REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF BIRDS IN THE U. S. NATIONAL 



I, 1888. 



By Egbert Eidgway, Curator. 



The year's work has consisted, as heretofore, largely of routine work, 

 such as the receiving, unpacking, cataloguing, labeling, and installa- 

 tion of collections, making of exchanges, correspondence, etc. In addi- 

 tion to the large amount of work done under these separate headings, 

 nearly the entire exhibition collection has been re-arranged, the cases 

 being fitted with patent adjustable shelving and repainted. This im- 

 portant work is still going on, and progresses as rapidly as the case's 

 can be put in proper shai>e. 



During the last two months of the year the time and work of the de- 

 partment was devoted exclusively to the preparation, cataloguing, 

 labeling, and packing of the collections for the Centennial Exposition 

 in Cincinnati, Ohio. During this time all the energies of the curator 

 and his assistants were directed toward making the ornithological ex- 

 hibit as creditable to the Museum as possible, and I am glad to state 

 that these efforts were crowned with complete success. The bird ex- 

 hibit embraced : (1) Five hundred and thirty finely mounted birds rep- 

 resenting the characteristic types of all the zoogeographical regions of 

 the earth, arranged in four double mahogany cases, each specimen pro- 

 vided with a printed label giving the vernacular and systematic names 

 as well as the geographical distribution of the species ; (2) a group of 

 mounted birds representing such species as play a conspicuous role in 

 literature, with the names by which they are known in works of poetry, 

 and a quotation of some characteristic poem relating to the species 

 printed on the labels ; (3) twelve artistic groups of l^orth American 

 water birds, in two mahogany cases, mounted with surroundings indi- 

 cating their natural habitat ; (4) a collection of eggs and casts of eggs 

 ranging from the enormously large egg of the extinct Epyornis or Giant 

 Ostrich to the tiny egg of the Humming-bird, with explanatory labels; 

 (5) a series of original water-color paintings, by the curator, representing 

 extremely rare North American birds, either extinct or on the verge of 

 extinction ; (6) a series of fac-simile reproductions of plates of Audubon's 

 great work on the Birds of North America, appropriately framed and 

 labeled. As a special feature of the exhibit illustrating the geographical 

 H. Mis. 142, pt. 2 10 145 ' 



