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8

might naturally be expected.

A list of the chief accessions to the Department of Mollusks during the year is appended to this report. Though work of an administrative nature has occupied nearly all the time of the Curator and his assistants, yet some contributions to original research have been made during the year. The most important systematic relations of Turbinella pyrum Linné, long a desideratum, and the investigation of Chlamydoconcha a remarkable form of bivalve mollusk with an internal shell, from California, which proves to be the type of a new family. 

A list of the chief publications by the Curator, during 1884, is appended.

The number of entries made in the Mollusk register during the past year is 5231 but this is far from indicating the total number of accessions, the majority of which have been laid aside, to be catalogued later as occasion serves.

The total number of molluscan specimens in the possession of the Museum cannot be stated, as fully half of them are not catalogued, but it is safe to estimate them at not less than four hundred thousand, including duplicates and specimens in spirits. The number of species may approximate twenty thousand but this is much more uncertain. Several years must elapse before a definite enumeration can be made. The number of entries in the mollusk register is about forty one thousand, but this necessarily includes numerous duplicates of the same species from different localities.

The following accessions have been made to the collection in this department during the year.