THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



NEWS NOTES. 



R. GEORGE HUNT of Fort Rupert, Vancouver 

 Island, who has been collecting for the Museum 

 for six years, is at present staying in New York, 

 and is engaged in the arrangement of the collec- 

 tion which he has made. The material collected 

 by him represents the culture of the Kwakiutl Indians, and some 

 of the results of his work for the Museum have recently been 

 published in the Memoirs of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. 

 A number of models illustrating the methods of fishing and 

 hunting of the Kwakiutl Indians are at present being made by 

 Mr. Hunt, assisted by Mr. Orchard. When this work is com- 

 pleted, a full collection of all the fish-traps used by these Indians 

 will 1)6 in the possession of the Museum. Mr. Hunt is also re- 

 vising the material of the collection with a view to filling in all 

 the remaining gaps. 



Dr. E. O. Hovey, Associate Curator of Geology, who has re- 

 turned to the Lesser Antilles to continue his studies of volcanic 

 activity in those islands, writes from St. Vincent, under date of 

 March 5, as follows : " Tuesday, March 5, we ascended La Sou- 

 fri^re in favorable weather and had the good fortune to witness 

 three fine outbursts while we were on the rim of the crater." 

 Of Mt. Pelee, in Martinique, which he had climbed only a short 

 time previous, he writes: "The new cone is a remarkable af- 

 fair with a tremendous ' tooth ' projecting 500 feet above the 

 main body of the cone. . . . There have been several changes 

 in the mountain since last July, the most striking of which are 

 the building of this cone and the almost complete filling of the 

 Riviere Blanche with debris from eruptions." 



The group of Little Black Rail recently placed on exhibition 

 in the Monkey Hall is the only known one of its kind. Adult 

 birds of this species are both rare and, owing to their secretive 

 habits, difficult of capture, while the young appear not to have 

 been observed before those contained in this group were col- 

 lected. They were brought to Mr. H. H. Brimley of Raleigh, 



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