156 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Mombaclio in the west, while the Nicaragua 

 Eeptile Expedition, 3916, found the species 

 almost at sea level in the east. 



Mr. Leo H. Miller, assistant in ornithol- 

 ogy in the American Museum, is now located 

 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he is engaged 

 on active duty as lieutenant in the Aviation 

 Corps of the United States Army. His in- 

 clusion in last month "s Journal among those 

 commissioned in the infantry was an error. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. John M. 

 Hofifmire, of Newark, New Jersey, nephew 

 of the late Titian Eamsay Peale, naturalist 

 and artist, the library of the American Mu- 

 seum is the recipient of a very valuable un- 

 published work prepared by Mr. Peale. This 

 consists of a book of colored sketches of 

 Lepidoptera and their larvae with the plants 

 upon which they feed. The sketches, which 

 are accompanied by written descriptions of 

 the subjects, bear dates ranging from 1833 

 to 1880. 



The American Museum has acquired by 

 purchase about one hundred and fifty pieces 

 of pottery taken from a single ruin near 

 Adamana, Arizona. This pottery portrays 

 a type of ware and decoration hitherto repre- 

 sented but little in the collections of the 

 institution. A dugout canoe, made many 

 years ago by the Indians of Ulster County, 

 New York, is another fortunate acquisition. 

 The canoe is in an excellent state of preser- 

 vation. 



An exhibit of birds used in falconry, on 

 the second floor of the American Museum, is 

 attracting the attention of those interested 

 in mediaeval practices. The birds in the 

 exhibit range from the small hobby falcon, 

 iised by the young squires in the pursuit of 

 small game, to the large golden eagle, ca- 

 pable of carrying away a small mountain 

 goat. The taming and training of birds of 

 prey for sport was practiced in China as 

 early as 400 B.C., and although it was not 

 introduced into Europe until much later, it 

 had become the usual custom in western 

 Europe and England by the end of the ninth 

 century. In the language of falconry the 

 term "falcon" was applied only to the fe- 

 males ; the males, which were about one third 

 smaller, being called "tiercels." In Shake- 

 speare's time everyone who could afford to 

 do so kept a hawk, and the rank of the 

 owner was indicated by the species of bird 



Avhicli he carried. To a king belonged the 

 gerfalcon; to a prince, the falcon gentle; to 

 an earl, the peregrine ; to a lady, the merlin ; 

 to a young squire, the hobby. A yeoman 

 carried a goshawk; a priest, a sparrow- 

 hawk ; and a knave, or servant, a kestrel. 



When an attempt was made in 1917 to 

 introduce into England the practice of sell- 

 ing song birds in the food market, the Eoyal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds quickly 

 interfered. The custom is common in south- 

 ern Europe and northern Africa and once 

 was prevalent in our own state of Louisiana. 

 In England, however, larks are still sold 

 legally and in large numbers in open season. 



A PLAN to restore the bird population of 

 France is advanced by M. Andre Godart in 

 a book entitled Les Jardins Volirres. M. 

 Godart calls attention to the scarcity of 

 birds in France, due to insufficient protec- 

 tion, and the consequent loss to grape grow- 

 ers of the Gironde in 1910 of forty millions 

 of francs, as well as a decrease in the oil 

 production of southern France so great that 

 the olive growers threatened to abandon the 

 industry. He suggests that goldfinches, bull- 

 finches, linnets, yellow-hammers, thrushes, 

 blackbirds, and starlings, all of which nest 

 readily in gardens, be reared in large and 

 specially designed aviaries and released when 

 full grown to repopulate the now deserted 

 woods and fields. 



The department of geology has just ac- 

 quired two important collections of inverte- 

 brate fossils, principally from the famous 

 fossil coral reefs at the falls of the Ohio, 

 near Louisville, Kentucky, and from other 

 important localities in the Middle West, 

 many of which have noAV been exhausted or 

 otherwise rendered unproductive. One of 

 these is the George K. Greene collection, com- 

 prising some four hundred thousand speci- 

 mens including about five hundred types of 

 the species of corals which were described by 

 Mr. Greene. Mr. Greene was an industrious 

 collector of the old school, being contempo- 

 rary Avith Collett, Bassett, Meek, Worthen, 

 and other well-known collectors and palaeon- 

 tologists of the Middle West in the last cen- 

 tury. The other acquisition is the Wm. J. 

 McConathy collection, which consists of 

 about seven thousand specimens, principally 

 silicified fossil corals from which the lime- 

 stone matrix has been carefully etched away 

 with acid. 



