REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. 49 
which these collections were brought together at the expenditure of 
much money, labor, and ingenuity,,than we were before they were first 
sent abroad. They still represent a dead mass of material awaiting 
proper utilization in the service of scientific progress and must re- 
main so until the Museum shall be financially able to support a 
specialist in this important branch of science. The moral of the 
above needs not to be pointed out; the danger and futility is too 
obvious. 
The department sustained a very serious loss during the year in 
the deaths of Mr. Nelson R. Wood and Mr. William Palmer, both 
taxidermists of the first rank. Mr. Wood, who died on November 8, 
1920, was undoubtedly the foremost bird taxidermist in this country. 
The bird exhibit is a lasting monument to his grasp of the character 
of each individual and his unsurpassed ability to give it lifelike 
expression. The technical skill with which he handled old and seem- 
ingly impossible skins and achieved results as if it had been fresh 
material was no less remarkable, and the saving and rejuvenescence 
of many rare and valuable old specimens is due to his thoughtful 
and loving care. The remounting of the great auk is a case in point. 
Mr. William Palmer, whose death occurred on April 8, 1921, in his 
65th year, was an excellent all-around museum preparator. He was 
as skillful in mounting mammals and birds as in making plaster 
casts of whales, fishes, and reptiles; his ability to paint these and to 
fashion the accessories of the various biological groups was of no 
mean grade; and he was equally successful in handling the cleaning 
and mounting of a large whale skeleton as in preparing an exhibit of 
dainty butterflies. But Mr. Palmer was more. He had an extensive 
knowledge of the natural history of the animals and plants of this 
region; his special knowledge of certain groups of birds and their 
plumages was considerable; he had also paid particular attention to 
collection and studying the fossil remains of whales. In the Museum 
exhibition series the collection illustrating the fauna of the District 
of Columbia is almost exclusively his work, and to a great extent 
also the casts in the whale hall and in the fish and reptile hall. 
COMPARISON OF INCREMENT OF SPECIMENS OF 1920-21 WITH THAT OF 1919-20, 
From the numerical standpoint the collections of this department 
show a healthy growth during the past year, no less than 251,485 
specimens having been received as against 136,765 during the previous 
year. ‘This increase is observable in almost all the divisions. It is 
even more satisfactory to be able to report that all the curators ex- 
press themselves as highly pleased with the scientific importance of 
the new accessions, in instances characterizing the collections received 
as “of greatly increased value” (mammals), or “of far greater 
value” (fishes), or “ greatly surpassing in value last year’s acces- 
