May, 1919 
how this situation may best be handled to 
the interests of the Club at large. 
DEPARTMENT OF ORNITHOLOGY AND Mam- 
MALOGY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CALIFORNIA 
ACADEMY OF ScIENCES.—The Museum of the 
California Academy of Sciences has recently 
acquired by gift the entire ornithological and 
oological collection of John W. and Joseph 
Mailliard. The collection is devoted exclus- 
ively to North American birds. There are 
about 11000 skins representing 777 species. 
The oolcgical collection contains more than 
13000 specimens, in 5240 sets representing 
more than 600 species. 
This is one of the largest and best selected 
collections in western America, and contains 
numerous specimens of species that are now 
rare or that possess unusual interest because 
of locality or other important fact. The col- 
lection represents the joint work of the 
Mailliard brothers during their many years 
of field work and study of American birds. 
The collection is especially valuable because 
of the unusually full and carefully kept rec- 
ords that accompany the specimens. 
The ,water birds have already been in- 
stalled in the Academy Museum; the land 
birds and the nests and eggs will remain at 
the residence of Mr. John W. Mailliard for 
the present, until adequate facilities for 
properly housing them are provided at the 
Museum. 
With the transfer of ownership of the col- 
lection to the Academy of Sciences, and at 
the urgent request of the Council of the Aca- 
demy, Mr. Joseph Mailliard consented to ac- 
cept the Honorary Curatorship of Ornitho- 
logy in the Museum. Having retired from 
active business, Mr. Mailliard is able to give 
practically his entire time to curatorial work 
in the Department, to field work for enlarg- 
ing the collection where insufficiently repre- 
sented, and in research work. 
The Academy has also secured the services 
of Mr. Luther Little, formerly of Los Ange- 
les, as Assistant Curator of Ornithology and 
Mammalogy. Mr. Little is a member of the 
Southern Division of the Cooper Club, has 
had considerable experience as a collector 
and student of birds and mammals, and is 
regarded by the Academy as a decided acqui- 
sition to its Museum staff.—B. W. E. 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED 
THE ANIMAL LIFE OF GLACIER NATIONAL 
ParK.—The animal life of our national parks 
is one of their best recreative assets. The 
cliffs, the lakes, the waterfalls, and the for- 
COMMUNICATIONS 131 
ests each and together tend to stimulate the 
senses and the mind to pleasurable excite- 
ment; and the efforts to secure these pleas- 
ures in full measure bring vigorous bodily 
exercise. But the animals, provided interest 
in them is once aroused, undoubtedly consti- 
tute a more subtle and even more alluring 
objective, one that brings into play at keen- 
est pitch those more or less latent senses 
and instincts which were of vital importance 
in the earlier stages of human history. For, 
among mammals, large and small, and 
among birds and insects, one encounters the 
moving, elusive objective, the one character- 
ized by mannerism, by changing form, color 
tone and pattern, and by sound of great va- 
riety. Moreover, the animal life, and the 
plant life too, presents innumerable prob- 
lems of interrelations, of interdependences 
and of struggles for mastery—the contempla- 
tion of any one of which will provide unlim- 
ited stimulus for intellectual activity and 
enjoyment. 
Despite our belief in the instinctive human 
appeal of all these things, the average hu- 
man of today must be re-introduced, as it 
were, to this field of appreciation. A valua- 
ble service in this regard depends for per- 
formance upon those persons and agencies 
possessing the naturalist’s knowledge and 
possessing also the power to make this avail- 
able to the people at large. People must be 
instructed at least to that most desirable 
point where each will pursue eagerly and 
independently his own study of natural his- 
tory. A splendid move has been made on 
the part of our National Park Service in 
the direction of realizing upon this special 
value of national parks by the inaugurating 
of a series of papers setting forth the more 
attractive features of their wild life. 
The first separate publication of the De- 
partment of the Interior dealing solely with 
the animal life of any one national park is 
the one just published and entitled ‘‘Wild 
Animals of Glacier National Park.’* MHap- 
pily enough, the account of ‘The Mammals” 
is provided by Vernon Bailey, and that of 
“The Birds” by Florence Merriam Bailey; 
for each of these authors is exceptionally 
qualified to handle his subject both by rea- 
son of adequate field experience throughout 
the west generally as well as within the area 
dealt with in particular, and by reason of 
skill to put his knowledge into comprehensi- 
ble language and to develop an enthusiastic 
1Department of the Interior, National Park 
Service (Washington, Gov't Printing Office), 
1918; 210 pp., 37 pls., 94 text figs. Our copy 
received March 6, 1919. Price 50 cents. 
