MAMMALOGY — MILLER 399 



coi'dance with a system by which every separate part preserved — 

 skin, skull, skeleton, or any of the soft parts which may have been 

 placed in alcohol — can be identified as having come from a given 

 individual. Here the work of trained bookkeepers is needed. 

 Skulls and skeletons are next put through processes by which 

 their dried flesh is removed. This requires the services of special 

 preparators. When finally ready for permanent installation in the 

 collection the smaller bones are placed in glass tubes or pasteboard 

 boxes, the larger ones in trays or drawers; then all are arranged in 

 cases according to some scheme of classification which will permit 

 the ready finding of any individual specimen needed for examina- 

 tion. Skins of small mammals, up to about the size of a house cat, 

 are filled to natural size with tow or cotton and then dried lying 

 flat, back up, with the fore legs extended alongside of the neck, and 

 the hind legs drawn backward, parallel with the tail. This is 

 usually done in the field. Preservation in uniform, conventionalized 

 manner is essential to the comparison of specimens with each other. 

 Larger skins are tanned and laid away in drawers or trays or hung 

 from bars. Each is labeled with locality, date of capture, name of 

 collector, and the serial number which serves to identify the corre- 

 sponding skull or other parts. In a large museum, where the num- 

 ber of specimens runs into the scores of thousands and the growth 

 of the collection is rapid, a special force of assistants is required to 

 look after the details of installation and arrangement. 



It must be understood in this connection that the mounted 

 specimens ordinarily seen by the visitor do not constitute the real 

 collection. The main object of a great museum is to promote re- 

 search, that is, to advance our knowledge of the world we live in, 

 and not merely to display beautiful examples of the taxidermist's 

 art. Research requires an abundance of material in convenient 

 form for study — conditions which are not met by a few mounted 

 specimens locked in glass cases. The exhibition series is there- 

 fore nothing more than a group of selected individuals which can 

 be spared from the real collection. I say spared because practically 

 every skin which is mounted and placed on exhibition is condemned 

 tjo death from the slow but inevitable ravages of time and sunlight. 



The study series, as the real collection is called, is kept in tightly 

 closed wooden or metal cases where light cannot penetrate and 

 where the specimens will be as safe from deterioration as human 

 ingenuity can make them. In the National Museum, which is under 

 the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, there were in June, 

 1928, about 214,000 specimens of mammals in the study collection, 

 while those on exhibition totaled barely 1,400. 



