FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WORK 



25 



not a hard worker, and while supposedly one of his duties was the 

 identification of material brought in by field geologists to aid in 

 the determination of horizons, he very seldom did this. So, there being 

 no vertebrate palaeontologists on the Museum Staff, I was called 

 upon to identify such specimens and later to look after the first large 

 shipment sent by Professor Marsh to Washington, and finally, upon 

 the death of Professor Marsh, to take charge of the packing and 

 shipping of government collections in his charge. This work took six 

 months and was finally carried out by my colleague, Mr. J. W. Scollick, 

 also a graduate of Ward's. 



All in all I had twenty-two years of varied experience in the United 

 States National Museum, my duties ranging from the mechanical work 

 of cleaning and mounting skeletons to that of administering a division 

 in each of two distinct departments, Comparative Anatomy being in 

 Biology, and Fossil Vertebrates under Geology. 



I have said nothing about field work, for little or none fell to my 

 share, 1 the nearest approach to it being the expedition to Funk Island in 

 1887 to secure remains of the great auk, an undertaking which was 

 eminently successful, enough material being obtained to reconstruct half- 

 a-dozen fairly complete skeletons from the thousands of bones collected. 2 

 This, however, was but one, though the principal one, of the objects of 

 the expedition which was to have included a study of the mackerel in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a study which did not take place, for in 1887 

 the fickle mackerel did not appear in the Gulf at all. As a whole the 

 voyage was as pleasant a summer trip as could be imagined. Long hours 

 and hard work meant nothing then, the company was most congenial, 

 and in between the days of collecting there were now and then idle times 

 when we were fog-bound or storm-bound in the vicinity of some trout 

 brook which afforded good sport and subsequently a fine breakfast. 

 Barbour, the cook of the "Grampus," was not only a good cook but most 

 accommodating; if we wished to start off at 6 A.M., there were hot coffee 

 and hard bread; did we arrive at 9 P.M., tired and wet, there was a 

 warm supper awaiting us. 



But it was not all skittles and beer, as the inexperienced are apt to 

 think : getting material is good fun, but taking care of it is a different 

 thing. Taking forty or fifty gannets, murres and puffins, to say nothing 

 of eggs and young, at the Bird Rocks was interesting, but sitting up 



'In fact, there was little field work in those days, and to Dr. C. Hart Merriam belongs the 

 credit — or most of it— for the organization of systematic collecting and the formation of large study 



""^Described i n "The Home of the Great Auk." Pop. Sci. Monthly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2S, pp. 456- 

 484, Aug., 1888. 



