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FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



February, 1933 



Field Museum of Natural History 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 

 Roosevelt Road and Lake Michigan, Chicago 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Sewell L. Avery 

 John Bokden 

 William J. Chalmers 

 Marshall Field 

 Stanley Field 

 Ernest R. Graham 

 Albert W. Harris 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Cyrus H. McCormick 



John P. 



William H. Mitchell 

 Frederick H. Rawson 

 George A. Richardson 

 Fred W. Sargent 

 Stephen C. Simms 

 James Simpson 

 Solomon A. Smith 

 Albert A. Spragub 

 Silas H. Strawn 

 Wilson 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Field President 



Albert A. Sprague First Vice-President 



Jamb:s Simpson Second Vice-President 



Albert W. Harris Third Vice-President 



Stephen C. Simms Director and Secretary 



Solomon A. Smith. . .Treasurer and Assistant Secretary 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Stephen C. Simms, Director of the Museum Editor 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Berthold Laufer Curator of Anthropology 



B. E. Dahlgren. Acting Curator of Botany 



Oliver C, Farrington Curator of Geohgy 



Wilfred H. Osgood Curator of Zoology 



H. B. Harte Managing Editor 



Field Museum is open every day of the year during 

 the hours indicated below: 



November, December, January 9 A.M. to 4:30 p.m. 



February, March, April, October 9 A.M. to 5:00 p.m. 

 May, June, July, August, September 9 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 



Admission ia free to Members on all days. Other 

 adults are admitted free on Thursdays, Saturdays and 

 Sundays; non-members pay 25 cents on other days. 

 Children are admitted free on all days. Students and 

 faculty members of educational institutions are admit- 

 ted free any day upon presentation of credentials. 



The Museum's natural history Library is open for 

 reference daily except Saturday afternoon and Sunday. 



Traveling exhibits are circulated in the schools of 

 Chicago by the N. W. Harris Public School Extension 

 Department of the Museum. 



Lectures for schools, and special entertainments 

 and tours for children at the Museum, are provided 

 by the James Nelson and Anna Louise Raymond 

 Foundation for Public School and Children's Lectures. 



Announcements of free illustrated lectures for the 

 public, and special lectures for Members of the Museum, 

 will appear in Field Museum News. 



A cafeteria in the Museum serves visitors. Rooms 

 are provided for those bringing their lunches. 



Chicago Motor Coach Company No. 26 buses go 

 direct to the Museum. 



Members are requested to inform the Museum 

 promptly of changes of address. 



MEMBERSHIP IN FIELD MUSEUM 



Field M useum has several classes of Mem bers. 

 Benefactors give or devise $100,000 or more. Contribu- 

 tors give or devise $1,000 to $100,000. Life Members 

 give $500; Non-Resident (Life) and Associate Members 

 pay $100; Non-Resident Associate Members pay $50. 

 All the above classes are exempt from dues. Sustaining 

 Members contribute $25 annually. After six years they 

 become Associate Members. Annual Members con- 

 tribute $10 annually. Other memberships are Corpo- 

 rate, Honorary, Patron, and Corresponding, additions 

 under these classifications being made by special action 

 of the Board of Trustees. 



Each Member, in all classes, is entitled to free 

 admission to the Museum for himself, his family and 

 house guests, and to two reserved seats for Museum 

 lectures provided for Members. Subscription to Field 

 Museum News is included with all memberships. The 

 courtesies of every museum of note in the United 

 States and Canada are extended to all Members of 

 Field Museum. A Member may give his personal card 

 to non-residents of Chicago, upon presentation of 

 which they will be admitted to the Museum without 

 charge. Further information about memberships will 

 be sent on request. 



BEQUESTS AND ENDOWMENTS 



Bequests to Field Museum of Natural History may 

 be made in securities, money, books or collections. 

 They may, if desired, take the form of a memorial to 

 a person or cause, named by the giver. 



Cash contributions made within the taxable year 

 not exceeding 15 per cent of the taxpayer's net income 

 are allowable as deductions in computing net income 

 under Article 251 of Regulation 69 relating to the 

 income tax under the Revenue Act of 1926. 



Endowments may be made to the Museum with the 

 provision that an annuity be paid to the patron for life. 

 These annuities are tax-free and are guaranteed against 

 fluctuation in amount. 



MUSEUM ACTIVITIES REACHED 

 2,500,000 DURING 1932 



Approximately 2,500,000 persons were 

 brought directly within the sphere of Field 

 Museum's educational influence during 1932, 

 it is shown by a compilation of statistics on 

 the activities of the institution for the year. 



The number of visitors received in the 

 Museum building was 1,824,202, which was 

 a new high record for attendance. In 

 addition, activities of the institution con- 

 ducted outside the walls of its building 

 reached nearly 700,000 children. Of the 

 beneficiaries of the extra-mural activities, 

 181,672 were children who heard, in their 

 school classrooms and assemblies, natural 

 history lessons presented by lecturers of 

 the James Nelson and Anna Louise Raymond 

 Foundation for Public School and Children's 

 Lectures. This is only one part of the 

 Raymond Foundation's work — the total 

 number reached by all of the Foundation's 

 activities, including those both inside and 

 outside the Museum, was 251,119. More 

 than 500,000 children were reached at 

 intervals of two weeks during the school 

 year by traveling natural history exhibits 

 circulated in all the public and many other 

 schools by the Department of the N. W. 

 Harris Public School Extension. 



