294 DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN MUSEUMS 



WESTFIELD: 



HITCHCOCK MEMORIAL MUSEUM. 



This museum is in charge of E. S. Miller, curator, and is housed in 

 the public library building. It contains a general natural history 

 collection, including several large groups of Vermont animals mounted 

 in natural surroundings. 



VIRGINIA 



BLACKSBURG: 



VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 



The collections of the department of biology have been built up 

 by Dr. Ellison A. Smyth Jr., head of the department. They were 

 begun in 1891 with his private collection of shells and alcoholic in- 

 vertebrates, bird eggs and skins, lepidoptera, alcoholic snakes, and 

 dried invertebrates. About 70 birds were mounted, and Dr. Smyth's 

 private herbarium of about 1000 species was added. Later, for con- 

 venience and study, the butterflies to the number of about 30,000, 

 and the bird skins to the number of about 1500, were removed to his 

 house, thus escaping a fire which destroyed the Science Hall and the 

 entire museum collection with the exception of a few mounted birds 

 and alcoholic invertebrates. Since that time the department has 

 been installed in the new building, and Dr. Smyth has by personal 

 collecting in the tropics and elsewhere and by purchase more than re- 

 placed the earlier collection of corals and shells. These with some 

 alcoholic invertebrates, a few skeletons, the college collection of in- 

 sects, and a case of mounted birds are now in the department lecture 

 room, as is also the herbarium. A large room in the same building 

 has been set apart for a museum, in which it is proposed that the de- 

 partments of agronomy, veterinary and animal husbandry, horti- 

 culture, and plant pathology will unite with the department of biology 

 in establishing a museum. No special funds are available however 

 for this purpose and whatever work is done upon the museum will be 

 due to the personal interest of the teaching staff in these departments. 



CHARLOTTESVILLE : 



UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. Lewis Brooks Museum. 



This is a large brick building erected in 1879 through the munifi- 

 cence of Lewis Brooks of Rochester, N. Y., and contains large collec- 

 tions of minerals, rocks, and fossils for instruction in geology and min- 

 eralogy, and extensive botanical and zoological collections for instruc- 



