266 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



like character of the dogfish was quite noticeable in its feeding. In 

 a pool at Woods Hole they have quite a number of them. I would 

 throw a fish in there at one end of the pool when the dogfish were at 

 the other, and in a few minutes they would be attracted evidently by 

 the smell of the fish, without seeing it, and would come around it just 

 like hounds scenting their prey; that is, by running their noses back 

 and forth until they touched the fish, and then they would seize it. 

 That is different from the characteristic of the sand-shark and others, 

 which simply come around singly and bore their noses into the sand 

 in the region of the dead fish wthout seeming able to see it. But I 

 think this curious hound-like characteristic of scenting their prey was 

 rather indicative of the dogfish. 



Another thing : Mr. Nichols perhaps did not make quite clear the 

 difference between a mounted shark or a cast of a shark and the one 

 that he showed of the cub shark being prepared in the museum. Now 

 that is modeled by a sculptor, one of the men employed here, modeled 

 by hand and put into a correct and HfeHke position which it is practi- 

 cally impossible to get by simply laying down a large or small fish and 

 casting it ; and I think anybody who looks at that specimen as finished 

 will reaUze that difference. In that case the living character has been 

 copied. There is an extremely graceful turn of the body characteristic 

 of all the sharks which is shown in a way that I think has never been 

 indicated before, and which it is quite impossible to show, as I say, in 

 simply casting it from the dead fish. I think it shows rather a de- 

 parture in the line of exhibition of large fishes. If you can get a man 

 who is artistic enough to copy the character accurately, then by all 

 means have it done that way in preference to the ordinary cast. 



Mr. R. W. Miner, New York City : I think that in connection with 

 this address of Mr. Nichols perhaps one phase of his exhibit of fishes 

 in the American Museum was not quite fully dealt with. 



Of course the primary purpose of an exhibition in this museum as 

 a public institution is that it should be educational in character. We 

 have our collections here arranged in as scientific a manner as possible 

 for the use of specialists who desire to investigate particular groups ; 

 these we have in the past placed in convenient storage cases, so that 

 they can be readily taken out and handled by specialists. But for the 

 exhibition halls there is quite another point of view. We owe a duty 

 to the pubHc of this city from whom we receive a great deal of our 

 support; and that duty is one of education. Our exhibits are not only 

 for the pubHc at large who may wander into our halls, but also for 

 the children of that public who are brought up in our schools and in 

 contact with natural science in an elementary form through the teachers 

 of the pubHc schools. It is to them, of course, that we look in the 

 future for the development of a good many of these questions that 

 touch most nearly our economic problems. I believe, in common with 

 the rest of the scientific staff of the museum, that the development of 

 an interest in the problems connected with our natural history, in the 

 principal problems of the fisheries, for an immediate example, is what 

 may be considered our immediate duty to the rising generation. And, 



