BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY). 49 



Battalion Central London Regiment (United Arts Rifles) ] ; six men 

 are serving as Special Constables ; and six men form a Museum 

 detachment o£ the London Ambulance Column. This detachment 

 has been very active during the past year, having received and dealt 

 with 2S6 separate calls to attend wounded men from hospital trains 

 or from the hospitals. Four members of the staff have been lent to 

 the Ministry of Munitions ; one assistant is doing duty as 

 Bacteriologist at Haslar Hospital under the Admiralty ; and another 

 Assistant has been lent to the War Ofiice and is shortly proceeding 

 to Salonika as Protozoologist. Only one man of military age and 

 passed as fit for general service is at present employed at the Museum. 

 This man received exemption as being indispensable for the 

 preservation of the collections. 



Three members of the Museum Establishment have been killed in 

 action, and one is reported as missing since the 19th September ; 

 seven have been wounded. 



The Military Cross has been awarded to two assistants, viz. : — 

 Captain A. K. Totton, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and 

 Captain W. Campbell Smith, attached to the Gras Company, Royal 

 Engineers. 



A Parliamentary Return has been issued of the number of civil 

 servants on military service, showing that of 26 men of military age 

 remaining at the Natural History Museum on 1st April, 1916, 11 were 

 enrolled, 14 were rejected on medical grounds, and one applied for 

 exemption on the ground of conscientious objection and is now 

 working on a fruit farm. 



The War and the Work of the Museum. 



The Museum has been able to render assistance to various public 

 departments in matters connected with the war. S,ome of these 

 being of a confidential nature cannot be mentioned here, but note may 

 be made of the following as examples of the sort of inquiries which 

 reach the Museum : — 



(a) Nature of some organisms which caused blocking-up of 

 certain sea-water pipes ; 



(h) As to some mite-infested oats at the Front ; 



(c) Application of a remedy for the rice-weevil in connection 



with the disease of beri-beri ; 



(d) As to methods of destruction of bed-bugs ; 



(e) The identification of specimens of larvae found in drinking 



water ; 



(/) Nature of wood used in the construction of a propeller of 

 a Zeppelin brought down in this country ; 



(g) Advice as to certain samples of so-called " Silver Spruce " 

 from British North America ; 



(A) Inquiry as to certain wood stated to possess luminous 

 properties. 



D 



