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Notes and Quertes 145 
via ble reputation as photographers of our wild 
game, will be in attendance. They have made 
a remarkable series of instantaneous photo- 
graphs which are very interesting, and which 
will in a few years be a valuable contribution 
to the records of the Fauna of our country. 
They approach a herd of elk, buffalo, antler 
and other wary and fleet-footed animals, and 
get near enough to photograph them, so that 
the eyes are plainly visible, which is a feat out- 
rivaling the work of the king sportsman with 
the gun. ‘There will be over two hundred dif- 
ferent photographs of our large game ex- 
hibited by these enterprising and enthusiastic 
sportsmen. ‘The sizes of the photographs are 
20x40, 18x20, and smaller. 
Another very interesting exhibit will be that 
of Messrs. C. G. Gunther’s Sons. The exhibit 
of this firm will be an exact reproduction of 
their famous World’s Fair display. It will 
occupy four spaces, and the display will be a 
typical and striking collection of their mounted 
specimens and heads of our North American 
game. 
These are but a few of the many recent and 
attractive features of the exposition. 

Dr. Bean and the Aquarium. 
The appointment of Dr. Tarlton H. Bean as 
superintendent of the Castle Garden aquarium 
will be welcomed by the heads of schools and 
teachers generally. There is no question as 
to his scientific knowledge, particularly that 
of classification of fishes. He can split hairs 
in matters of terminology. From his superior 
qualifications as an ichthyologist, the educa- 
tional institutions of the city and state will de- 
tive great benefit, as he will, doubtless, 
so classify the rich material at his command, 
that a knowledge of this interesting branch of 
natural history will be more easily acquired, 
facts being fixed in the minds of the student 
by object lessons always before him. 
But the doctor will have another clientage 
to appease and satisfy, the demands of which 
will be more exacting than those of the stu- 
dent, and, perhaps, less sympathetic with his 
tastes as a professor of ichthyology. We al- 
lude to the general public, which will always 
be athirst for a great variety of species of fish, 
and if he does not furnish, with regularity of 
supply, curious specimens, big and little, from 
all kinds of water, ‘‘bitter’’ and ‘‘sweet,” we 
fear the gentle people cannot be appeased or 
satisfied. Public opinion, with its trenchant 
franchise, works along irregular and often 
strange strata—on one plane to-day and on 
another to-morrow, and we always feel sur- 
prised and cannot help being sympathetic, 
when we see a prominent man of seience, as 
Dr. Bean certainly is, leave the calm retreat 
of his studies to assume a public office with its 
attendant worries. 
Again, there is another class to withstand, 
if not to disarm. We allude to that big crowd 
of amateur or would-be-amateur naturalists 
who ‘‘know it all.” The average fisherman 
constitutes the majority in this case. What 
he don’t know about fish, there is no use for 
any other fellow to find out. Joined to this 
captious crowd is a more subtle, but not less 
insistent individual—the ousted politician— 
who is debarred from our present plans and 
efforts for purity in local government, which, 
warmly as we greet and support the 
attempt, will not, we think, be likely to 
last a decade. In reaching out for dol- 
lars and in the hustle therefor, Wall and 
Worth streets will, in time, become lax in their 
work for the good of the whole, and the pot- 
house politician will again be likely to come to 
the front, because of the development of ex- 
ecutive ability among the ‘‘bosses” during the 
last twenty-five years, far overreaching in 
power and influence the effects of the inter- 
mittent spasms of effort for pure government 
which are periodically made. Just now the 
“boss” is simply ‘‘lying low,” well knowing 
that history repeats itself every decade or so. 
But Dr. Bean has doubtless considered all 
these untoward conditions before surrendering 
the congenial ties that bound him to the work 
of the United States Fish Commission and the 
National Museum at Washington. His op- 
portunities for good work in his new position 
are such as should inspire his best etforts, 
which, when exerted, cannot fail to show an 
immediate improvement in the affairs of the 
aquarium. He is especially equipped for the 
position he is filling, not only as a student of 
dead fish and their relations to each other, but 
from his many years’ connection with the prac- 
tical work, among living fish, of the United 
States Fish Commission. If, in writing these 
crude notes, we have drifted into rather a 
gloomy view of the doctor’s personal outlook, 
we feel entirely confident that great good will 
result from his superintendency, which he has 
entered upon with zeal and under the most 
auspicious circumstances. 
