386 Field Museum of Natural History — Reports, Vol. V. 



and 49 sea-urchins, starfish, etc., mostly collected by the late Mrs. 

 Fanny Sonshine and presented to the Museum by her daughter. Miss 

 B. Sonshine. A temporary addition to the Division of Entomology con- 

 sisted of the twenty-year deposit of the Garry de N. Hough Collection 

 of flies, received from the University of Chicago. The value of this 

 material is mainly due to the fact that it is rich in authentically named 

 species of certain families of Etiropean and North American muscid-like 

 flies. This collection will prove useful for comparison when naming 

 some of the Musetun material. It will also be helpful to students who 

 are interested in the families represented. 



EXPEDITIONS AND FIELD WORK. — Through thc gcncrous co-operation of 

 Mr. H. B. Conover it was possible to make one short but important 

 expedition during the year. Assistant Curator Osgood, accompanied by 

 Mr. Conover, left late in January for northwestern Venezuela and 

 returned to the Museum in the latter part of May. They worked in the 

 tropical lowlands surrounding Lake Maracaibo and in the Sierra de 

 Peri j a near the boundary between Venezuela and Colombia. Later 

 they penetrated the interior south of Lake Maracaibo to the highlands 

 of the ^lerra de Merida, working at various levels up to an elevation of 

 1 5, GOO feet. The collections and physical data obtained supplement the 

 results of previous expeditions in an important way and make the 

 Musetim collection of the vertebrates of this general region the most 

 comprehensive in existence. In prosecuting this work, the members of 

 the expedition were greatly assisted by ofiicials of the Caribbean Oil 

 Company, notably Mr. F. R. Bartlett. They were much indebted also 

 to Senor Juan E. Paris, a prominent and public-spirited citizen of 

 Maracaibo. 



Installation, Rearrangement, and permanent Improvement. — The Depart- 

 ment of Anthropology was engaged during the first half of the year in 

 packing material for removal to the new building. The method of 

 packing adopted proved so efficient that no essential damage was done 

 to any specimen, whether large or small, dtiring the removal. On moving 

 into the new building in June, the staff put in order and arranged the 

 offices, work-rooms, store-rooms, and laboratories assigned to the depart- 

 ment on the third floor. An immense number of crates, boxes, and 

 packages had been accumulated in Installation Room 34, during moving- 

 time. These were checked up with the records, sorted, and relegated to 

 the various sections to which the material belongs. Cabinets for storage 

 were placed in work-rooms, several storage racks and seven layout 

 tables were made. Hundreds of exhibition cases were stripped of packing 



