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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



I nderwood and Vndcrwood 

 Captain H. E. Anthony last spring accompanied 

 the 309th F. A. regiment to France as First Lieu- 

 tenant. After three months, there came promo- 

 tion to a captaincy with the order to return to 

 the United States to drill and take across a new 

 company. Captain Anthony is now at Fort Lewis, 

 Washington, training a company of field artillery 

 for service at the front 



Knud Rasmussen, left North Star Bay early 

 in April, 1917, traveled to Peary Land, and 

 returned across the Greenland ice cap. By 

 the time De Long's Fjord was reached, game 

 gave out and the men were obliged to retrace 

 their steps. They suffered incredible hard- 

 shijjs on the way back, and at Cape Agassiz, 

 Rasmussen and one of the Eskimos started 

 on ahead on a forced march for aid, while 

 the others followed slowly. After a few 

 days' travel without food, Dr. Wulff weak- 

 ened and died. In the fall, Peter Freuchen, 

 the Danish factor at North Star Bay, made 

 an unsuccessful attempt to recover the body. 



Despite the general policy of the Ameri- 

 can Museum to suspend field work until the 

 close of the war, it has been deemed expe- 

 dient to continue certain explorations. Two 

 expeditions have been sent to China: The 

 Second Asiatic Zoological Expedition, in 

 charge of Mr. Roy C. Andrews of the depart- 

 ment of mammalogy, sailed on .June 22, and 

 plans to supplement the work of the Asiatic 

 Zoological Expedition of 1916-1917, if pos- 

 sible penetrating farther into the interior ; 

 The Third Asiatic Zoological Expedition, 

 under the leadership of Mr. Paul J. Rainey, 

 accompanied by Mr. Edmund Heller as natu- 

 ralist, left San Francisco on July 27, its 

 purpose being to collect large game animals 

 in the Far East. In Aztec, New Mexico, 

 Mr. Earl H. Morris, assisted by Mr. B. T. B. 

 Hyde, has continued the excavation of the 

 Indian ruins, which are yielding important 

 collections and historic data. 



The department of verteljrate palaeontol- 

 ogy of the American Museum has lately 

 added to its study collection, through the 

 gift of Mr. Warren Delano, of New York, 

 the skull and vertebral column of a colt 

 which is a cross between an Arabian steed 

 and a Norwegian horse. Whether the Ara- 

 bian type, with its five lumbar vertebrae as 

 contrasted with the six lumbar vertebrae of 

 the commoner species, would be perpetuated 

 by such a crossing of species, or whether the 

 reverse would be true, is the question which 

 interests scientists. The present specimen 

 shows both influences. It follows the Arabian 

 type in having but twenty-three dorsal-lum- 

 bar vertebrae instead of twenty-four as in the 

 common horse, but to the last of the dorsal 

 vertebrae there are attached, instead of true 

 ribs, the transverse processes of lumbar ver- 

 tebrae articulated like ribs and having on one 

 side, not directly joined to the process, a 

 little abortive rib. Technically, however, 

 the possession of the correct number of ver- 

 tebrae seems to place the specimen with tliC' 

 Aiabian species. 



Ix .June and July Dr. C.-E. A. Winslow, 

 of the American Museum, was in charge of 

 the courses in bacteriology and hygiene at 

 the Vassar College Training Camp for 

 Nurses, where four hundred college gradu- 

 ates received the theoretical part of their 

 training for service in the emergency created 

 by the war. In August he gave an iuten- 



