aQ museum of comparative zoology 



esses of evolution, as by working in a Museum in daily intimacy 

 with its great collections. The Museum is no mere storehouse of 

 dead and dusty trash, but is a living and vital center offermg the 

 same fascinating opportunity for, and incentive to investigation 

 which comes to the student of history as he steps into one of the 

 world's great libraries of books and manuscripts. The Museum's 

 place in present-day biology grows more, not less, important as its 

 collections grow and as it leads more men both to the cabinet and 

 into the field and to consider the study of the life histories of animals 

 as much a part of its natural activity as the study of those which are 



preserved." 



A collection is, in some degree at least, valuable as it contains 

 "types" or the original specimens from which species are described 

 or specimens compared directly with types. So also specimens which 

 have been figured in classical works and specimens which supple- 

 ment fragmentary types, "plesiotypes" as they are called, are of the 

 highest value. A fossil elephant may be described from a single tooth, 

 but when the first perfect skull is found it becomes as important as 

 the type, or perhaps more important. As the reader will observe in 

 reading this account of the study collections, our Museum has been 

 greatly blessed in that vast numbers of specimens to which natural- 

 ists will always want to refer have fallen into its care. If I were to 

 be asked which are the most noteworthy types in the Museum, I 

 should answer with a thrill, "The insects from Linn6's cabinet, which 

 came with Dr. Hagen's collection, and the Hawaiian bird Drepams 

 paafica, described by Lesson and collected by Captain Cook's Expe- 

 dition " It is from this sort of bird, the Mamo, now wholly extinct 

 that the feathers were taken to make the gorgeous royal robe of 

 Kamehameha the Great. On second thought I should add "the 

 type of the gorilla." 



