THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



209 



Through the generosity of Mr. Ogdcn 

 Mills, the Museum library has recently ac- 

 quired an interesting original manuscript 

 entitled "The Butterflies of North America; 

 Whence they come, Where they go, and What 

 they do," by Titian Ramsey Peale. This 

 work has never yet been published oxc^^pt 

 l)ossibly for a single small installment which 

 seems to have appeared in 1883. Its author, 

 who was born in Philadelphia in 1800 and 

 died in the same city in 1885, was a member 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, of the American Philosophical So- 

 ciety of Philadelphia, and of the Philosophical 

 Society of Washington, D. C, and accom- 

 j)anied the United States Exploring Expedi- 

 tion to the Antarctic under Lieutenant Wilkes 

 in 1838-42. His collection of Lepidoptera is 

 still preserved at the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, partly in the original 

 boxes. The present manuscript consists of 

 nearly four hundred pages of neatly written 

 descriptive matter and is accompanied by 

 three volumes of original colored drawings, 

 made by Mr. Peale, showing the upper and 

 under side of each species and, in many cases, 

 figures of the larva, chrysalis, and food plant. 

 These drawings are for the most part excel- 

 lent, covering mainly the Rhopalocera, only a 

 few species of Heterocera being dealt with. 

 The manuscript is divided into parts, of two 

 to six pages each, dealing, in nearly all cases, 

 with a single species, and many uncolored 

 drawings accompany the text. 



This work has considerable historic and 

 scientific value, containing, besides original 

 descriptions of new species, much valuable 

 matter dealing with early stages in their life 

 history. From a pamphlet accompanying 

 the first installment it was evidently originally 

 intended to publish the whole work by sub- 

 scription. It is possible that its publication 

 may now be imdertaken by the American 

 Museum of Natural History. 



Charles Falkenbach, of the laboratory 

 staff in the Museum's department of fossil 

 vertebrates, died suddenly of heart failure on 

 March third as he was about to set out from 

 his home for the Museum. Mr. Falkenbach 

 was one of the most skillful preparators in 

 the department, with which he had been 

 connected for thirteen years. The prepara- 

 tion of fossil skeletons is a task requiring long 

 training, as well as natural dexteritj^, patience, 

 and good judgment. To remove the hard 



stony matrix without injury to the fragile 

 and delicate bony structures preserved within 

 it, to piece together all the scattered frag- 

 ments and undo as far as may be the destruc- 

 tive effects of weathering, to restore the 

 missing portions and to devise means for 

 strengthening th(> ])repared specimens so that 

 they will bear handling and can be articu- 

 lated and mounted for exhibition, is often 

 more difficult and tedious than the discovery 

 and collecting of the fossil skeleton, and is 

 equally deserving of credit and commemora- 

 tion. The numerous specimens prepared bj' 

 Mr. Falkenbach during his long connection 

 with the Museum, and especially the very 

 ancient fossil reptiles and amphibians from 

 the Permian formations of Texas and South 

 Africa, stand as an enduring monument to 

 his industry and skill. The conscientious 

 accuracy in the details of their preparation 

 will be most appreciated by the scientific 

 men from all over the world, who have occa- 

 sion to study them. At the time of his death 

 Mr. Falkenbach was engaged upon the pre- 

 paration of the skull and jaws of a Tertiary 

 ancestor of the Mastodon, and had succeeded 

 in extracting, perfectly preserved, from a 

 flinty hard rock in which they were imbedded, 

 the delicate bony structures of the under side 

 of the skull, which furnish to the anatomist 

 important and conclusive evidence as to the 

 exact relationships of these animals and the 

 true course of their evolutionary history. 

 Mr. Falkenbach is a loss to the Museum and 

 cannot well be replaced. To his associates 

 in the department the loss is a personal one, 

 that of a valued friend and collaborator. 



The American Museum will have this year 

 three fossil-hunting expeditions in the West. 

 One, in charge of Mr. Barnum Brown, will 

 continue the search for Cretaceous dinosaurs, 

 working southward from the rich field on 

 the Red Deer River, Alberta. Mr. Brown's 

 work on the Cretaceous dinosaurs has re- 

 sulted in securing for the Museum skulls and 

 skeletons of many remarkable dinosaurs 

 known hitherto only from fragments, if at all. 

 He has distinguished three well-defined stages, 

 or successive faunas, in their geologic evo- 

 lution. His aim now is not merely to enlarge 

 these faunas, but also to trace their extension 

 and changes in character from place to place, 

 and to find intermediate or still older stages. 

 In this way we shall be able to trace the evo- 

 lutionary history of American dinosaurs in 



