MUSEUM NOTES 



335 



carried on continuously in Columbia I^ni- 

 versity and at the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History. The students iu these courses 

 have had full access both to the study and 

 the research material of the American Mu- 

 seum. After twenty-five years of active 

 service in Columbia University Professor 

 Osborn has continued as research professor 

 of zoology (since 1910), and in this capacity 

 has published two of his chief works, The Age 

 of MammaU (1910), and Men of the Old Stone 

 Age (1915). These are designed especially for 

 the use of college and university students. 

 The next work in this series of volumes will 

 be entitled The Evolution of the Vertebrates, 

 the leading author of which will be Professor 

 Gregory, who is preparing the work in col- 

 laboration with Dr. Bashford Dean, Dr. 

 Charles R. Eastman, and Dr. William Diller 

 Matthew of the American Museum staff. 

 This volume was projected by Professor 

 Osborn in 1895 in cooperation with Professor 

 J. Howard McGregor, but after a series of 

 delays in its preparation the entire series of 

 illustrations, and the manuscript as far as 

 prepared, have been turned over to Professor 

 Gregory. 



The Museum has recently received from 

 Mr. Roy Latham, of Orient, Long Island, 

 several fishes which are interesting because 

 they throw light on migration up and 

 down the Atlantic Coast. There is a great 

 difference in the character of marine fishes 

 found north and south of New York at differ- 

 ent seasons. In summer the dividing line 

 between northern and southern species is 

 somewhere in the vicinity of Cape Cod, in the 

 winter, of Cape Hatteras. It results that in 

 the latitude of New York many fishes are 

 migrants of seasonal occurrence like the birds, 

 their dates of arrival and departure however, 

 being comparatively little known. 



The preparation and mounting of some of 

 the large mammal skins of the Congo collec- 

 tion was begun early in April in the studio of 

 Mr. Carl E. Akeley in the Museum. Speci- 

 mens of the white rhinoceros and of the okapi, 

 for the groups of these animals to be installed 

 in the projected new African hall, are now 

 being worked upon, and all the material is 

 being mounted by Mr. .Akeley's new taxi- 

 dermic process, which is giving extraordinarily 

 satisfactory results. The group of the rare 

 African okapi will be of unusual importance, 

 because the complete data at hand will make 



it possible to present this animal authorita- 

 tively and truthfully as has never been done 

 before. 



Mr. James L. Clark is associated with the 

 work for the African hall, and several assist- 

 ants have been added to the force in the 

 elephant studio. 



An expedition to Nicaragua, Central 

 America, to obtain reptiles and fishes for 

 the collections of the American Museum is 

 now in the field, financed by the Cleveland 

 H. Dodge Fund of the American Museum. 

 The expedition is in charge of Mr. Clarence R. 

 Halter, assistant in herpetology at the Mu- 

 seum, and Mr. L. Alfred Mannhardt, of Yale 

 University. Nicaragua has a rich reptile 

 fauna which is of unusual interest, not only 

 because of the great diversity in the topo- 

 graphical features of the region, but also 

 because the isthmus today forms a transition 

 tract between the two continents and is 

 supposed, in the past, to have had land 

 connection with Cuba and Jamaica. The 

 expedition plans to proceed by slow stages 

 up the Bluefields River, by steamer and 

 canoe, collecting in the interior to the north 

 and the south; then, crossing the Chontales 

 Mountains, to collect on the eastern and 

 western slopes southward to the river San 

 Juan, which will be followed eastward to the 

 coast. In addition to the enrichment of the 

 Museum's collections, it is hoped that eco- 

 logical and other studies made in the field will 

 prove of value toward the construction of a 

 habitat group of the reptiles of Nicaragua. 

 The expedition will be in the field between 

 three and four months, with headquarters 

 at Bluefields, on the Atlantic side. 



Under the will of the late Charles E. Rhine- 

 lander the Museum is to receive the sum of 

 .$8000, and may possibly become later a 

 further beneficiary to the extent of $12,000 

 from a trust fund. 



The memorial tablet to the late John 

 Pierpont Morgan, designed and executed by 

 Miss Beatrice Longman and presented to the 

 Museum by the Trustees, has been set into 

 the south wall of the gem room on the fourth 

 floor, where is housed the Morgan collection 

 of gems. The simplicity of the memorial 

 is in accord with the wishes of Mr. Morgan's 

 son, and the inscription is taken from the 

 resolution of appreciation passed by the 

 Trustees on the occasion of Mr. Morgan's 



