188 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 109. 



action of an undying universal law which 

 places before them two alternatives, — progress 

 or death ! 



But to return to the practical question, 

 whether the national museum is a fit place for 

 the present deposit of unique collections of 

 perishable objects, we may say, that, while the 

 future of the museum seems to be assured, 

 we have no sufficient historical ground for 

 belief, that it will reach stability without serious 

 lapses ; and that until it supports a competent 

 salaried chief of its entomological department, 

 with at least one paid assistant, it stands in 

 no position to invite the donation, or to war- 

 rant the purchase, of a single valuable col- 

 lection of such perishable objects as insects. 

 That the time will come when it is properly 

 equipped, we cannot doubt ; that it should 

 reach it through the sacrifice of Mr. Riley's, 

 or of an}^ other choice collection, would be a 

 burning shame : this is the immediate risk. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



* % * Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The voice of serpents. 



Prof. C. H. Hitchcock's note in No. 104 brings to 

 mind a fact noted in my laboratory, which may be 

 of interest to herpetologists. In the autumn of 1883 

 a friend brought to me two magnificent living speci- 

 mens of the common prairie bull snake, Pituophis 

 Sayi. I gave them the freedom of my lecture-room, 

 and they soon made themselves perfectly at home. 



One day, while working with a large induction-coil, 

 I bethought me of my snakes, and caught the larger 

 (his length was about five feet), and passed a power- 

 ful charge of electricity through his spinal column. 

 As the circuit was broken and made, I was much sur- 

 prised to hear a faint though perfectly distinct cry 

 from his snakCship. My notes made at the time 

 speak of this sound as similar to the voice of a young 

 puppy. 



During a period of a month or more, this experi- 

 ment was repeated with one or the other of these ser- 

 pents, and always with this cry of pain or anger. 



H. H. Nicholson. 



University of Nebraska, Feb. 18. 



The collection of insects in the national 



museum. 



In reference to my remarks on the above-named 

 subject, your explanation, that you meant ' the per- 

 petual care of valuable collections' (p. 25), meets 

 my criticism; and there would be no need to recur to 

 the subject, were it not for Professor Fernald's com- 

 munication on the same page. He there says, " The 

 national museum has appointed an honorary curator, 



but it might as well be without one as to have one 

 whose entire time is occupied elsewhere." Professor 

 Fernald speaks here without knowledge, and under 

 misapprehension of the facts. The honorary cura- 

 torship of insects is not ' worse than useless,' and the 

 curator's time is not wholly ' occupied elsewhere.' 



The organic law (Kevised statutes, §5586; Statutes 

 forty-fifth congress, third session, chap. 182, p. 394) 

 authorizes the director of the national museum to 

 claim any collections made by other departments of 

 the government. The national museum has a sub- 

 stantial fire-proof building, and a stable administra- 

 tion. The department of agriculture has a tinder-box, 

 and the administration shares the uncertain influence 

 of politics. Yet connected with the practical ento- 

 mological work of the department of agriculture, 

 there is much museum work proper; and since 1881, 

 with the approval of the commissioner of agricul- 

 ture, I have, as U. S. entomologist, looked upon mate- 

 rial accumulated for the latter institution as belonging 

 to the former, and have freely given my own time, 

 and that of my assistants when necessary, to the 

 entomological work devolving on the curator of said 

 national museum. The two positions are naturally 

 linked. 



I am familiar with most of the insect-collections of 

 the country, and believe, that, during the past three 

 years, more original material has been collected ex- 

 pressly for the national museum, and more has been 

 mounted for it, than for any other institution, not 

 excepting the Agassiz museum at Cambridge, with 

 its excellent insect department under Dr. Hagen; 

 while, including the collection of the department 

 of agriculture, and my own (which is deposited in 

 the museum, and will be donated whenever such 

 donation is justified), there has been by far more 

 biographic work done for it than for any other mu- 

 seum. Even in the Micro-lepidoptera, it is probably 

 next in extent to that of Professor Fernald. The 

 care of museum material is of a twofold nature. 

 The preservation of valuable type-collections requires 

 vigilance, but little labor. The less labor, in some 

 instances, bestowed upon them, the better; at least, 

 so I thought last summer in witnessing the overhaul- 

 ing and re-labelling of Grote's collection in the Brit- 

 ish museum. The preservation and classification of 

 original material, on the contrary, requires brains, 

 time, and means. 



The future and perpetual care of an entomologi- 

 cal museum cannot be absolutely guaranteed without 

 endowment; but appropriation to a government in- 

 stitution, though depending on the annual action of 

 congress, is probably the next best security. Hence 

 I agree with all Science has said as to the need of 

 proper and substantial provision for such future care 

 of the insect department of the museum. Washing- 

 ton is fast becoming the chief natural-history centre 

 of the country; and the national museum is making 

 rapid strides toward justifying its name, and offers, 

 on the whole, as secure a repository for collections as 

 any other institution. I speak of the museum as it is 

 to-day, and not as it has been. The misapprehen- 

 sion indicated, whether an outgrowth of the amount 

 of natural-history material that has gone to rack and 

 ruin here in the past in other departments as well 

 as in entomology, or a result of present rivalry, is 

 certainly not justified to-day. 



Professor Fernald truly remarks that "many mu- 

 seum officials have very little appreciation of the vast 

 amount of labor, care, skill, and knowledge re- 

 quired " to properly manage a large and varied insect- 

 collection. Things are too often valued by their 

 size, and the pygmy bugs have not outgrown popular 



