2 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Letters received in August from Mr. Samuel M. Klages report that 

 in spite of various difficulties he has succeeded in obtaining large series 

 of birds and other natural history specimens, principally insects, in 

 the Mana Valley, French Guiana, which he reports to be highly inter- 

 esting and to contain a very large and varied avifauna. He found the 

 country immediately in proximity to Cayenne rather poor in species, 

 partly because of the wholesale destruction of birds by "pot-hunters," 

 but on reaching the distant interior, where the ravages of the hungry 

 are less visible, he discovered a great wealth of interesting forms, and 

 hopes to be able to make a representative collection. This will possess 

 much scientific interest, if for no other reason, because of its topotypic 

 value, it being well known to ornithologists that many species of 

 South American birds originally described in the writings of French 

 and Dutch naturalists were obtained in this region. In these days in 

 which writers are much addicted to the erection of subspecies and 

 the description of so-called local varieties, we have deemed it desirable 

 that at least one of the great American museums should endeavor to 

 acquire a collection of the birds of Guiana, as complete as possible by 

 comparison Avith which the value of so-called subspecies may be in a 

 measure tested. 



Mr. H. J. Heinz has added to the collection deposited in the Heinz 

 Room a number of interesting objects coming from the imperial palace 

 at Pekin. According to the information which he has received con- 

 cerning them, these things are pieces of elaborately carved or decorated 

 furniture which affirmed were removed at the time of the establishment 

 of the Republic in China, in order that certain rooms in the palace 

 might be furnished in the latest European styles. Whether this was 

 the exact motive for their removal from the imperial palace or not, 

 they are certainly highly interesting as illustrating Chinese art. 



The building and installation of a large and costly series of cases 

 for the display of the specimens in the Heinz Room is nearing com- 

 pletion. The work has heavily taxed the time and thought of the 

 Director of the Museum, who for the most part prepared the drawings 

 and has attended to a multiplicity of structural details involved in the 

 adaptation of the cases to the room and to the uses to which they are 

 to be in:t. 



