XEWS NOTES 137 



Congo on June 24. They are now at or in the vicinity of Stanleyville 

 in the highlands of the upper part of the river. This place is healthful 

 and will be made the headquarters from which to set out on periodical 

 excursions into the surrounding country, until the purposes of the ex- 

 pedition have been accomplished. ]\Ir. Lang reports that there is a 

 poverty of desirable animal life, particularly birds, in the vicinity of 

 Boma and Matadi, the region being one of barren hills. The Stanley- 

 ville region, however, abounds in game, and the necessary permission 

 has been secured for collecting all forms of animal life, including the right 

 to capture two specimens of the rare okapi, which seems to be a member 

 of the giraffe family. King Leopold has previously shown his interest in 

 the Museum by the donation of a large collection illustrating the Congo 

 peoples; and now the Belgian government, in addition to the unusual 

 j)rivileges granted, has contributed largely toward defraying the expenses 

 of the present expedition. 



]Mr. C. E. Akeley, the noted collector of African big game, left New 

 York August 17 for British East Africa, where he will continue studies 

 begun during former expeditions and will make collections for the 

 American Museum. The expedition will require two years, and, 

 besides obtaining a group of elephants to be mounted here amid a 

 reproduction of their natural habitat, will devote much time to making 

 a complete photographic record of the people, fauna and flora. A mov- 

 ing picture camera has been taken for the purpose of getting pictures of 

 army ants on the march and other movements of animals. 



Three important additions have been made to the collection of 

 meteorites in the Foyer: the 682-pound iron to be known as Gufl'ey, 

 but as yet undescribed, the section of Gibeon (West Africa) which was 

 secured by the ?^Iuseum last year, as noted in the Journal for April, 

 1908, and a 20-pound mass of the aerolite "]\Iodoc," which is the largest 

 piece of this fall that has been found and was acquired by the ^Museum 

 in January of this year. 



The upright cases in the gallery of the East Wing (third floor, Xo. 

 306) are in process of rearrangement to illustrate in diagrammatic fashion 

 evolution among living mammals and relationship with fossil forms. 

 This is done by means of wedge-shaped cores within the cases around 



