September 15, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



381 



lady with a feather duster, requesting me to 

 make known to him anything else I might re- 

 quire. My assistant immediately started in 

 with the duster, and the material was brought 

 to light. A request of mine for an assorted 

 lot of cardboard boxes was favorably consid- 

 ered early in my work; in due course the col- 

 lection of bird skeletons was boxed, the speci- 

 mens labeled, and the whole made accessible 

 for the use of students. 



At this stage of the proceedings a board 

 appointed by the government found me un- 

 fitted for promotion (Doctor Coues was also at 

 work in the Smithsonian Institution), and I 

 was ordered to New Orleans. Dr. Lucas suc- 

 ceeded me; and through his splendid energy 

 and genius, the department of comparative 

 anatomy was placed on a sound basis, with a 

 wealth of material of all kinds, elegantly ex- 

 hibited and cased. Indeed it was, at the close 

 of his regime, the envy and admiration of all 

 the scientific institutions in the world that 

 knew anything about the department. After 

 Dr. Lucas's connection with the National Mu- 

 seum was severed, and I had been, upon second 

 thought of the government, found fitted for 

 promotion and duly ordered west, the depart- 

 ment of comparative anatomy seemed to 

 slowly dwindle away, finally being split up 

 among the various divisions of the National 

 Museum. Eventually the bird alcoholics and 

 skeletons drifted into Professor Ridgway's di- 

 vision, and, through no fault of his, a long 

 period of statu quo ante lucasum set in. 



During my seven years' study of crime and 

 human psychology and morphology in New 

 York City I wrote but few papers on the 

 osteology of birds, and these were based prin- 

 cipally on material sent me by the Bureau of 

 Science at Manila and the Zoological Society 

 of London. Then, when I returned to Wash- 

 ington to live, my work in vertebrate anatomy 

 was more actively taken up, as I had deter- 

 mined it should be before the sojourn in New 

 York was decided upon. At the end of four 

 or five years or more, when my published me- 

 moirs in that field began to run up into the 

 dozens, and the figures illustrating them into 

 many hundreds, I found that I was deeply in- 



debted to the United States National Museum 

 for the loan, at different times, of a great 

 number of bird skeletons used in that partic- 

 ular field of my work. The assistance ren- 

 dered me by that institution has proved in- 

 valuable, and the aid given by Professor Ridg- 

 way, and by Dr. Richmond and his assistants, 

 has been and is most thoroughly appreciated. 



Por a year or more past I have observed, 

 without commenting upon the fact, that there 

 has been a slow but steady improvement upon 

 the former condition of things in the section 

 containing the boxed collection of bird skele- 

 tons. Notwithstanding his arduous duties as 

 assistant curator of the division of birds, Dr. 

 Richmond has made a requisition for a series 

 of cases to contain the collection, and these 

 are now in use in a fairly convenient place in 

 the department. A " cleaning up " gradually 

 followed, and a raking together of all the bird 

 skeletons that were in various rooms in the 

 museum. These were placed in trays, to be 

 eventually cleaned and boxed. Birt what was 

 to be done with them? Professor Ridgway, 

 deep in completing his great work on " The 

 Birds of North and Middle America," could 

 not, even had he wished to do so, think of giv- 

 ing the matter a moment's attention, and Dr. 

 Richmond has as much as he can possibly 

 handle by attending to the affairs of one of 

 the most important departments of the mu- 

 seum — the division of birds, with its enormous 

 collection of bird skins, with its library and 

 correspondence, and with other duties too nu- 

 merous to mention. 



At this juncture, through fortunate circum- 

 stances, Mr. Alex. Wetmore, of the Biological 

 Survey, became interested in the matter, and 

 through a mutual cooperation of all con- 

 cerned, he arranged to put the collection of 

 bird skeletons into the various cases supplied 

 for them, and to settle the material in place as 

 best he could, after his duties at the survey 

 were over for the day. This has been accom- 

 plished as far as could be expected under the 

 circumstances, and Mr. Wetmore has em- 

 phasized the interest he has taken in the new 

 order of things by publishing a number of 



