48 Report of the President 



and preparation of these blocks, which will necessitate their 

 partial coloration, are now under way. It is anticipated that 

 they will be very much welcomed by the increasing number of 

 visitors to whom crystallography is no longer a bugbear or a 

 mystery. 



An interesting experiment in mural decoration has been 

 made with, we believe, a genuine popular approval. The 

 Nevada Consolidated Copper Co., one of the Guggenheim 

 properties, has presented us with an enlargement, in color, 

 displayed as a painting, of a panoramic photograph of the 

 Shovel Pit at Ely, Nevada. This difficult work has been suc- 

 cessfully executed by Albert Operti, and was described and 

 illustrated in The American Museum Journal. 



In a previous report the Curator urged a reinstallation to 

 some extent of the Gem Collection, especially with a view to 

 making it technically more valuable, and with no indifferent 

 eye to the improvement of the Mineral Hall by the abstrac- 

 tion of the Gem Room's purely mineral contents. 



MAMMALS AND BIRDS 

 J. A. Allen, Curator 



Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology. — The 

 accessions, through exploration, gift and purchase, exceed 

 those of any previous year in the history of the department. 

 Of first importance in number and interest are the collections 

 made in western Colombia under the direction of Curator 

 Chapman. These include over 5,000 birds and about 1,000 

 mammals. About 3,000 birds and r,ooo mammals have been 

 received from other sources, largely through other Museum 

 expeditions. A much larger number than usual of both 

 mammals and birds have been received from the New York 

 Zoological Society, including many of great value to our 

 collections. 



Walter Winans of Pluckley, Kent, England, to whom the 

 Museum is indebted for the material for the Wild Boar Group, 

 installed early in the year, has continued to send us specimens 

 of European mammals of much interest. The Museum is also 



