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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



a fortunate individual if, after the loss of much time examining 

 the collections on exhibition and in storage, both catalogued and 

 uncatalogued, and in consulting the various volumes in which the 

 data are supposed to be kept, he obtains the data which he wishes.^ 



Consequently the following suggestions in respect to the cata- 

 loguing (often spoken of as 'registering' or 'recording") of 

 specimens have been brought together primarily with a view 

 toward facilitating the maintenance of such records in museums 

 of Natural History, although it is hoped that they may prove of 

 practical advantage in connection with other institutions of a sim- 

 ilar nature. The paper was outlined and partially written while 

 engaged in the rearrangement of certain collections in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York, during the summer of 

 1901. The completion, however, although a brief review was pub- 

 lished in the Ohio Naturalist for 1904, has been delayed in order 

 to make further inquiries concerning the systems of cataloguing 

 used in various museums, as well as for the purpose of profiting by a 

 more extended practical application of the method. This latter 

 result has been accompHshed in the cataloguing of specimens dur- 

 ing the last three years for a foundation of a small museum at 

 Kenyon College. It may be noted that very few changes from the 

 plan first proposed have been rendered necessary. 



The literature relating to the subject of cataloguing museum 

 specimens is chiefly conspicuous by its absence, notwithstanding 

 the mass of information in regard to museums and museum admin- 

 istration which has been brought together in the Museum Journal 

 and a few other periodicals devoted to the interests of such insti- 

 tutions, and. in the papers by Meyer :00-03, Gratacap :02-03, 



' In a vigorous article by Bather (How may Museums best retard the 

 Advance of Science, Annual Report of the Museums Association, p. 90-105, 

 1896) some of the difficulties of locating museum specimens are described as 



certain specimeL^that had been described by Mr. de LorioL The various 

 curators whom I met at the Museum assisted me very willingly throughout 

 three days searching for these specimens, but they could not be found, and I 



my friend, Professor Steinmann, who suggested that possibly the specimens 



able expense and inconvenience I therefore returned to Strassburg, and sure 

 enough, there were the specimens carefully obscured." 



