HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM 
series of the Museum publications available for this purpose the Museum 
now annually receives an extensive list of periodicals on natural 
science. 
The enormous expense attached to the publication of researches 
has led the Museum to reduce the edition of its publications, but it 
gives them wide distribution by gratuitously depositing complete sets 
of the publications in a hundred of the important learned centers 
throughout the world. At the present time the Library contains 
40,000 volumes and 20,000 separata, all completely catalogued and 
available to all who may desire to consult them. 
Since 1902 the Library has been enriched by many gifts, the most 
important of which are as follows : 
American The Library of the American Ethnological Society was permanently 
Ethnological (jgposited with the Museum in 1903. It numbers 750 volumes and 
Society. ^ 
270 pamphlets, mostly on ethnology and archseology. 
Allen. In 1904 Dr. J. A. Allen presented his private library of about 
3,800 separata on zoology. 
Wheeler. The Wheeler collection was also acquired in 1904. It consists of 
121 books and pamphlets on arachnida, and many articles on ^ 
entomology in general brought together and presented by Professor 
William Morton Wheeler. His library of 571 works on North American 
Diptera was purchased by the Museum. 
Another accession of special interest in 1904 was the gift by Dr. 
Bumpus. H. C. Bumpus of his entire scientific library. It is especially rich in 
works on comparative anatomy and contains 311 volumes, 1,661 bound 
and 1,050 unbound pamphlets, among which were many valuable 
volumes and rare reprints new to the Museum's Library. 
A copy of "Audubon's Birds of the United States of America," 
published in 1834 and valued at $3,000, was received in 1904 as a gift 
Rogers. from Mr. Archibald Rogers. 
A recent accession of great importance is the palseontological l 
osborn. library of Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, which he presented to 
the Museum in 1908. It contains between 6,000 and 7,000 volumes, 
valued at between $10,000 and $12,000. 
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