Additions to Fish Collections 79 



RECENT AND EXTINCT FISHES* 



Bashford Dean, Honorary Curator 

 John T. Nichols, Associate Curator of Recent Fishes, in Charge 



Limited exhibition space has left little room for placing 



more fishes on view; in fact, several desirable exhibition 



specimens are now held in reserve until there 



Care and be opportunity to show them to advantage. For 



Development reasons of economy there have been no pur- 



of the , " 1 1 1- • 



Collections chases or notable expeditions to secure new 



material, except that Mr. Robert C. Murphy of 

 the Brooklyn Museum, now in Peru, has been commissioned to 

 make a collection of marine fishes. He will give especial 

 attention to securing fishes of the group known as "crevallies," 

 which the department plans to monograph for the world. 

 His collection should also bring to the Museum specimens 

 of other fishes which occur off Peru, of interest in a study of 

 the relation of life to the remarkable ocean current system 

 of the west coast of America. The one notable addition to 

 the study collections actually received, is by gift from Mr. 

 Louis L. Mowbray of about 470 specimens from Bermuda and 

 Turk's Island in the Bahamas. For a number of years Mr. 

 Mowbray has been accumulating a collection of rare or in- 

 teresting fishes. He has been in close touch with our depart- 

 ment throughout, and has planned, when he could find time 

 to do so, to work up this material here. Recently, when leav- 

 ing New York to take charge of a new Aquarium to be 

 erected at Miami, Florida, he placed the entire collection in 

 the American Museum where it could be properly cared for 

 and promptly studied. This addition helps complete our 

 representation of fishes of the West Indian Region. 



Such spare time as the laboratory assistant (Mr. Kessler) 

 has had from the actual physical care of the collections and 



Under the Department of Ichthyology (see also page 209). 



