212 Field Museum of Natural History — Reports, Vol. X 



— the Federal Civil Works Service, the Illinois Emergency Relief 

 Commission, etc. Although many of these men and women were 

 inexperienced and without especial qualifications, they were assigned 

 to work in which they could be trained and they soon became able 

 to render valuable service to the institution. In all cases they were 

 given work which had fallen behind or which the regular staff 

 had been unable to undertake for lack of time. They were not 

 used to relieve the regular staff of any of its usual duties. Through 

 their assistance large numbers of specimens hitherto in storage were 

 prepared, catalogued, labeled, and numbered. General efficiency 

 throughout the Department was greatly stimulated and much 

 substantial progress was made in the care and use of the collections. 

 Supervision of their work occupied much of the time of the regular 

 staff, but the net gain was very large. 



accessions — zoology 



Accessions for the year total 10,951, which is about double the 

 number received in 1933. The increase is due, mainly, to more 

 results from Museum expeditions. By zoological groups, the 

 accessions classify as follows: mammals, 1,405; birds, 1,947; amphib- 

 ians and reptiles, 3,370; fishes, 578; insects, 3,651. The number 

 obtained by Museum expeditions is 7,923; by gift, 2,730; by 

 exchange, 266; by purchase, 32. 



Foremost among gifts are the bronze and marble sculptures of 

 British champion domestic mammals, presented by Trustee Marshall 

 Field. These consist of nineteen pieces by the well-known artist 

 Mr. Herbert Haseltine. Their special installation in a new hall 

 (Hall 12) has been mentioned elsewhere. 



Gifts of mammals include a small number of especial interest 

 received from the new zoological gardens at Brookfield, Illinois, 

 through the cordial relations maintained between the Museum and 

 the Chicago Zoological Society. Dr. L. C. Sanford, of New Haven, 

 Connecticut, presented the skin of a bear from Mexico to match a 

 skull given to the Museum in 1902 and used as the basis of the 

 description of a new form {Ursus machetes). This, therefore, is a 

 type specimen and the preservation of both skin and skull together is 

 important. Dr. G. W. D. Hamlett, of the Harvard Medical School, 

 presented twenty-three specimens of bats collected in Brazil. 



The principal gifts of birds were those received from Mr. Leslie 

 Wheeler, of Lake Forest, Illinois, from time to time, amounting to 

 303 specimens. Among them were some fifty-five birds of prey and 

 a collection of 248 miscellaneous birds from southwest Africa. 



