Looking south at the Feath- 

 ered Serpent eoluinn and 

 model oj the Castillo at 

 Chichen Itzd in the Hall of 

 Archeology of Mexico, Cen- 

 tral and South America 

 (Hall 23). The columns were 

 moved about 1924, but were 

 not originally placed in this 

 hall; the light globes suggest 

 a post-] 930 date. 



1942 that Perrygo used to visit the guards at the doors 

 to ask how many visitors were trickling in. After a year 

 attendance rose again. The Museum was open six and 

 one-half days a week; when the half day was shifted to 

 Monday, many people came on Sundays from 9:00 a.m. 

 to 4:30 P.M. From late 1942 until mid-1943, 25 to 35 

 percent of the visitors were servicemen, and efforts 

 were made to accommodate them. "In the Natural His- 

 tory Building a program of Sunday docent service for 

 guiding parties through the Museum, was inaugurated. 

 A number of women U.S.O. volunteers were especially 

 trained to act as guides, and the "tours' conducted by 

 them proved very popular. During the period covering 

 the last 35 Sundays of the fiscal year [1944], over 5,000 

 members of the military personnel took advantage of 

 this guide service.'"' 



Wartime Service 



The scientists were by no means immune from wartime 

 service. In the Department of Anthropology alone, 25 

 percent of the staff left. J. ¥. Gates Clarke, an ento- 

 mologist then with the Department of Agriculture, held 

 I a reserve commission and was gone by February 1942. 

 Karl Krombein, who later transferred from Agriculture 

 to Museum, stayed in the Air Force Reserve even after 

 the war and retired as a full colonel. T. Dale Stewart 

 taught human anatomy in a medical college in Missouri. 

 Others, like new assistant curator of birds S. Dillon 

 Ripley, joined the Office of Strategic Services. The State 

 Department recognized that it was important to 



strengthen ties with Latin America, and Waldo Schmitt 

 was one of the first ambassadors of good will to be 

 dispatched. "Uncle Waldo" returned successful — char- 

 acteristically, bearing large collections of invertebrates. 



Fhe Museum's real effort was not in entertaining 

 visitors or protecting specimens, but in providing in- 

 formation. For the first time the nation was heavily 

 involved in Asia and the Pacific. Not many people had 

 knowledge of the area, but a few staff members had 

 collected specimens in these regions or knew them from 

 the literature. The staff and the library were over- 

 whelmed with requests for data on such topics as "cam- 

 ouflage plants; natural vegetation of specific regions 

 . . . ; the use of land, fresh-water and marine animals 

 for food, the palatability of the flesh thereof , and meth- 

 ods of capture; the serviceability of hides and skins for 

 various purposes; disease transmission; . . . marine 

 fouling organisms, bibliographic surveys; recommen- 

 dations regarding personnel."' 4"he list was more than 

 half a page long, and there must be a story behind each 

 of the requests for information. 



The Museum staff was called upon for a great deal 

 of on-the-spot instruction, some having to do with dan- 

 gerous animals. "Assistance was given the Army Med- 

 ical School and the National Naval Medical Center, as 

 well as various Army and Navy training centers 

 throughout the country, by supplying well-preserved 

 material of insects and Acarina [mites and ticks] that 

 are involved in human health problems. About 1,200 

 specimens were specially mounted on pins, and ap- 



World War II 



81 



