64 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 185. 



now administering, the expeditions to 

 Mexico, Siberia and Alaska. Purchases 

 upon a most munificent scale have secured 

 such large collections as the Sturgis, Em- 

 mons, Terry and De Morgan in ethnology 

 and archaeology, the Haines in conchology, 

 the Hall in paleontology, the Spang in 

 mineralogy, the Baily and Bendire in 

 oology, the Maximillian and Elliot in 

 mammalogy and ornithology, the superb 

 Elliot library on birds ; and innumerable 

 smaller purchases are j'early adding to the 

 beauty and completeness of the cabinets. 

 Perhaps the most astonishing and original 

 exhibit contained in the Museum to-day is 

 that of vertebrate paleontology. Professor 

 H. Fairfield Osborn has practically created 

 this department. He has supported it in 

 its work in the field under Dr. "Wortman, 

 and he has brought to its installation a 

 sympathy for the needs of the visitor and 

 student, an unerring sense of correct and 

 attractive arrangement, and he has stamped 

 it with the impress of deep learning. 



Amongst the very beautiful objects of the 

 Museum halls, the realistic groups of birds 

 and animals challenge a delighted notice. 

 These admirable extracts from nature show 

 the habitat of the animals reproduced with 

 microscopic care and verisimilitude, the 

 animals themselves in flight or motion or 

 arrested in surprise or interest. The art of 

 taxidermy has taken a high and justly cele- 

 brated place in the American Museum of 

 !N"atural History, and Messrs. Eowley and 

 Smith have felt the responsibilities of their 

 keenly critical position. There are gems 

 of taxidermy from the hand of Jules Ver- 

 reaux where the apt instinct for anatomical 

 relations reveals the character of the crea- 

 ture, where angularities of structure are not 

 forgotten, and smooth contours are entered 

 by lines of muscular or ligamental model- 

 ling. Taxidermists are apt to overstuff ; if 

 the subjects are large they are fattened with 

 superabundant straw until, like Falstaff, 



they are' mountains of mummy ;' if small, 

 converted into rolling pins, or, as Flower 

 says, are ' wretched and repulsive carica- 

 tures, out of all proportion, shrunken here, 

 bloated there, and in impossible attitudes.' 

 Taxidermy, like sculpture, is a study of 

 the relations of muscles ; with little difli- 

 culty it becomes the protean art of making 

 pin cushions. 



The Museum of Natural History in Lon- 

 don is regarded to-day as the most perfect 

 representation of an ideal museum of nat- 

 ural history in the world.; after it th& 

 museum in Berlin, and, in about equal 

 rivalry for the second place on the Conti- 

 nent, those of Vienna and Paris. The care 

 with which the first two have elaborated 

 the presentation of groups' of birds and 

 mammals afforded the suggestion for th© 

 groups now shown in the American Museum. 

 These were at first largely created by the 

 cooperative efforts and skill of Jenness 

 Richardson and Mrs. Moggridge, an English- 

 woman who had worked at South Kensing- 

 ton. The taxidermy at all these museums 

 is of no higher order than that displayed in 

 the American Museum of N'atural history. 

 The groups are more varied, are larger, and 

 in many cases, as at Paris, are placed in 

 more theatrical relations to the spectators. 

 Such groups compose a feature wonderfully 

 attractive, and are really to a large super- 

 ficial class of visitors the most appreciated 

 and helpful form of exhibit. 



In the British Museum the influence of 

 environment, the modifications of texture, 

 and the progressive changes in dermal ap- 

 pendages and skin, together with ample 

 morphological illustration, supplement these 

 pure nature studies and embody a magnifi- 

 cent lesson in zoology. Such advances Dr.. 

 J. A. Allen contemplates in the American 

 Museum in New York. 



The detailed or even general description 

 of the collections is impossible in a sketch 

 devoted to blocking out the conformation 



