Mi'SKL'M XOTES 319 



found on the surface of the earth, in such condition of preservation that they repre- 

 sent recent rather than Pleistocene origin, and skins discovered in the excavation of 

 old houses. 



The Museum has received from Tokyo Bay through the courtesy of the Oriental 

 Whaling Company, by an arrangement effected by Mr. Roy C. Andrews on his 

 expedition to Japan in 1910, a complete skeleton of the ziphiioid whale Berardius 

 bairdii Stojnegcr, the type locality of which is Bering Island. The National Mu- 

 seum reports this whale represented in its collections by three .skulls and three skele- 

 tons all from Alaska except one taken at Centcrville, California. The species has 

 not heretofore been recorded from any other localities. Thus the knowledge that 

 it occurs in Tokyo Bay — the Imperial Museum of Tokyo has had a skeleton on 

 exhibition for some time — makes a notable extension of range for both genus and 

 species. As far as known the specimen now in New York and those in Wa.shington 

 and Tokyo are the only examples of this rare species which have been preserved. 



Mr. Alanson Skinner of the department of anthropology has recently been 

 elected honorary curator of anthropology of the Staten Island Association of Arts 

 and Sciences. 



Mr. John D. Crimmins has presented to the Museum a mounted specimen of a 

 sixty-two-pound sailfi.sh (Istiophorus nigricans) which he took with rod and reel off 

 Palm Beach, Florida. The specimen has been repainted to emphasize its brilliant 

 metallic colors and is now on exhibition in the hall of recent fishes. 



While investigating certain geological formations in Central America and 

 British Guiana, Mr. ^^'illiam Warfield, a gi-aduate student of geology at Princeton 

 University, has made an interesting collection of about two hundred fishes and one 

 hundred and seventy-five moths and butterflies for the Museum. 



Professor C-E. A. \\'ixslow. curator of public health, presented to the section 

 of biology of the New York Academy of Sciences on December 9 a review of the 

 American Museum's work in the formation of a comprehensive permanent collection 

 of living bacteria. This collection, hou.sed on the sixth floor of the building and open 

 to inspection only on request, represents the first attempt to present in this country 

 to university and medical interests the opportunity for comparative study of the 

 germs of disease. Seventeen hundred cultures have already been distributed without 

 charge to one hundred and twenty-two different teaching and research laboratories. 



A SMALL Navajo group has been placed on exhibition in the Southwest hall. The 

 human figures in the group were modeled by Miss Nessa Cohen and the other parts 

 by Mr. Otto Block. The whole compo.sition represents a Navajo home, with the ever- 

 present flock of sheep in the corral, the women weaving blankets and the men making 

 silver ornaments. 



The Society of American Bacteriqlogtsts will meet at the Museum on January 

 first and the members will be entertained at luncheon in the Mitla room as the guests 

 of the Museum. 



On the evening of December o. Professor C-E. A. Winslow ojiened the first 

 seminar of a series to be given by the department of biology at Trinity College 



Professor Herschel C. Parker of Columbia University, under the auspices of 

 the American Museum of Natural History and the American Scenic and Historic 

 Preservation Society, lectured in the auditorium of the Museum December 9 on the 

 "Sceiiic Beauties of Alaska, with Special Reference to the Ascent of Mount Mc- 

 Kinley." 



