Report of the President. 17 



on exhibition beside the Mastodon skeleton, which it con- 

 siderably exceeds in height and in length of tusks. The 

 Bridger expedition secured materials for a mounted skeleton 

 of the remarkable six-horned Uintathere, a giant mammal of the 

 Eocene epoch, and a number of skulls or skeletons of new or 

 rare extinct animals of smaller size. The expedition to the Big 

 Badlands secured a number of fine specimens of the character- 

 istic fossils of that rich field, including several genera hitherto 

 unknown. A nearly complete skeleton of the Oligocene ancestor 

 of the wolf was acquired by purchase. The explorations in 

 the fissure or open cave deposits of northern Arkansas have 

 yielded a large collection of the forest-haunting animals of the 

 Pleistocene epoch, probably contemporary with the earliest 

 appearance of man in North America. The collection is pecu- 

 liarly rich in small animals ; it includes some sixty species, many 

 of them extinct, the others mostly northern animals, indicating 

 a former much colder climate than now prevails in that region. 



Our collections of extinct reptiles have been enriched by 

 two fine Plesiosaur skulls and a number of Mosasaur skele- 

 tons from South Dakota, two Marine Crocodile skulls from 

 Montana, and a skull of the Duck-billed Dinosaur from New 

 Mexico. Especial attention has been given in the field-work 

 of recent years to the search for fossil reptiles, which, although 

 more difficult to find and more expensive to collect and pre- 

 pare for exhibition than fossil mammals, are yet of greater 

 interest, as representing more ancient and less known types of 

 life, more widely different from those of the present day, and 

 in many respects far more extraordinary than the extinct 

 animals shown in the Hall of Fossil Mammals. 



Much progress has been made in the preparation of these 

 extinct reptiles, and especially of the Dinosaurs, for exhibition 

 in the new Dinosaur Hall. The skeleton of the Dwarf Car- 

 nivorous Dinosaur, or "Bird-Catcher," has been placed on 

 exhibition, the gigantic Brontosaurus skeleton is nearly com- 

 pleted, and three other huge and remarkable Dinosaur skele- 

 tons are well under way toward mounting. A number of 

 skulls, limbs, and incomplete specimens have been prepared 

 and mounted, enough to go a long way toward filling the new 



