18 FORTY-FIBST ANNUAL REPORT ON THE • 



tional specimens to fill tlie gaps. And at the same time it is of 

 urgent importance that all the birds and mammals belonging to 

 the fauna of the State should be represented in these collections. 



In the new arrangement the original De Bham collection has 

 been incorporated with the other specimens, in so far as it con- 

 tained representatives of the State Fauna. By the adoption of 

 particularly designated labels the specimens originally in that col- 

 lection can be easily distinguished. 



The collection of recent corals purchased in December, 1886, has 

 been mounted and put on exhibition on the third floor of the 

 Museum building. It makes a most interesting and creditable 

 display, and leaves but little more to be desired in order to 

 make this class sufficiently complete for all the purposes of the 

 State Museum. As at present arranged, the corals occupy three 

 flat window-cases, four small vertical cases of five shelves each, 

 and one large wall-case of seven shelves. A window-case has 

 been constructed for the collection of recent sponges, antl a similar 

 case is devoted to the echinoderms. 



For several years the State Museum has had in its collections 

 the skeleton of a large whale {Baloenoptera musculus), which has 

 been brought to your notice in previous reports by the Director. 

 The proper mounting and exhibition of this skeleton required a 

 room of nearly seventy feet in length, and it was impossible to 

 find a place in any room or area belonging to the Museum for its 

 exhibition, and no feasible plan of disposition was reached until 

 the present year, when, through the courtesy of the State Agri- 

 cultural Society and its secretary, Mr. Woodward, a place in the 

 Agricultural Museum was offered and was accepted by the Trustees 

 of the State Museum. The skeleton is now suspended from the 

 roof of the Agricultural Hall on the level of the upper gallery, and 

 is thus exhibited in a very satisfactory manner. 



Mr. Wm. B. Marshall, assistant in the Museum, has given much 

 time to cleaning and relabeling specimens. The Beigen collection 

 of shells from Mazatlan has been carefully examined and put in 

 order. The collection of stone implements and the ethnological 

 -cabinet have been removed from the top story and placed in cases on 

 the second floor, and new labels have been put on all the articles in 

 these collections. In the New York collection of minerals on the 

 the same floor many new labels have -been renewed in place of 

 those which had become illeeible. On the first floor the larore 



