MUSEUM NEWS NOTES 71 



Through the generosity of a friend of the Museum, Professor 

 H. E. Crampton of Barnard College, Columbia University, has 

 been sent on an expedition to the South Sea Islands, particularly 

 to study certain features of the fauna of the Tahiti group. The 

 specimens collected by Professor Crampton are to become the 

 property of the Museum. 



Mr. J. H. Batty is in Mexico collecting birds and mammals 

 for the Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology. He will 

 make his way southward through Central America to South 

 America before returning to the Museum. 



Mrs. Albert Bierstadt has presented to the Department of 

 Mammalogy an unusually large and fine mounted head of an 

 American bison, which was taken by her husband many years 

 ago while hunting on the Great P.lains. The acquisition is par- 

 ticularly welcome on account of the practical extinction of the 

 animal from its former extensive range. Mrs. Bierstadt has also 

 given to the Department of Ethnology a valuable series of speci- 

 mens consisting of baskets collected about fifty years ago, 

 elaborately carved, wooden spoons from Alaska and large cedar 

 chests with engraved and painted designs representing the Raven 

 and the Killer Whale, together with specimens, such as beaded 

 bags, drums, rattles and pipes, collected in early years from 

 the Indians of the Plains. 



The Demuth collection of pipes and smoking utensils has 

 been considerably extended in the past few months by the ad- 

 dition of a large series of specimens of ceremonial and other 

 pipes from various tribes of North American Indians, and from 

 the Ashanti, the Kaffir, the Makalolo, the Bali and other 

 tribes of central and southern Africa. A series of Filipino pipes 

 and cigars is an important further addition to this collection. 



A LARGE group representing the Collared Peccary of Mexico 

 has been installed in the Hall of North American Mammals, No. 

 206 of the second floor, and consists of a series of five of these 

 pig-like creatures in their natural surroundings in southern 

 Sinaloa, Mexico. The specimens and accessories were collected 



