12 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



one of the largest of the fossil fishes, Dinichthys, made by Dr L. 

 Hussakof and presented by the courtesy of the American Museum 

 of Natural History. Mr Marchand has created some additional 

 models of graptolites, and Mr Hartnagel has now finished the 

 special exhibit of fossil corals. 



In the zoology hall some noteworthy additions have been made 

 to the exhibits, among which may be mentioned the installation 

 of the New York fishes received from the Conservation Commis- 

 sion; an exhibit of the tree toad, designed to show protective 

 coloration ; new groups representing a family of woodchucks ; and 

 a section of a sand bank with nesting bank swallows. The collec- 

 tion of domestic pigeons has been enlarged, and an effort has been 

 made to present a representative collection of the mollusks of New 

 York. The Museum owns a very large series of the New York 

 mollusca, but the limitations of the Museum hall have thus far 

 permitted the display of but a small portion of this collection. 

 The corals and other low invertebrates have been installed so far 

 as the available space permits, and a series of cases has been 

 devoted to the display of the birds' eggs and nests, the collection 

 which has been considerably augmented by the acquisition of the 

 series brought together by the late Martin J. Conway of Troy. 



A special illustration has been made of the sea fowl nesting in 

 the greatest of the remaining colonies of these birds, Bonaventure 

 island in the Gulf of St Lawrence. These are all representatives of 

 New York species. Quite recently a very important addition has 

 been made to the Museum by the gift from Benjamin Walworth 

 Arnold of Albany, of his entire collection of eggs and nests of birds, 

 upon the assembling of which he has been engaged for the last forty 

 years. Mr Arnold's collection is very large, and represents about 

 iooo species of birds from North America, and several hundred 

 additional species from South America, the Falkland and other 

 South Atlantic islands, Africa, Australia and Europe. This Arnold 

 collection is one of the very largest in the possession of any public 

 museum in this country, and its acquisition therefore makes of 

 necessity this Museum a headquarters for students of ornithology. 

 It is planned to instal this collection in part along the west corri- 

 dor into the zoology hall where it will not be exposed to the direct 

 sunlight, and so in a large measure be protected from fading. 



The zoological division is insufficiently manned. So many 

 special lines of interest are represented here that it is difficult for 

 one man, however expert, to handle them all. The present zoologist 

 is active and efficient, but he is without adequate assistance, and 



