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^[[Stej.]]

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5. WHAT SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS HAVE YOU COMMENCED, CONTINUED, OR COMPLETED, UPON THE MATERIAL UNDER YOUR CARE, DURING THE YEAR.
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Owing partly to absence on account of illness, but chiefly to the time consumed in removing the entire collection from the Smithsonian building to its new quarters in the museum the curator has had but little time left from the routine business of the office to devote to special investigations.  A number of new species have been described, the geographical distribution of the Crotalid and Elapid snakes of the United States has been plotted in maps; a large technical paper on East African reptiles and an extensive popular account of the Poisonous Snakes of North America were finished, a detailed study of the reptiles and batrachians of Japan and the adjacent countries was begun with a view to the elaboration of a complete manual to the herpetology of that region.