AMERICAN MUSEUM WHALE COLLECTION 



293 



shipped to Ward's Natural Science Estab- 

 lishment at Rochester, New York, for 

 cleaning. 



During the intervals of field work 

 active operations for securing skeletons 

 of the smaller Cetaceans by purchase 

 and exchange have been going on and 

 several Acry valuable specimens have 

 been acquired. Among the most nota- 

 ble is the complete skeleton and baleen 

 of the pygmy right whale {N cohalcena 

 marginata) one of the rarest and most 

 interesting of living whales. 



is being studied as rapidly as possible 

 and the results published as volumes of 

 the American Museum Memoirs under 

 the title Monographs of the Pacific Ceiacea. 

 Part I, The California Gray Whale, 

 has recently appeared and another 

 volume dealing with the scjhval is well 

 on the way toward completion. 



This material, illustrating one of the 

 most interesting and important groups 

 of living mammals, is at the present time 

 utterly inaccessible to the public or to 

 scientific men because of the lack of exhi- 



Removing the spermaceti from the head of a sperm whale. Twenty barrels of licpiid spermaceti 

 were secxired from the head of this specimen, the skeleton of which was sent to the Museum 



Our collection of Cetaceans is to-day 

 probably the most important in the 

 world, especially in the almost complete 

 representation of the large forms. We 

 need greatly the bowhead, or Greenland 

 right whale, and prospects are good for 

 securing a skeleton through an expedi- 

 tion which may leave for Hudson Bay 

 next summer. Another humpback will 

 also have to be obtained in the near 

 future. 



The material which has been acquired 



bition space. The foundations have 

 already been laid for the hall of water 

 mammals in the east court, but opera- 

 tions have been suspended indefinitely 

 because the necessary funds for the com- 

 pletion of the building have not been 

 advanced by the city. 



No more skeletons can be prepared 

 until room is available and this valuable 

 material, much of which could never 

 be duplicated is suffering badly and may 

 even be permanently injured. The 



