Vol. Ill, No. 2. 
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, JULY 1, 1884. 
Price, 50 cents per Year. 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Catalogue of Natural History Specimens 
Didelpliys dorsigera 
The Rochester Robin (Poem) 
Editorial Notes - 
Relief Map of Leadville 
Wild Animals in India 
Again the “Scientific Thief” 
Ancient Monuments .. — 
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser 
The Mallet Collection of Minerals 
Mineralogy 
Moabite Stone 
Copy of Rosetta Stone 
The Chaldean Deluge Tablet 4 and 
Meteorites 
Geology 
Elba Minerals 
Palaeontology 
Casts of Fossils _ _ 
1 
1 
1 
2 
3 
3 
3 
3 
4 
4 
5 
5 
6 
6 
Collection of Casts and Original Fossils 6 
Archaeopteryx 6 
Archaeology and Ethnology 6 
Casts of Antiquities 6 
Bird Migration 7 
Wanted 7 
Alaskan Birds 7 
Notes - 7 
Invertebrates 7 
Directions for Making Bird Skins 8 
Mammal Skins 8 
The Port Jackson Shark 8 
The Society of Taxidermists 9 
Selected 9 
Alcoholics 9 
The Coral Grove (Poem) 9 
Enterprise 9 
The Colugo and his Cousin 10 and 11 
Some New Zealand Birds. 11 
Some Variations of Birds and Mammals 12 
Rare Specimens 12 
Models of Rhizopods 12 
Entomological Notes 12 
Specimens in Comparative Osteology 13 
Human Skeletons 13 
A New Catalogue 13 
The Preparation of Small Mammal Skins 14 
A Zoology of 1748 14 and 15 
The Art of Labeling -- 15 
The Fin Back Whale 15 
Capybara Hunting on the Orinoco 15 
The Kangaroo Rat 16 
Our Prices 16 
Amateur Collectors 16 
Chemical Nomenclature 16 
The Harvey Herbarium 16 
The Camel 16 
CATALOGUES 
of Natural History Specimens now on hand 
and for sale. 
The Rochester Robin. 
BEN.J. E. TAYLOR IN NEW YORK TRIBUNE. 
A Rochester robin has built its nest on the main 
These Catalogues are not mere price lists, but 
contain much interesting- matter, and as they are 
intended to be free to our clients, the money paid for 
them will be credited on the first order. To teachers 
expressing an intent soon to purchase specimens, they 
will be sent gi-atis. 
Price. 
Minerals— 60 pages, $ 20 
Special Collection of Minerals — 40 pages, .. 10 
Lithology and Geology — 52 pages, 20 
Special Lithological Collection — 25 pages, - 10 
Collection of New York State Rocks — 44 
pages, 20 
Casts of Fossils — -228 pp. ; 284 wood cuts, . - 1 25 
School Series of Casts — 60 pages; 68 wood 
cuts, 20 
Academy Series of Casts — 68 pages; 130 
wood cuts, 20 
College Series of Casts — 144 pages, 75 
Osteology — 64 pages, 25 
Skins and Mounted Specimens — 142 pages, 30 
North American Birds’ Eggs — 12 pages,... 10 
Foreign Birds’ Eggs — 14 pages, 10 
Invertebrates — 112 pages; 121 wood cuts,.. 50 
Human Skeletons and Anatomical Prepara- 
tions — 24 pages, 15 
Glass Models of Invertebrates — 24 pages, . . 10 
Restoration of Mammoth — 42 pages; illus- 
trated, 15 
Notice of Megatherium Cuvieri — 34 pages; 
Illustrated, 50 
For any of the above, address 
Prof. HENRY A. WARD, 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Letters concerning Minerals, Rocks and Fossils, 
Address to WARD & HOWELL. 
— 
Didelphys Dorsigera. 
A gentleman recently purchased a bunch of 
bananas in Rochester, N. Y. On taking the fruit 
from the stem be found a small female opossum, 
( Didelphys dorsigera, L.) which had come all the 
way from Surinam in the little nook it had found 
in the fruit cluster. It was accompanied by six 
young, all clinging by their naked, prehensile 
tails to their mother’s tail, which was thrown for- 
ward over her back. Five of the young died 
while weaning, the sixth was eaten by the mother. 
— 
Sweet little Meg came into her Sunday school 
class one morning, her eyes filled with tears, 
and looking up into her teacher’s face, said: 
“Our dog’s dead, and I guess the angels were 
real scared when they saw him coming up the 
path, for he’s awfully cross to strangers.” 
frame of an engine of the New York Central Railroad. 
The eng-ine runs daily between Rochester and DeWitt, 
but the bird occupies the nest. 
A Rochester robin alighted one day 
On a bar or a brace of the wonderful thing 
That mills the swift miles like grain in its way. 
And flies like a bird, though it. never takes wing. 
And the Rochester robin said to herself, 
“ What a place for a nest, so strong and so warm, 
As neat as a pin and as shiny as delf. 
Up out of tne danger, in out of the storm. 
And her mate by the roadside struck up the old lay, 
He sang for the apple-tree blossoms to dance. 
Tne girlish white blossoms in pink applique. 
More fragrant and fair than the lilies of Prance. 
The heart of the engine was cold as a cave, 
The furnace door grim as the grate of a cell; 
And dumb as the church under Switzerland’s wave, 
Like a tulip of gold the glittering- bell. 
Then the stoker swung wide the furnace’s door, 
Stirred up the dull fire, and the robins just said, 
“ Summer weather to-day ! ” Then rumble and roar 
Played the water’s hot pulse with the clouds over- 
head. 
“I am sure it will rain,” he sang to his mate, 
“ It thunders and lightens, but work right along, 
The house but half done and the season so late— 
“ How cloudy it grows.” So he kept up the song. 
And the twain fell to work, bore timbers of straw, 
And fibres of wool caught on thistle and thorn ; 
And wrought them all in by the Lord’s “ higher law,” 
With threads of the laces some maiden had worn. 
Then clang swung the bell and the warble was hushed, 
And the crazy sparks flew as if the storm tore 
The small constellations aside and asunder; 
While the engine along the steel parallels rushed. 
The birds watched it all with innocent wonder— 
“ Who ever saw stars in the day-time before ? ” 
Then she cried, and he said, “the gale is so strong, 
I think the whole world must be blowing away ! ” 
She trusting replied, “ cannot last very long,” 
And kept on with her work far sweeter than play. 
To and fro, far and near, their fiery world went, 
The cup of their love brimming over with life ; 
And the engineer stood at his window intent 
And watched the steel rails, the red-breast and wife, 
And declared, by his eng-ine and honor he would 
Be the death of the man, big or little, who should 
In the height or the depth of his gracelessness dare 
“ To meddle or make” with his passengers there. 
Ah, brave guests of the foot-board, ticketed through 
All weathers and times till the end of the run, 
The Lord of the sparrows who is caring- for you, 
And the Lord of all realms forever are One. 
A variety of Fluorite (chlorophane) from 
Hunter Co., Va., is so phosphorescent, that if 
placed in a vial of warm water, it will show 
plainly in the dark a pale green light. A cut 
stone of the above was recently displayed at a 
meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, 
probably being the first gem cut that phosphor- 
esced without any great heating. 
