AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



39 



lection already mentioned, has been mainly collections of mammals from 

 the Island of Hainan, China, received by purchase, 1906-1908, and a few 

 small lots of mammals received from western and northern China (by 

 purchase); and small collections of birds and mammals collected in the 

 Dutch East Indies by Roy C. Andrews in 1909 and in Korea in 1912. 

 Especially should also be mentioned the important collection of cetacean 

 material collected by Mr. Andrews in the North Pacific in 1910-1912. 



This material has all been carefully studied and reported upon in the 

 ' Bulletin ' and ' Memoirs ' of the American Museum, except the recently 

 received mammals and birds of the Congo Expedition, and some of the 

 South American collections of birds, the Cetacean material having been the 

 basis of monographs by Mr. Andrews, while Mr. Anthony has published 

 on the mammals collected by him in Panama and Oregon. The other 

 mammal collection have all been reported upon in numerous papers by the 

 writer, including a memoir on Muskoxen, recent and extinct (1913), and a 

 revision of the South American Sciuridse (1915). My last faunal papers on 

 birds were reports on the Smith collection from Santa Marta, Colombia 

 (1900-1904) and the Buxton collection from Siberia (1905). Two papers 

 on the types of the North American genera of birds (1907) are also among 

 my later papers on birds. 



The collections of birds received prior to 1905 have been the basis of 

 several faunal papers by Curator Chapman and Assistant Curator W. DeW. 

 Miller. Chapman has published important preliminary papers on the 

 recently received South American collections of birds, describing many new 

 forms, and has now in press a report on the birds of Colombia, which forms 

 Volume XXXVI of the American Museum ' Bulletin.' It is thus a pleasure 

 to record that the recent field activities of my department of the Museum, 

 so extensive and so varied, have been adequately supplemented by labora- 

 tory research and prompt publication of results. 



Affiliations with the American Ornithologists' Union and other 

 Scientific Societies (since 1883). 



As regards general activities, my interests have been confined within 

 narrow limits, partly from an inborn shrinking from functions that necessi- 

 tate appearance in public positions and partly through lack of the physical 

 endurance to meet such demands. The exception has been my connection 

 with the American Ornithologists' Union, the founding of which was due 

 in part to my instigation, 1 and with whose activities I became from the first 



1 The call for the meeting of ornithologists which led to its organization was issued by Elliott 

 Coues, William Brewster and the writer, in 1883. 



