13 



valuable specimen is now in Professor Ward's hands for macera- 

 tion and mounting, and probably a year will elapse before it will 

 be ready for exhibition. 



Material has also been gathered for a number of groups of small 

 mammals, two of which are well under way, and will doubtless be 

 ready for exhibition early in May, with the additional bird groups. 



The total number of mammals in the collection is about as 

 follows : Mounted and on exhibition, about 1,000 ; skeletons, 

 mounted and on exhibition, 125 ; unmounted skeletons, 60 ; skulls, 

 500 ; unmounted skins, 680 ; alcoholic specimens, 65. Total, 

 2,430. Of the unmounted skins, about 450 may be considered as 

 belonging distinctively to the Study Collection ; the remaining 

 230 are intended more especially for mounting, and accordingly 

 are stored in the basement of the Museum, being preserved in 

 vats, in an antiseptic solution. A portion of these may be con- 

 sidered as duplicates, available for exchange ; but fully one 

 hundred of them are specimens which should be mounted for the 

 exhibition series. 



In view of the fact that the larger mammals of North America 

 are being rapidly exterminated, the Elk, the Mountain Sheep, and 

 several of the other larger species being as surely doomed as the 

 Bison, now already practically extinct, it seems highly desirable 

 that the friends of the Museum should provide the means for se- 

 curing groups of these interesting animals, representing both 

 sexes and various ages, before it becomes too late to obtain them. 

 The expedition sent out this year has secured ample and admir- 

 able material for the proper representation of the Pronghorn and 

 the Mule Deer. The Elk, the Black-tailed Deer, the Mountain 

 Sheep, the Mountain Goat, the Moose, and Caribous, should be 

 secured first, and about in the order named, to which should be 

 added the Bison, which latter should be obtained without any 

 delay. At present these species are all inadequetly represented, 

 not only by too few examples, but by, in many cases, poorly pre- 

 served and badly mounted specimens, by no means doing credit to 

 an institution which may soon be the leading Natural History mu- 

 seum of America. Such groups, if mounted in natural attitudes 

 and with proper accessories, would prove pleasing to the eye and 

 eminently instructive, and in line with the tendency of museums 

 to break away from the too long time-honored and traditional 

 method of arranging in long, monotonous rows, stiffly and other- 

 wise inartistically, mounted effigies of animals. 



The work of completing the Study Collection of North Ameri- 

 can mammals should also be carried vigorously forward, the ex- 

 pense of this being comparatively trifling, and its importance great. 



Birds. — The year 1887 will ever be a memorable one in the 

 history of the collection of birds. Any one of the four principal 

 events of the year would serve to mark it as one of importance. 



