SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
September 29, 1S21. 
Mr . Oakes Ames, 
Hcrth Easton, Massachusetts. 
Dear Mr. /.roes: 
Manuscripts for publication in the Proceedings of 
the Biological Society of Washington should be addressed 
to Dr. C. W. Richmond, National Museum. It is probable 
that any manuscripts submitted can be published very 
promptly. 
We are having the orchids collected by Mr. Harry 
Johnson mounted, and just as soon as they are finished, we 
shall send them on, along with the other specimens re¬ 
quested in your recent letter. It will probably be ad¬ 
visable to send at the same time all of our undetermined 
material of the family. I am very glad indeed to hear 
that you are getting along so well with the treatment of 
the orchids for the Central American flora, and if there 
is anything that we can do at any time to assist in the 
prosecution of the work, we shall certainly be glad to do 
it. I do not know just what to say about the illustrations 
of the orchid genera. We can, I think, use all that are 
furnished provided that there is not more than one to a 
genus. Of course if you should wish to illustrate two or 
more species in some of the larger genera, there would 
certainly be no objection to that. It would probably be 
best to provide first for the illustrations of the better 
known and more widely distributed genera. There are, I be¬ 
lieve, some of the smaller groups which are known from only 
one or a few collections, and illustrations of these would 
probably not be so important. The main purpose of the il¬ 
lustrations should he to assist a collector in determining 
the plants which he is most likely to find, and the rarer 
species and genera, of course, are of less general interest. 
As to the size of the cuts, it is best to have them of full 
page width in most cases. Of course this does not neces¬ 
sarily mean that the drawings should be of full page width, 
but the cut should be wide enough so that it will not be 
necessary to reset the type around it. When resetting is 
necessary it adds greatly to the expense of publication and 
to the likelihood of typographical errors. Of course in 
some cases it will doubtless be possible to use quarter page 
cuts to furnish all that it is necessary to show in a draw¬ 
ing, and in such cases the smaller size would be preferable. 
It is best for you to use your own judgment as to the number 
and size of the illustrations, and I air, sure that it will be 
possible to accommodate them in publication. Mr. Safford’s 
