MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



9 



The animals as mounted are unusually fine examples of the skill of the 

 taxidermist, and the environment has been worked out with the greatest 

 care in the minutest details. The large cases, each sixteen feet by sixteen 

 feet on the floor, and twelve feet high, are placed at the north end of the 

 main hall. They are made in a most thorough manner and display the 

 groups to excellent advantage. In the elk group three animals are repre- 

 sented, the male, female, and young. The male is from the Forest Park 

 menagerie, the cow from the Corbin herd of the Blue Mountain forest asso- 

 ciation of New Hampshire, and the calf comes from Manitoba. The group 

 is shown among the natural surroundings of the animals. A dead and 

 fallen tree with the rotting stump, both overgrown with mosses and lichens, 

 an artificial rock, natural grass with the color preserved, the quaking 

 aspen and barberry bushes are all shown. The artificial leaves and the 

 grasses were among the last work of Mrs. E. S. Mogridge, who did so 

 much to perfect the bird groups given by Mr. Gurdon Bill to the museum, 

 some years ago. 



In the bison (buffalo) group the big bull is from the herd of Joseph 

 Allard of Missoula, Montana ; the cow and calf are from the Corbin herd 

 as above mentioned. The animals are represented on the prairie, the sod 

 covered with a thick carpet of dry buffalo grass from Kansas, and scattered 

 over the surface are sagebrush, prickly pear, a buffalo skull with a rattle- 

 snake near it. There is an old buffalo trail with the marks of the ani- 

 mals' hoofs in the loose dust. Mr. John Rowley of the American Museum 

 of Natural History of New York city superintended the mounting and 

 arrangement of the group. 



A finely articulated skeleton of the elk has also been given the museum 

 by Mr. Nathan D. Bill. 



Afchacology. 



The collections in this department are now thoroughly classified and 

 labeled. Some interesting investigations have been made by Prof. A- II. 

 Dakin under the auspices of the museum upon an ancient Indian quarry 

 site in Wilbraham. This quarry, situated in the eastern part of Wilbra- 

 ham, was opened by the Indians in order to obtain the soapstone which 

 occurs there for manufacture into their various domestic pots and bowls. 

 The lot on which the quarry is situated is a sterile pasture, but, being unfit 

 for cultivation, has remained undisturbed since the departure of the aborig- 

 ines. The limited excavations already made have revealed a large number 

 of quarry implements both broken and entire, and many half made bowls. 

 The implements with which the work was done are generally made of trap 

 rock, evidently from the Holyoke or Mount Tom range. The excavation 



