MUSEUM XOTKS 



267 



It is with extreme gratification tliat tlie 

 library of the American Museum of Natural 

 History announces its recent acquisition of a 

 very handsome two-volume copy of the first 

 edition in Latin of the " Peregrinationes," by 

 Tlieodorus De Bry, 1590-1602, the generous 

 gift of Mr. Ogden Mills. 



.Sometime in or Ijefore 15S7, Theodorus 

 De Bry, a German engraver and publisher of 

 Frankfort-on-Main, visited London, and there 

 became acquainted with the geographer, 

 Richard Hakluyt. With Hakluyt's assist- 

 ance, De Bry collected materials for a finely 

 illustrated collection of voyages and travels. 

 The i^ublisher intended, originally, that the 

 " Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam 

 Orientalem et Intliam Occidentalem " should 

 appear in English, French, German and Latin. 

 So stupendous, however, proved to be the 

 undertaking, that all thoughts of a Frenc-h 

 and English edition had to be dropped after 

 the publication of the first volume in 1590. 

 In 1598 Theodorus De Bry died, and the work 

 was continued l)y his widow, and his sons, 

 Johann Theodor (1561-1623), and Johannes 

 Israel ( -1611). The "Peregrinationes" 

 were finally completed in 1634, forty-four 

 years having been required for their publica- 

 tion. To the Museum library, however, and 

 to its users, bibliographic importance is never 

 of paramount interest. Books are valued for 

 their contents and authority, and, pragmati- 

 cally, for their degree of usefulness, and such 

 beguiling fields as book collecting per se must, 

 naturall}', l)e consistently avoided. The 

 "Peregrinationes," however, combine to a 

 most unusual extent both bibliographic and 

 intrinsic importance. If De Bry is rare, he is 

 also exceedingly valuable for research into 

 the anthropology and early zoological knowl- 

 edge of the New World. 



Mr. Mill's interest in rare books, and his 

 liberality toward the library of the American 

 Museum have already been remarkably 

 instanced by his gift last November of the 

 nine volume set of Lord Kingsborough's 

 "Mexican Antiquities," and iBore rec'cntly 

 of the original manuscript of "The Butter- 

 flies of North America; Whence they come; 

 where they go; and what they do," by Titian 

 Ramsey Peale. 



Dr. Fr.\nk M. Chapm.\n, accompanied by 

 Mr. George K. Cherrie, will leave New York 

 on May 6, for a general ornithological survey 

 of the South American regions from which the 



Museum has been acquiring collections during 

 the past five years. Dr. Chapman will pro- 

 ceed first to Ecuador, to obtain, from the upper 

 slopes of Mount Chiml)orazo, material for a 

 group representing birds of the paramo. This 

 is to be a companion to another proposed 

 group, showing the bird life of tropical South 

 America in the valley of the Magdalena in 

 Colombia, for which studies have already 

 been made. Going next to Cuzco, in Peru, 

 Dr. Chapman intends to study the distribu- 

 tion of bird life in the Urubamba Valley. 

 This latter work is to be done under the joint 

 auspices of the American Museum of Natural 

 History and the Yale Peruvian National Geo- 

 graphic Expedition. Dr. Chapman hopes 

 later to meet Mr. Leo E. Miller in Argentina, 

 and to gather there material for a pampas 

 habitat group. One of the objects of the 

 expedition is to establish general relations 

 with the large museums of Chile, Argentina, 

 and Brazil, and to this end Santiago, Buenos 

 Aires, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro will 

 probably be visited. Dr. Chapman expects 

 to retin-n in October, l)ut Mr. Cherrie will re- 

 main in South America to take up zoological 

 work for the Roosevelt Expedition in the 

 marshes of Paraguay. 



Miss M. C. Dickerson has recently re- 

 turned from a brief stay in Florida, where she 

 has been making studies and collecting acces- 

 sories for the large habitat group representing 

 the reptile and batrachian life of that region. 

 The group is now in process of construction 

 in the Museum's taxidermy studio, imder 

 Miss Dickerson's supervision; it is the fifth 

 in the series of groups showing the home life 

 of reptiles, and the largest yet attempted 

 [The cover designs of this issue of the 

 Journal show two of the photographic 

 studies made.] 



The photograph (reproduced on page 216) 

 of the Brooklyn Museum's coral reef group, 

 gives only an inadequate impression of its 

 complexity, and beauty. It represents an 

 actual reef at Sandy Cay, in the Bahamas. 

 Among the branches of the staghorn coral, in 

 the upper left hand corner of the group, ap- 

 pears a school of young red snapper fish; 

 below are gayly colored gorgonians and sea 

 fans, and a colony of the tube sponge. On 

 the white sand in the foreground is a brown 

 sea star, and beside it a stinging sea urchin 

 with black, needlelike spines. At the right 



