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2.

[[double-underline]]Operations of the Department of Mammals and Comparative Anatomy for the six months ending June 30, 1885.[[/double-underline]]

By the beginning of the year 1885 the work of the Department incident upon the preparation of a collection to be exhibited in New Orleans was entirely completed and the regular routine work resumed.

^[[C. ||]]  The mammal exhibition-hall had been rendered less attractive than formerly by the removal of numerous large specimens to New Orleans and a temporary re-arrangement of the collections was attempted in order to make the deficiencies less conspicuous.   During the first quarter of the year thirty-three mounted specimens were added to the exhibition-series, including several large forms such as a Siberian sheep, a baboon, etc.   A list of all the mounted mammals was made in February and soon afterwards temporary labels were written and distributed among the specimens.  Manuscript for printed labels for the entire series was also prepared.

In the osteological hall a preliminary arrangement of the mounted skeletons was made.   A series of casts of bones of [[underline]]Dinoceras[[/underline]], presented by Prof.O.C.Marsh, was also put on exhibition.

In April the authorities of the Army Medical Museum transferred to the Institution the first instalment of a collection of about five hundred skulls and three hundred and fifty skeletons of North American vertebrates.   An agreement was entered into by the same establishment to undertake post mortem examinations of animals in the flesh received by the Institution and of which donors desired to know the cause of death.