In Retrospect 293 



catalogue lots and not individual specimens. There are 

 something in the vicinity of 40,000 glass jars, 187 copper 

 tanks for larger specimens, and five of what we call coffins, 

 metal-lined receptacles about nine feet long, four feet wide, 

 and three feet deep, which contain sharks and similar mon- 

 sters. Many of the jars contain from 50 to 100 speci- 

 mens, sometimes even more, so that your guess is as 

 good as mine as to how many fish there actually are in the 

 Museum. 



During the last twenty years we have acquired by gift 

 some enormous collections of insects — the collection of 

 beetles made by my wife's uncle, Frederick Channing 

 Bowditch, the Weeks collection of butterflies, the Wheeler 

 collection of ants, the Harris collection, and many, many 

 others. Consideringr the enormous accretions to a collection 

 of insects which was already very large, the material is 

 all in fine shape, largely owing to the unbelievable industry 

 and wide learning of Professor Nathan Banks. 



The collection of mollusks has grown to be one of the 

 very largest in the world and William Clench keeps it in 

 perfect order. It is a joy to behold. The objects themselves 

 are inherently so beautiful that in the mass they are be- 

 wildering. A tremendous windfall came in the other day 

 when Amherst College decided to entrust the care of the 

 Adams collection to this Museum. Clench estimates that in 

 the aggregate there are 140,071 lots of shells in the depart- 

 ment, representing about 28,000 species, and the total 

 number may be 6,000,000 and the types 5000 to 6000. 



Frank Carpenter has built up the collection of fossil 

 insects largely with his own hands, for he is as skilled in 

 the field as in the laboratory. His collection is now the 



