78 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



A NEW rattlesnake group to illustrate social instinct in hibernation was 

 put on exliibition during January. Seven banded or timber rattlers 

 (Crotalus horridus) in both the black and yellow phases of coloration are 

 represented on a rocky ledge, the poses depicting slow mo^'ement on a cool 

 day and in the absence of enemies. Late in the fall under the influence of 

 increasing cold, snakes which ha\e assembled thus in September crawl 

 away through deep cre^'ices into concealed chambers underneath the rocks, 

 where they sleep together throughout the winter. The group shows also 

 color variation in two of the small broods of young banded rattlers. This 

 species is the only poisonous snake besides the copperhead in the eastern 

 United States. 



The department of anthropology was recently visited by Dr. Werner 

 von Hoerschelmann on his return from Mexico, where he has been at work 

 for over a year under the direction of Professor Seler. as holder of a scholar- 

 ship granted by the Prussian government. Dr. von Hoerschelmann is 

 especially interested in the subject of art and discovered many points of 

 interest in the Museum's collection of Mexican antiquities. 



The Indian tipi in the new Plains Indian Hall has been mounted by 

 Mr. Schoichi Ichikawa. The floor has been carefully laid with buffalo 

 grass sod supplied by Dr. James R. Walker, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, so 

 that the visitor may see, as it were, the home of the roving Indian pitched for 

 the night upon the brown unbroken turf of the Plains as in the good old 

 buffalo days. The tipi came from the Blackfoot tribe. Within may be 

 seen the life cast of a Blackfoot man in the act of preparing tobacco for the 

 pipe. Near him his younger wife is stirring up the fire, while opposite her 

 is the older wife with an infant. The latter has her face liberally coated 

 with earth paint as was the custom among those of her station in life. Back 

 of the fire is an incense altar upon which daily prayer offerings are burnt 

 and from which may be seen rising a faint column of smoke. 



The Museum has received a number of bottlenose porpoises (Tumiops 

 tursio) as a gift from the New York Zoological Society. For many years 

 a fishery has been in operation at Cape Hatteras, where porpoises are 

 taken for the sake of their oil and also for their hides, though how the 

 tender porpoise skin can be tanned into tough leather is one of the mys- 

 teries of modern science. Dr. Charles H. Townsend of the aquarium has 

 for some time wished to secure specimens from this locality, a project requir- 

 ing a combination of favorable circumstances. The porpoises must be feed- 

 ing near shore, which they do at certain seasons and not at others, else 

 being caught in nets they would be drowned before brought to land; the sea 

 must not l)e heavy or the same unfortunate result ensues, to say nothing of 

 the danger of taking boats through the surf; also the weather must be neither 



