MUSEUM NEWS NOTES 21 



showing the commercial possibiHty of utihzing local supplies of 

 cheap fuel material where the price of good coal is too high to 

 permit its consumption. 



There has been placed on exhibition a group of Texas rattle- 

 snakes, the material for which was collected by Professor Wheeler 

 and Doctor Dahlgren on a trip to Arizona last spring. 



Models of two of our commonest and most beautiful forms 

 of colonial Polyzoa have been prepared by Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, 

 assisted by Mr. H. Mueller. Dr. Dahlgren has also completed a 

 model of a rotifer, enlarged about 700 times, which shows one of 

 these microscopic forms of low animal organism. These models 

 are on exhibition in the Synoptic Hall, No. 107, of the ground 

 floor. 



The Department of Mammalogy received in December a 

 series of eight hippopotamus skulls showing various stages of 

 growth from the young to the adult from Lake Ngami, South 

 Africa. The largest of the series represents an animal of about 

 the size of "Caliph" in the Central Park Menagerie. The 

 department has also secured four huge giraffe skulls from Be- 

 chuana Land, South Africa. Comparison with the skull of the 

 Museum's mounted giraffe skeleton shows that these newly 

 acquired skulls must have belonged to animals 18 feet high, or 

 half again as large as the mounted specimen on exhibition in the 

 Museum. 



The Philippine wood collection has been removed to the 

 corridor on the ground floor leading from the North Wing to the 

 engine room, where it will be installed in a manner to show to 

 the best advantage the beautiful grains and colors of the speci- 

 mens. This collection is the most complete that ever has been 

 made, and it represents all the woods of the Philippines which 

 are valuable for manufacturing purposes. 



The annual meeting of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies, Mr. William Dutcher, President, was held in the 

 Museum, October 3 1 , members being present from Massachusetts, 

 Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, District of 



