USES OF A RESEARCH MUSEUM 165 



The museum curator only a few years since was satisfied to gather 

 and arrange his research collections with very little reference to their 

 source or to the conditions under which they were obtained. In fact it 

 is surprising to find how little information is on record in regard to 

 collections contained in certain eastern institutions as accessioned 

 previous to about 1885. The modern method, and the one adopted and 

 being carried out more and more in detail by our California museum, is 

 to make the record of each individual acquired, whether it comes in 

 from an outside donor or whether, as is the most usual case, it is se- 

 cured by the trained museum collector, as complete a history as prac- 

 ticable. 



The field collector is supplied with a separate-leaf note-book. He 

 writes his records on the day of observation with carbon ink, on one 

 side of the paper only. The floral surroundings are recorded, espe- 

 cially with respect to their bearing on the animal secured. The be- 

 havior of the animal is described and everything else which is thought 

 by the collector to be of use in the study of the species is put on record 

 at the time the observations are made in the field. The camera is as 

 important a part of his outfit as the trap or gun. These field notes and 

 photographs are filed so as to be as readily accessible to the student in 

 the museum as are the specimens themselves. 



Furthermore, a rather elaborate system of card cataloguing is main- 

 tained in the museum. Three sets of cards, namely, accession, depart- 

 ment and reference, which are kept up as a part of the regular work of 

 the curators, enable the enquirer to determine quickly what material is 

 on hand, in what form it is, when and where obtained, and, by follow- 

 ing up the cross references to the field note-books, the conditions under 

 which each animal was obtained. 



As a matter of routine, each specimen as it is obtained in the field 

 is at once tagged, the label being inscribed in India ink with the exact 

 place of capture, date, collector and field number. The original field 

 number is the same as that under which the animal is at the same time 

 recorded in the field notes. Its original tag is never detached from the 

 specimen, no matter what disposition is made of the latter in arranging 

 the collections in the museum; and so, reversely, the student may 

 quickly trace back again from any particular specimen its history, by 

 referring to the card catalogue and field note-book. In addition to the 

 original collector's number there is added on each label a separate de- 

 partment number by which it is referred to in the museum records and 

 any published articles specifically mentioning it. 



It will be observed, then, that our efforts are not merely to accumu- 

 late as great a mass of animal remains as possible. On the contrary, 

 we are expending even more time than would be required for the col- 

 lection of the specimens alone, in rendering what we do obtain as per- 



