62 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



by no means as complete as it should be, as even many of the com- 

 moner kinds are insufficiently represented or wanting entirely, and 

 additions to the series are very much desired. 



The Museum's collection of birds' nests is only a very small one, 

 but most of them have been put on exhibition, the smaller ones in 

 the cases with the birds to which they belong. The nests of most 

 of the larger birds are too bulky to be provided for in this way, 

 but in many cases special groups consisting of the nest, parent birds 

 and young or eggs have been planned, and much material for such 

 groups already acquired. Other series of specimens which have 

 been partly installed are the mammals, in which the Museum is still 

 unfortunately quite deficient ; the reptiles and amphibians, which are 

 shown mainly by casts and mounted specimens, avoiding the un- 

 sightly and discolored alcoholic material commonly used ; and the 

 skeletons. The fishes of New York have been put in order and 

 are now nearly all mounted in the cases along the corridors of the 

 rotunda. Work on the large groups in the central part of the room 

 has progressed favorably. The puma group is completed and the 

 moose and buffalo groups far advanced toward completion. A 

 large group of whistling swans promised by a friend of the Museum, 

 is said to be approaching completion, though it had not yet been 

 delivered when the year came to a close. 



Accessions to the collections of considerable importance have 

 been made during the year. The most important addition is a large 

 series of native birds and mounted fishes deposited by the Con- 

 servation Commission. The fishes were an especially welcome ac- 

 cession, comprising over one hundred examples of the principal 

 native game and market fishes, most of them unusually large and 

 fine specimens, and well mounted. This collection was brought 

 together by Dr Tarleton H. Bean, the State' Fish Culturist. Other 

 important accessions are a series of mounted birds of species native 

 of New York purchased from Mr Fred Barker of Parker's Prairie, 

 Minn., and some exceptionally fine wax casts of amphibians, chiefly 

 frogs and salamanders, made by Mr D wight Franklin, who has done 

 much work of a similar character for the American Museum of 

 Natural History. The skeleton of a right whale lias been acquired 

 and will presently be mounted, and a collection of the principal 

 breeds of domestic pigeons to supplement the series of domestic 

 fowls which the Museum already possesses. 



