EXHIBIT AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 187 



Museum secured many fine, characteristic North American mammals, 

 birds, and reptiles through its correspondents and through various 

 dealers in natural-history material. 



When completed the exhibit contained a very full outline series of 

 the vertebrate animals of North America and a smaller but still sig- 

 nificant series from South and Central America. (Plate 4.) Among 

 the mammals were such striking forms as the Kadiak hear, glacier 

 bear. Alaska moose, Dall's white sheep. Stone's slice]), musk ox; such 

 birds as the condor, California vulture, rhea or American ostrich, wild 

 turkey, harpy eagle, various gay-colored toucans, (he ara, Carolina 

 paroquet, whooping crane, steamer duck, penguin (Plate L2), etc. 

 tog-ether with rattlesnakes, boas. Gila monster, alligator snapper, 

 matamata, mud eel, Cuban toad, and other characteristic American 

 reptiles and batrachians, and a large series of useful, curious, and bril- 

 liantly colored American fishes. A more detailed account of the prin- 

 cipal features of the exhibit will be found on a later page. 



TAXIDERMY. 



In connection with the Buffalo exhibit a system of accessories was 

 adopted which, so far as I am aware, has not been attempted hitherto 

 on a large scale. It was impracticable on account of limited space to 

 exhibit groups showing the habits and natural surroundings of vari- 

 ous species, while to display the specimens on plain wooden stands was 

 thought to deprive them to a certain extent of attractiveness. A com- 

 promise was therefore effected by using small stands and suggesting 

 the environment by the introduction of a few plants, a rock or two, a 

 little snow, a branch of a tree, etc. Thus, the Kadiak bear was placed 

 on a stand having on it a small section of rock, a little sloping area of 

 sand, and a dead salmon. The fish-eating habit of this Alaskan bear 

 was thus suggested in a very small space. The indigo snake was 

 mounted on a base covered with sand, with a pine cone or two and a 

 bit of palmetto to indicate that it is a denizen of tin 1 pine barrens. 

 The condor was represented as perched on a pointed rock, suggesting 

 its mountain habitat. This treatment was not adopted for fishes, as 

 aivy endeavor to represent their environment would have caused a 

 greater expenditure of time and money than the circumstances per- 

 mitted. They were represented for the most part by painted plaster 

 casts drawn from the Museum exhibition series. These were supple- 

 mented by the Key West collection, and by Professor St cere's collec- 

 tion from the Amazon River, preserved in formalin. The manner in 

 which these two series of fishes were prepared presented some novel 

 features and is deserving of a short explanation. 



The collectors were provided with a number of shallow galvanized- 

 iron pans, having a uniform length of •! feet, a quantity of formalin, 

 injecting syringes, etc. The fish were injected as soon as obtained 



