs have been 

 received from the Rev. Mr. Jones, of Madison, Conn., con- 

 taining about twenty species useful for exchange, and Dr. 

 Baldamus, of Halle, has sent eggs of twenty four species of 

 very rare and valuable birds, mostly from Africa, Eastern 

 Europe and Western Asia. The Curator has also added 

 nearly forty species of European eggs from his own collec- 

 tion, Mr. S. Mixter has presented some of the bulkier nests 

 of New England birds, and Mr. B. P. Mann about fifty eggs 

 and nests collected by him in North Carolina. 



In exchange for many of these the Curator has made good 



