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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



The opening general session of the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of 

 Science will be held in the Auditorium of the 

 Museum on the evening of Tuesday, Decem- 

 ber 26, at 8 o'clock. Dr. Charles R. Van 

 Hise, President of the University of Wiscon- 

 sin, will preside, and Dr. WiUiam Wallace 

 Campbell, Director of Lick Observatory, will 

 give the address of the retiring president, on 

 "The Nebula;." 



From 9.30 to 11 :00 o'clock in the hall of the 

 age of man, the Honorary Reception Com- 

 mittee will tender a general reception to 

 Presidents Campbell and Van Hise and the 

 members of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science and of affiliated 

 societies. 



Through the generosity of Messrs. Ales- 

 sandro and Ernesto_G. Fabbri, of New York 

 City, with the cooperation of the department 

 of ichthyology of the American Museum, the 

 Journal for this month is able to publish 

 the color plate accompanying the article "The 

 Problem of Bright-colored Fishes." The 

 plate was designed from specimens in the 

 Museum and aims to show the brilliant color- 

 ations of certain fishes which live in the pro- 

 tection of coral reefs. 



A SERIES of one hundred picture stamps 

 illustrating some of the more interesting 

 exhibits, and a souvenir album to contain 

 them has just been published by the American 

 Museum and may be obtained at the door. 

 It is hoped that these stamps, besides furnish- 

 ing visitors with a souvenir of the Museum, 

 will have value as an educational medium 

 especially for children. The album, which 

 contains places for inserting all the stamps, 

 with a printed legend under each place, is 

 sold with the first set of ten stamps for fifteen 

 cents. Succeeding sets of ten stamps cost 

 each ten cents and each stamp is to be placed 

 over its appropriate legend in the book. The 

 pictures have been well chosen and the text 

 carefully prepared and phrased in simple 

 language which children can understand. 



It is of interest to all scientists of the New 

 World that the Argentine Society of Natural 

 Sciences of Buenos Aires, which publishes the 



review, Physis, is planning a series of national 

 reunions to take place every two years, each 

 time in a different city of the Argentine. It 

 is intended that these reunions shall be simi- 

 lar in character to those of the British Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, 

 and the French and American associations; 

 they will be the first assemblies of their kind 

 to convene in South America. The first 

 reunion was held at Tucuman in the last 

 week of November, 1916, in commemoration 

 of the first centenary of the declaration of 

 independence of the Argentine Republic in 

 1816. Tucuman is an important northern 

 city, with a population of more than one 

 hundred thousand, and with a University 

 and natural^history museum. The environ- 

 ment gave opportunities for interesting field 

 excursions for the different sections during 

 the meeting. Professor Angel Gallardo, di- 

 rector of the Museum of Buenos Aires, was 

 president of this first national reunion, with 

 the Minister of Public Instruction, president 

 of honor. The papers which were presented, 

 are to be bound in one volume with the re- 

 port of the session. 



By purchase from Don Pedro Jose Roderi- 

 guez, through Mr. Luis Geronimo Martinez, 

 of Brooklyn, the Museum's anthropological 

 department has acquired a large collection 

 of pottery figures and heads, taken from a 

 series of mounds at Las Matas, near Maracay, 

 Venezuela. These mounds, of which there 

 are about thirty, each ten'^or twelve feet high 

 and two or three hundred feet long, are near 

 the banks of Lake Valencia, the site of a 

 village probably belonging to lake-dwelling 

 Indians. They^ contain pottery and urn 

 burials and appear to afford an excellent 

 opportunity for stratigraphical investigation, 

 with a view to obtaining a cross section of the 

 ancient history of Venezuela. 



Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, of the National 

 Association of Audubon Societies, has re- 

 cently completed and pubhshed a complete 

 index to Bird Lore, the iUustrated bimonthly 

 magazine, edited by Dr. Frank M. Chapman, 

 and devoted to bird study and bird protec- 

 tion. 



