454 Notes and News. [^ u t k 



join the scientific staff of the U. S. Fish Commission steamer 'Albatross,' 

 and will make collections of birds and mammals and other natural history 

 material during the cruise of the 'Albatross' in the East Indian Islands 

 and northward to Formosa and the Batan Islands, in the interest of the 

 American Museum. 



Mr. M. A. Cakriker, Jr., of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, who 

 is well known for his work in Costa Rica as a collector of natural history 

 material, left early in August last for South America to make collections 

 of birds and mammals, and incidentally of insects and other special groups 

 of animals. Beginning work in Trinidad, where he has been very success- 

 ful, he will soon proceed to Venezuela, and thence westward across the conti- 

 nent to the Pacific coast, and southward to Bolivia. The trip is planned to 

 occupy about three years, and to include many hitherto little worked 

 localities. His birds will all go to the Carnegie Museum, and his mammals 

 to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He left in 

 manuscript an elaborate work on the 'Birds of Costa Rica,' on the prepa- 

 ration of which he had been long engaged, to be published soon by the 

 Carnegie Museum. 



An event of interest to ornithologists is the recent transfer to the new 

 National Museum building in Washington from the old Smithsonian build- 

 ing of the Division of Birds. This change, so long looked forward to, 

 will be of inestimable benefit at least to the younger members of the 

 Division staff and their successors, and indeed to all who will in future 

 have occasion to refer to the collections. 



The new quarters of the Division of Birds comprise three rooms at the 

 west end of the top floor; two communicating outside rooms, one 38 feet 

 square (the office), the other, in which the egg-collection is to be stored, 

 measuring 38 X 33 feet. These two rooms are well lighted and afford a 

 fine view overlooking the grounds of the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington Monument, White House, and a wide sweep of the western 

 horizon, bounded by the Virginia hills. Across a hallway from these two 

 rooms is the storage room for bird skins, a range running east and west, 

 about 32 X 145 feet in size, in which the 305 ' cases containing the collec- 

 tion are arranged in long rows, in single series. This room faces an open 

 court with large windows all along the side, affording an abundant north 

 light, while the opposite side is lighted by a row of large ground-glass 

 transoms. 



In September, 1884, the growth of the bird collection of the National 

 Museum to 100,000 specimens was announced (Science, IV, 497). The 

 number is now more than double that figure, the last entry in the catalogue 

 being No. 212,069. 



1 Of these 305 cases 140 are "half-units," measuring 4X2J feet, the remaining 

 165 being "quarter-units," 2X2^ feet, all being 40 inches high. The egg collection 

 fills 70 additional quarter-unit cases. 



