1872.] 



SENATE— No. 249. 



19 



Two lady assistants have, as usual, been occupied in cleaning 

 and mounting the specimens, and their labors in this way have 

 been vr: 7 5 : '^factory. During the current year some 2,000 tab- 

 lets, mounted with 5.c00 specimens, have been added to the col- 

 lection ; our present number of mounted tablets being considera- 

 bly over 30,000, and the number of specimens thus mounted 

 exceeds 80,000. 



These lalx)rs, however important, have not been allowed to 

 engross all my time and attention, or to interfere with the in- 

 crease and improvement of the collection in other respects, 

 (hir exchanges have been steadUy kept up, and some of the most 

 interesting species we have ever received have come to us dur- 

 ing the current year. 



Among these. I recur with peculiar pleasure to one sp>ecies 

 which happened to be among my earliest acquisitions in 1825, 

 but which has since persistently eluded all attempts to procure 

 additional specimens, until we received during the present year, 

 shortly after our last report, quite a number of specimens. 



The numl3er of specimens received since our last report, has 

 not been as great as in many former years ; but we now aim at 

 greater discrimination, and only desire those which will be of 

 immediate service, either by supplying the many deficiencies in 

 our collection directly, or indirectly by furnishing us with avail- 

 able duplicates, which need only a second exchange to add to 

 our species. Nearly every exchange made during the vear has 

 therefore been a special one, and thereby all useless duplicates 

 have been in a great measure avoided. 



Among the valuable contributions thus received, we desire to 

 note a most interesting series of specimens received from Mr. 

 Gates of the U. S. Navy, consisting of about 500 species, very 

 largely from Tahiti and the Fejee Islands ; which, on faunal con- 

 siderations as well as the great beauty and perfection of the 

 specimens, were very desii-able to us. 



Our Pacific Coast Shells have also been considerably enriched 

 by a fine collection purchased from Dr. J. G. Cooper, of about 

 400 species, carefully named and well preserved. These, with 

 our previous possessions from that quarter, and some which are 

 promised from another source, will render our fauna of that 

 region very complete and satisfactory. 



Our East Indian fauna, hitherto very complete, has been fur- 



