Explorations for Fossils 81 



EXTINCT VERTEBRATES * 



Henry Fairfield Osborn, Honorary Curator 

 W. D. Matthew, Curator 



In conformity with the general policy of the Museum, we 

 have greatly reduced the amount of field work and have de- 

 voted our energies chiefly to the preparation of 

 ie or exhibits and to the entire rearrangement of our 

 collections of fossil amphibians, reptiles and mammals, which 

 now for the first time are in admirable order ; also to research 

 and publication. 



Associate Curator Barnum Brown has completed the explora- 

 tion of the Ciego Montero locality near Cienfuegos, Cuba, se- 

 curing there a valuable collection of fossils chiefly of the Cuban 

 Ground Sloth Megalocnus. On invitation of Dr. Thomas Bar- 

 bour, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, he also com- 

 pleted the exploration of a cave deposit near Soledad, first 

 explored for fossils by that gentleman, and secured a large 

 collection of fossil remains, mostly small rodents and insec- 

 tivora. These collections add largely to the materials for study 

 of the extinct animals of Cuba, and to the evidence as to former 

 geographic relations of the West Indian islands. 



Associate Curator Walter Granger completed the explora- 

 tion of the Huerfano Basin of Eocene age near Pueblo, Colo- 

 rado, commenced in 191 6. He obtained a considerable collec- 

 tion of fragmentary but interesting specimens which record the 

 transition from the Lower to the Middle Eocene epochs, and 

 include a number of species new to science. 



Mr. Albert Thomson continued explorations in the Snake 

 Creek beds of Western Nebraska, securing a collection of fos- 

 sil mammals of Pliocene age, including skulls of a large rhi- 

 noceros, a peccary and a rare rodent, besides much fragmentary 

 material. 



A number of valuable specimens of dinosaurs from the Red 

 Deer River in Alberta have been secured through purchase. 



* Under the Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology (see also page 194). 



