Annual Report.] 322 [May 4. 



tion of the spiders and myriapods is also progressing favor- 

 ably. Assistance has been rendered in various ways by 

 Messrs. Burgess and Minot. Nearly five thousand specimens 

 of insects have been sent away in exchange to Mr. E. L. 

 Layard, of Cape Town, Africa, Mr. H. Edwards, of San 

 Francisco, Messrs. W. Gulick, C. T. Robinson and G. L. 

 Graef of New York, to the Rev. Mr. Bethune, of Canada, and 

 to a number of persons in this vicinity. Mrs. Stratton has 

 presented about twenty five hundred insects of all orders, 

 collected near Boston by her son, the late Mr. Frank Stratton. 

 Mr. H. Edwards has sent collections, principally of beetles, 

 from Nevada, Oregon and New Zealand, and Dr. E. Coues a 

 large collection of Orthoptera from North Carolina. The 

 insects from Tehuantepec, taken on Professor Sumichrast's 

 Expedition, are worthy of special mention; considerable 

 additions have also been made by Messrs. Clapp, Dall, Wa- 

 ters and others. 



Mr. S. I. Smith, of New Haven, has labelled a portion of 

 our crabs, and described some that are new to science; 

 the worms have been rearranged and relabelled, and almost 

 the whole collection of Lower Articulates placed in the most 

 satisfactory condition. The Curator has made a large col- 

 lection of specimens in this department, and promises, when 

 they have been carefully studied, to deposit a series in the 

 Museum. Donations of New Zealand specimens have been 

 received from Messrs. H. Edwards and P. S. Sprague. 



The Curator of Mollusks reports that nearly all the larger 

 genera of siphon-bearing gasteropods, belonging to the Pratt 

 collection, are now permanently mounted on black tablets 

 and placed on exhibition ; a part of his time has been spent 

 in making a preliminary arrangement of the bivalves belong- 

 ing to the same collection, and these are also placed in our 

 show cases. Valuable series of British shells have been re- 

 ceived from the Smithsonian Institution and smaller dona- 



