Pages 



CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN 



May-June, 19i5 



THE SCULPTOR AT WORK 



Louis Paul Jonis making one of the clay models used in preparation of his miniature 



animal sculptures, currently exhibited at the Museum, f-fis assistant. Miss Phyllis Cole, 



holds a prelimiiury sketch of the animal. In the background are several completed 



miniature sculptures. 



School Extension of this Museum began a 

 project to use similar models of the large 

 mammals as visual aids for certain units 

 of instruction in the Chicago Public School 

 curriculum. This project was interrupted 

 by the war and the high priority on the use 

 of natural rubber latex, but it will be 

 resumed when conditions permit. 



BEGAN WORK AT EARLY AGE 



Louis Paul Jonas was born in Budapest 

 in 1894, and began the study of sculpture 

 at the early age of eleven. When he was 

 fourteen, he was sent to the United States 

 to join his brothers in Denver, where they 

 had established themselves as taxidermists. 

 His career was accelerated by joining the 

 staff of the American Museum in 1913, 

 where he worked with the late Carl E. 

 Akeley, perhaps the most famous taxider- 

 mist who ever lived (chief taxidermist at 

 this Museum, then Field Museum of Natural 

 History, from 1898 to 1909). Jonas worked 

 with Akeley on the American Museum's 

 African Hall until his enlistment in the 

 United States Army in World War I. Sub- 



sequent to the war, 

 he returned to that 

 museum, and later em- 

 barked upon his inde- 

 pendent career. It is 

 singularly appropriate, 

 therefore, that the Jonas 

 models should be exhib- 

 ited in Carl E. Akeley 

 Memorial Hall of this 

 Museum dedicated to 

 the memory of his pre- 

 ceptor. 



One of the large ani- 

 mal groups in the Hall 

 of Marine Mammals 

 (Hall N)— that of wal- 

 ruses shown in a repro- 

 duction of their natural 

 Arctic environment — 

 was prepared by Mr. 

 Jonas and his brothers 

 some years ago. He has also prepared groups 

 for the Colorado Natural History Museum 

 in Denver, the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Sciences, the California Academy of Sci- 

 ences, various smaller museums, and many 

 works for private collectors. He now has 

 his studio at Lake Mahopac, New York, 

 in a railroad station which he bought when 

 the railroad discontinued stopping its trains 

 in that community. 



RARE BONGO ANTELOPE 

 A miniature by Louis Paul Jonas 



A SOLDIER— ZOOLOGIST 

 HOME FROM PACIFIC 



Returned recently for a short visit home 

 after nearly 30 months in the Solomons, 

 Corporal William J. Beecher, former tem- 

 porary assistant in the Department of 

 Zoology, spent most of his furlough at the 

 Museum working on his collections. 



Although ten months of his overseas time 

 was spent in combat areas. Corporal Beecher 

 managed during his spare time to accumu- 

 late several hundred specimens of birds and 

 mammals, most of which are new to the 

 Museum collections. In addition, he has 

 sent numerous collections of lizards, snakes 

 and frogs from this little-known island 

 group and persuaded other service men to 

 do the same. 



Corporal Beecher spent most of his time 

 on Guadalcanal, Russell Islands, Rendova, 

 New Georgia and Bougainville, but several 

 months were spent in New Caledonia and a 

 short time in New Zealand. At Rendova, 

 where he went in on the beach in the first 

 assault wave as a combat medical soldier, 

 he still managed to collect. 



He sometimes collected lizards during the 

 repeated air raids directed at the concen- 

 trated beachhead on Rendova, but dis- 

 creetly confined his collecting mainly to pro- 

 tected gullies. 



Shortly after the Munda airstrip was 

 secured. Corporal Beecher began painting 

 the common animals and plants of the Solo- 



mons, especially the birds, since no popular 

 literature for their identification existed. 

 He painted some sixty species in twenty- 

 four weeks during spare time amounting 

 to about a day a week. The plates represent 

 the first extensive attempt to paint the 

 natural history of the Solomons and 

 interpret it popularly. 



ORNITHOLOGIST E. R. BLAKE 

 WOUNDED IN ACTION 



Mr. Emmet R. Blake, Assistant Curator 

 of Birds, on leave from the Museum for 

 service with the Army, has been wounded. 

 He has been in action on the Italian, French 

 and German fronts. In a letter received by 

 Mrs. Hermon Dunlap Smith, Associate, 

 Birds, just as this Bulletin goes to press, 

 Mr. Blake, whose last known title was 

 Special Agent, War Department, writes: 



"If my left-handed writing is only slightly 

 neater than your typing, charge it to the 

 'Master Race' who finally got my range with 

 8-mm. high explosive shells near Wurzburg 

 on the 5th (April). Some shrapnel hit me 

 in the back near the lesser spare ribs, 

 splashed off my pate and smashed my right 

 hand. The fingers are O.K., so don't start 

 looking for another Assistant Curator. My 

 wounds are not at all serious; in fact, are 

 best described as 'million dollar wounds' 

 because they are neither maiming nor parti- 

 cularly painful, but will keep me out of 

 further trouble for awhile. I am now in 

 a large hospital somewhere in France and 

 it promises to be a pleasant vacation." 



Miss Elsie Lippincott, the Museum's 

 Former Librarian, Dead 



Miss Elsie Lippincott, Librarian of the 

 Museum for thirty-three years, died Febru- 

 ary 22. She came to the Museum very early 

 in its history (1897) and helped in laying the 

 foundation of the Library, working through 

 its early days and the hard years to make it 

 of use to the members of the staff. Miss 

 Lippincott was more than a librarian — she 

 was also a friend, working with the staff, 

 interested in their problems and desirous of 

 accomplishing the most possible for them. 

 Ill health compelled her to resign in 1930. 

 Her kindly personality, helpfulness and 

 efficiency in the administration of the 

 Library are still remembered by many 

 members of the Museum staff. 



The equipment used by the children of 

 China in their school work, and the clothes 

 they wear, are illustrated by an exhibit, with 

 life-size models of a typical boy and girl,, 

 in Hall 32. 



Samples of barley and wheat from Meso- 

 potamia, reputed to be 5,000 years old, and 

 of other ancient wheat from the pyramids of 

 Egypt, are exhibited in Hall 25. 



