454 butterflies of North America from John A. Wagner (gift) ; 2,088 

 leaf beetles (Cassididae) and 3,717 histerid beetles of Europe and the 

 Old World tropics (purchase); 1,021 long-horn wood-boring beetles 

 and 1,749 other beetles of Brazil (purchase) ; about 9,500 worldwide 

 mollusks from Curator Solem gift); and about 4,000 choice marine 

 shells from Museum Contributor Dr. Jeanne S. Schwengel (gift). 



A gift of 8 paintings done by chimpanzees and 2 by a child came 

 from Mrs. Emily Crane Chadbourne, a Museum Contributor. One 

 picture is the work of the well-known London chimpanzee Congo 

 who was featured in a London show some years ago and whose work 

 has been discussed in several scientific papers, one was done by Betsy 

 of the Baltimore Zoo whose output attracted considerable newspaper 

 attention recently, and six are by a relatively unknown young chim- 

 panzee whom Mrs. Crane found doing commercial work in a Wash- 

 ington department store. These pictures, which vary in size from 

 12 by 16 inches to 20 by 25 inches and are oils or watercolors on 

 board or paper, are arrangements of bright colors in nonrepresenta- 

 tive designs. These concrete examples of chimpanzee behavior are 

 of considerable interest as samples of what the highest of the great 

 apes can do in a sphere that is usually considered one of the finest 

 expressions of mankind. 



Care of the Collections— Zoology 



The painstaking preparation required by some animal specimens 

 is nowhere better illustrated than in the cleaning and labeling of 

 skulls and skeletons. A dermestid beetle colony, housed in a bug- 

 proof room on the ground floor, helps with some smaller specimens 

 (the beetles eat the flesh off the bones). Larger mammals (a Pere 

 David deer was the largest single item cleaned this year) may be 

 boiled to soften the flesh. But in any case there are always bits of 

 flesh or tissue to be picked or scraped or washed off. The cleaned 

 skeletons are bleached, and then the bleach is neutralized and the 

 bones are washed. Finally the bones are dried. Skulls and disarticu- 

 lated skeletons are numbered in India ink, or if the skeleton is kept 

 articulated a numbered tag is attached (the number of course refers 

 to an entry in a catalogue where full details of the place, date, and 

 collector are available). Then the specimen is filed in a vial, box, or 

 cabinet drawer ready for study by someone interested in bats, ele- 

 phants, snakes, hummingbirds, or fishes, as the case may be. Osteol- 

 ogist Sophie Andris, who does much of this work, prepared 49 skele- 

 tons, about 800 skulls, and 10 invertebrates. 



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