402 THE FEA BODY 31 USE UM. 



The whole osteological collection is three or four times larger than the 

 portion displayed. It was in great part made by Prof. Marsh, and largely 

 at his own expense, with a special view toward facilitating the comparison 

 and study of fossil remains. Mr. George Bird Grinnell, who was with Prof. 

 Marsh on some of his expeditions, and with Gen. Custer on the first entry 

 of the Black Hills region, has been ajDpointed by Yale College as Professor 

 Marsh's assistant in osteology. Mr. Grinnell has rendered important services 

 in arranging this collection, and it will remain under his immediate care. 



The remainder of this room, as well as the rest of the third floor, is de- 

 voted to zoology. Of this department Prof. A. E. Verrill is curator. There 

 is here a systematic collection of vertebrate animals, including fishes, pre- 

 sented in their external forms — some stuffed, some in alcohol. Here, as 

 elsewhere in the building, the specimens are among the best or rarest of 

 their kind, and those which illustrate the relations between separate groups 

 of animals are especially to be found. Such, for instance, as the dipnoi or 

 double-breathers among fishes, having both lungs and gill. These are rep- 

 resented by the lepidosiren and the ceradotus, the latter as far as the teeth 

 ■are concerned, almost exactly similar to the ceradotus of the triassic epoch 

 — a very distant one in geology. The fact that this animal has been found 

 living in Australia, and that the changes in form of the teeth, if any, have 

 not been important, is one of the most remarkable in modern discovery. 

 The survival of its race through the long series of changes in the earth's 

 -crust since the trias, shows that whatever may have been the upheavals and 

 ■subsidence of the earth in the great interval, no complete destruction of life 

 throughout the globe has taken place. Even though the pre-glacial man 

 should be discovered, the antiquity of the human race must be regarded as 

 that of a day-fly compared with the ceratodus. On the top of the cases on 

 this side of the room other strange fishes are mounted ; these are principally 

 of the shark tribe. 



The invertebrate life of the present day is also presented in the west room 

 of this floor, in similar systematic arrangement. There is a good collection 

 of insects, showing representative ones of each family, but with no attempt 

 at exhibiting all the species. By such means the student is enabled to survey 

 the whole field of entomology upon examining not more than a thousand 

 insects — a bird's-eye view such as no bird has ever enjoyed. . When a visitor 

 from the prairies of the West begins to talk about grasshoppers, he is led 

 up to view Tropidacris dux from Central America. This leader of the 'hop- 

 pers measures eight inches across the wings, and six and a half from tip of 

 antenna to end of leg. The leaf-insects from India are admirable specimens 

 of their kind ; they justify the forecastle yarn about the leaves dropping off 

 the trees on one of the South Sea Islands and assembling in a swarm to share 

 with shipwrecked sailors their breakfast on shore. Something ought to be 

 said here concerning the ingenious boxes that contain the insects, the excel- 

 lent arrangement of labels, and the like ; but in all such matters this Museum 

 is beyond reproach. In another set of cases the crustaceans are displayed 