The gain in the number of visitors to 

 the Museum, as compared with the 1931 

 figure, was 308,662. While the total 

 attendance has been increasing so steadily 

 during the past few years, there has been 

 a striking reduction in the number of paid 

 admissions, apparently as a result of the 

 depression. The number of paid admissions 

 dropped from 160,924 in 1930 to 126,209 

 in 1931, and in 1932 there was a further 

 decrease to 82,607. It will thus be seen 

 that last year barely 4M per cent of those 

 visiting the Museum paid admission. The 

 1932 attendance on free days, plus the 

 free admissions on pay days granted to 

 Members, children, teachers, students, etc., 

 amounted to 1,741,595, or 226,055 more 

 than the total of free and paid admissions 

 together in 1931, which was 1,615,540. 

 This may be accepted as evidence that 

 the Museum, in addition to its normal 

 functions, is performing a special service 

 during "hard times" by providing some- 

 thing of interest for those no longer able 

 to afford other forms of recreation. 



BRONZES OF ORIENTALS 



(Continued from page 1 ) 



taken, together with a model she made of 

 a male Ainu head, have enabled her to 

 make a full-length statue of an Ainu. As 

 these people are extremely shy, and object 

 strongly to being photographed or exposing 

 their bodies to a foreigner, this is indeed 

 an achievement of importance. 



In Peiping Miss Hoffman enjoyed the 

 hospitality of the Peking Union Medical 

 College and the active cooperation of Dr. 

 Davidson Black, Professor of Anatomy. 

 There she modeled life-size heads of a 

 northern Chinese and a Manchu, and the 

 head of Dr. Hu Shi, famous Chinese scholar. 



Among the numerous tribes inhabiting 

 the Malay archipelago the artist selected 

 for life-size portrait-heads a dancing girl 

 from Bali, a typical boy and girl from Java, 

 a Jakun (proto-Malay), a Sakai and Semang 

 (pygmies of tribes living in the densest 

 jungle of the Malay Peninsula), a Dyak 

 from Borneo, and a pure Malay. In order 

 to track down the Jakun and Sakai, hundreds 

 of miles had to be traversed by motor car 

 into the jungles, and the work had to be 

 done under the most primitive and difficult 



conditions. Life-size drawings were made 

 of a youth from Bali, and a pure-blooded 

 Papuan from British New Guinea. 



Several weeks of traveling in India included 

 sojourns in Calcutta, Delhi, Jaipur, and 

 Colombo. The principal accomplishment 

 was the modeling of a strong Kashmiri 

 with a fine head. In Calcutta Miss Hoffman 

 was fortunate enough to meet a Tibetan 

 couple, traders in jewels, from Lhasa. Both 

 husband and wife were modeled. Also 

 modeled were the heads of a Brahman from 

 Benares, a high-caste Brahman woman from 

 Bengal, and an Indo-Afghan from Kabul. 



In addition to heads and life-size figures, 

 the artist made numerous casts in negocoll 

 of hands and feet of natives in characteristic 

 poses; among others, the hand of a native 

 of India in the act of taking his food, and 

 the hand of an Indian artist wielding his 

 paint brush. As the manner of using the 

 hand is very different among Orientals as 

 compared with Occidental peoples, these 

 casts are of great scientific value. Life-size 

 drawings were made of a Burmese from 

 Rangoon and a Tamil from Madras. 



WATER BIRDS EXHIBITED 



By Rudyerd Boulton 

 Assistant Curator of Birds 



Certain birds well known to many people 

 by name, although most of them are rarely 

 seen in inland localities, recently were placed 

 on exhibition in Hall 21. They constitute 

 the four most primitive orders found in 

 North America, and are noteworthy for 

 curious form and structure rather than for 

 bright and attractive colors. 



Five loons shown are so truly aquatic 

 they are unable to walk upright on land. 

 Their feet are webbed like those of ducks. 

 Seven grebes in the exhibit also are more 

 at home in water than on land. Their 

 feet are not webbed, but each toe is provided 

 with a fringing flap of skin which forms an 

 excellent paddle. Grebes build floating 

 nests in marshy lakes, and rarely, if ever, 

 voluntarily come to dry land. 



Albatrosses, shearwaters, fulmars and 

 petrels represent the large group of sea- 

 birds known as "tube-nosed swimmers" 

 because their nostrils open into little tubes 

 on the upper surface of the bill. Their 

 feet are webbed, but they spend a large 

 part of their time flying over the high seas 

 and come to land only to nest and raise 

 their young. The small petrel often called 

 "Mother Carey's chicken" is shown in 

 characteristic flying attitude. 



The fourth large group of birds in the 

 exhibit contains the "totipalmate swim- 

 mers," so-called because their feet are 

 completely webbed, all four toes being joined 

 by a web of skin. The man-'o-war bird, 

 tropic-bird, snake-bird, pelicans, boobies and 

 cormorants all show their relationship 

 through this characteristic. Although cor- 

 morants have dark plumage, they are 

 decorated by the brilliant coloring of the 

 bare skin of the face and throat pouches 

 during the breeding season. 



The specimens were prepared by Taxi- 

 dermist Ashley Hine of the Museum staff. 



Mrs. Edward E. Ayer is Dead 



Mrs. Edward E. Ayer, an Honorary 

 Member of Field Museum, and one of its 

 Contributors, died on December 18 at her 

 home in Chicago. She was the widow of 

 Edward E. Ayer, first President of the 

 Museum, and a Trustee from the time of 

 the institution's establishment until his 

 death in 1927. Mrs. Ayer shared her 

 husband's enthusiasm for and interest in 

 the Museum. 



