USES OF A RESEARCH MUSEUM 169 



" wild animal " is to be feared. People instinctively want to know the 

 names of things. There is the mere curiosity, perfectly laudable, 

 which brings such questions as these to the museum in greater and 

 greater number. It is as a popular source of information that no small 

 part of the curator's time is occupied. 



The economic value of birds and mammals to the agricultural in- 

 terests of the state is one of practical importance. In our field work 

 we obtain a great amount of information applicable along this line; 

 and, further, our staff keeps posted as to the results of the important 

 work carried on by our national government to ascertain the beneficial 

 or injurious effects of wild animals. Either from knowledge acquired 

 directly by ourselves, or from that published elsewhere, we are often 

 able to give the information asked for. The museum is thus constituted 

 a popular bureau of information as regards the higher vertebrate ani- 

 mals of the region with which, we are familiar. 



The functions of a research museum may be summarized as follows r 

 Collecting and preserving animals of certain groups from a limited 

 region; recording in permanent form all obtainable information in re- 

 gard to their distribution, variation, economic status and habits; serv- 

 ing as a bureau of popular information as regards the animals of the 

 region worked in; the description and analysis of ecologic and faunal 

 conditions as they are to-day; the publication of the immediately im- 

 portant data obtained, calling attention to whatever generalizations, 

 these facts may point towards. 



VOL. LXXV.— 12. 



