26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM VOL. 125 
pation would seem highly desirable; accordingly, the Primate Biology 
Program will consider the feasibility of processing data relating to 
primate collections in the major museums of the world. A project of 
this sort would be inconceivable for such organizational units as the 
Department of Invertebrate Zoology or the Division of Ornithology, 
but for the Primate Biology Program, which is concerned with rela- 
tively fewer species, a world-wide catalog is not out of the question. 
Such a catalog housed in one institution would be of immense value 
to primatologists. 
Augmentation of Collection: Few museums possess sufficient dupli- 
cate material to allow synoptic loan-kits of skulls and postcranial 
bones to be made available to accredited institutions or to permit wet 
specimens to be dissected by graduate students; yet, such facilities 
would form an important part of an education program. Efforts will 
be made to augment the Smithsonian’s already extensive collections 
by various means so that the following services can be implemented: 
1. Specimens for Dissection: At present there is no adequate collection of em- 
balmed specimens suitable for detailed anatomical dissection. Many requests 
for such material reach the Smithsonian annually. In the course of building up 
systematic reference collections, stocks of properly preserved anatomical material 
should be developed. These stocks would serve as a “‘bank”’ from which specimens 
could be drawn for study. 
2. Whole Specimens for Loan: It is proposed to build up a “‘library”’ of the 
common varieties of primates. The animals preserved in their entirety would 
be stored in polythene envelopes without fluid and would be available for loan to 
scientific institutions. 
3. Synoptic Osteological Collections: For temporary loan to primate centers 
and other scientific institutions. 
4. Film Library: For certain fields of study, motion pictures are the essential 
correlate of more formal methods of instruction; for example, in primate biology, 
with its emphasis on behavior, films should comprise a major part of the course. 
It is not easy with large classes to demonstrate behavioral experiments on primates 
in the laboratory, but the identical experiments can be presented to any number of 
students simultaneously through motion pictures. Ecological and behavioral 
studies in the wild are assuming great importance in primate biology and naturally 
constitute a major part of student instruction; it is clearly impossible to transpose 
a group of students to the rain forest but perfectly feasible to bring the rain forest 
to them—on film. Locomotion studies are pivotal to the understanding of primate 
biology for the primate is structurally a locomotor machine. Locomotion can be 
illustrated theoretically in a biomechanical diagram of forces, but its behavioral 
significance, in relation to feeding, etc., can be understood only in dynamic terms 
where posture, movement, and environment are brought together in one demon- 
stration. It is proposed to develop a library service lending films to laboratories 
and university departments for educational use. This is substantially the procedure 
that is followed at the present in the Smithsonian Unit of Primate Biology in 
London. 
5. Identification Service: The existing collections of the Division of Mammals 
would make it possible to provide an identification service for outside organizations. 
