Biological Institutions 



55 



Truly may it be said of the American Museum that its 

 "lines have gone forth throughout all the earth, and its (men) 

 to the ends of the world." From frigid pole and torrid 

 equator, from rain-soaked forest and from sun-baked desert, 

 from Andean height and Amazonian jungle have come the 

 treasures, which constitute today one of the finest exhibits of 

 natural history in the world. To attempt any adequate ac- 

 count of the Museum and its work in this place would be out 

 of the question, but brief mention may be made of a few of 

 its more important features. 



The progress of American palaeontology, outlined in another 

 chapter is largely due to the Museum, and its splendid col- 



The Blue Shark with School op Young 



Photograph of a group in the American Museum of Natural History 

 in New York. 



Courtesy of the Museum. 



lection of fossil vertebrates bears witness to the story of the 

 past, which its investigations have revealed. 



Until comparatively recent years we have been accustomed 

 in our museums to display case after case and row upon row 

 of more or less indifferently stuffed specimens, with jar after 

 jar of ''pickled" snakes and turtles and case upon case of 

 pinned butterflies and' moths. But no hint was there of the 

 activities and home of the living thing. Today our best 

 museums, largely under the inspiration of the American 

 Museum, are exhibiting groups of birds and mammals, rep- 

 tiles, fish and other forms, illustrating their homes and lives 

 in Nature's setting. Here one finds for example the duck 

 hawks, with their nest and young perched among the rocks 



