MUSEUM NOTES 
graphical Society and the American Museum 
of Natural History at Aeolian Hall, January 
17, 1915. The lecture will cover Dr. Maw- 
son’s experiences in the Antarctic from 1911 
to 1914 and will be illustrated with still and 
motion pictures which are pronounced by 
Sir Ernest Shackleton, Mr. A. Radclyffe 
Dugmore and others who have seen them, to 
be the most marvelous pictures ever presented 
on polar subjects. Professor Henry Fairfield 
Osborn will preside and Dr. Mawson will be 
introduced by Mr. John Greenough, chair- 
man of the Council of the American Geo- 
graphical Society. Dr. Mawson has recently 
been knighted by George V in recognition of 
his scientific research in the Antarctic. He 
was well equipped for valuable work, having 
been lecturer in chemistry at Sydney Uni- 
versity and in geology at Adelaide University 
even before he obtained his doctorate in 
science in 1909. Later he was on the staff 
of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition as 
physicist and mineralogist and was one of the 
party which reached the summit of Mount 
Erebus and also the South Magnetic Pole. 
In 1911 he organized the Australasian Ant- 
arctic expedition and led it into the great 
unknown region south of Australia. It is of 
the story of the accomplishment and the pri- 
vations and tragedies of this expedition that 
Dr. Mawson will speak in New York. 
Tue anthropological course of lectures for 
1915 is to be devoted to the Aboriginal Art 
of North American Indians. The subject 
has been chosen in recognition of the increas- 
ing demands of students of art and design 
upon the ethnological collections in the Mu- 
seum. The opening and closing lectures are 
to be given by Dr. Clark Wissler; the first 
will deal with “Technique and Distribution 
of Textile Designs,’ and the concluding 
lecture with ‘‘ Design Names and Symbolism.” 
Dr. Herbert J. Spinden, who has devoted 
much time to the study of the art of the 
Southwest and Central America, will discuss 
in the second and third lectures of the series, 
“Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art” and 
“History and the Higher Arts.’ These 
lectures will be given in the West Assembly 
hall of the Museum on Thursday evenings in 
January at 8:15 o’clock. 
Tue Indian figures for the Hopi group 
under construction by Mr. Howard Mc- 
Cormick in an alcove off the hall of the 
Southwest Indians, have been modeled by 
3l 
Mr. Mahonri Young and are at present in 
process of casting in the Museum’s prepara- 
tion shop. It is understood that Mr. Young 
has in charge also the pediments for the 
Utah State Capitol at Salt Lake City and 
that he has a group of bronzes ready for 
exhibition at the San Francisco Exposition. 
TuroucH the kindness of Miss M. Eliza 
Audubon the Museum has recently come 
into possession of a painting by John James 
Audubon. This painting has been in the 
Museum on deposit for some time and its 
gift makes a very important addition to the 
Museum’s collection of Auduboniana. It is 
one of the largest of Audubon’s pictures and 
is especially pleasing in composition and color. 
THERE has recently been placed on exhi- 
bition in the Plains Indian hall a small model 
of a Hidatsa earth-lodge constructed by Mr. 
S. Ichikawa after drawings made by Mr. F. 
N. Wilson and plates from the early publica- 
tion, Travels in the Interior of North America 
by Maximilian, Prince of Wied, who visited 
the Hidatsa and Mandan in 1832-1834. It 
was in a village of houses of this type that 
Lewis and Clark spent their first winter 
(1804). 
THe Museum has long been desirous of 
obtaining a specimen of the devilfish (Manta 
birostris), the largest of all rays. This 
species, owing to its great size, the difficulty 
of caring for specimens in the field and the 
danger attending its capture, is very poorly 
represented in museums. In fact no full- 
grown specimen, so far as known, is on exhi- 
bition anywhere. Last summer the Museum 
sent an expedition to the west coast of Florida 
for the purpose of capturing a devilfish. The 
expedition succeeded in getting two speci- 
mens. For the capture of these we are 
indebted to Mr. Russell J. Coles of Danville, 
Virginia, an amateur ichthyologist who has 
had considerable experience in the capture 
of large sharks. Mr. Coles was in charge 
of the capturing of the specimens and did 
most of the work of harpooning them. 
The expedition made its headquarters at 
Captive Island, about twenty-five miles 
south of Punta Gorda. The two devilfish 
caught were splendid specimens, the larger 
one eleven feet wide and the smaller one 
seven feet ten inches. ‘Excellent casts of 
both specimens were made in the field by 
Mr. J. C. Bell, of the Museum’s department 
