772 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 20, 1911. 
While conditions have not been favorable, 
still the museum is making a remarkable show¬ 
ing. considering the handicaps under which its 
curator is compelled to work. A large number 
of sportsmen and nature lovers co-operate in 
providing specimens and thus a collection is be¬ 
ing gathered that otherwise would be impos¬ 
sible. Mr. Van Hyning has started to make a 
series of groups of the mammals, showing the 
male and female, with a reproduction of the 
habitation. The birds, both adults and young, 
are shown, as well as the nest and eggs. As far 
as known it will require groups of seventy- 
eight species to complete the mammals native 
to the State, and three hundred and fifty-four 
species of birds. Add to this the reptiles, fishes, 
mollusca and insects, and then consider that it 
must be built up in connection with the civil 
history of the State, and with limited funds, and 
it looks like a hopeless task. Unfortunately, 
none of our wealthy men has turned his at¬ 
tention to the possibilities of building museums. 
While it would seem that a State as rich as 
ours might well undertake to provide a 
museum, something on the line of The Amer¬ 
ican Museum of Natural History, such an oc¬ 
currence is most unlikely. It would seem, 
however, that every State should provide a 
local museum of its own natural resources, and 
spare no expense to make it complete. Already 
many of the mammals and some of the birds 
native to Iowa have been exterminated within 
its borders, and in order that they be repre¬ 
sented in its collection, specimens must be 
brought from abroad. 
Mr. Van Hyning is advocating a series of edu¬ 
cational museums of which each city school shall 
have a part. The pupils under this plan would 
assist in gathering specimens which would be 
sent to the central State museum for prepara¬ 
tion. and duplicate specimens would be ex¬ 
changed. In this way, according to his idea, 
instead of encouraging the destruction of 
natural objects, the tendency would be toward 
conservation. Further than that, thousand of 
interesting and valuable objects, instead of go¬ 
ing to destruction as is now the case, would 
be gathered and preserved and thus be of in¬ 
estimable value. 
Those who live in the vicinity of large cities 
like New York and Chicago, will of course have 
• no cause for complaint on this score, but States 
like Iowa. Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas 
need the help of every sportsman and nature 
lover to strive for a State museum of natural 
history that shall preserve, in proper form, the 
native fauna and flora in connection with such 
other objects as properly belong in a museum 
of this kind. Personally, I am hoping to see the 
day when the Iowa Historical Department shall 
confine its attention to the civil history of the 
State, and the natural history portion shall be 
given a separate organization and a building of 
its own, with sufficient funds to make a credit¬ 
able display of the resources of this section. 
I have no criticism to offer concerning the 
Historical Department as now constituted. 
The board of trustees has difficulty in making 
the funds go round, and inasmuch as the curator 
of the institution, Mr. Harlan, is a historian 
rather than a scientist, it is to be expected that 
bis first interest shall be with the department 
under his immediate charge. 
Frank C. Pellett. 
Philadelphia Zoological Society. 
The annual report of the board of directors 
of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was 
read at the annual meeting of the members and 
loan holders of the society April 27. It shows 
that the society has a total of i.77° members, 
and that the admissions for the year, outside of 
175.000 tickets issued to the Board of Educa¬ 
tion for the admission of teachers of the public 
schools, was 171,577. The gate receipts were 
substantially the same as the previous year, but 
were reduced by a street car strike. 
'1'he number of animals exhibited in the 
garden were 2,196, and of these a large number 
were shown there for the first time. I here 
were many additions to the collection by pur¬ 
chase and by gift. The experiment of keeping 
certain animals from the tropics, and which 
are supposed to require artificial heat, without 
this heat during the winter, and to some extent 
out of doors, was continued. A male Siberian 
tiger from Vladivostok and a lioness, together 
with two young baboons, from North Africa, 
were so treated and remained in good health 
and condition. The pages dealing with the 
diseases of animals are of very great interest. 
The report contains feeling resolutions in 
memory of the lamented Arthur Erwin Brown, 
whose connection with the society had lasted 
thirty-four years. No body of men could miss 
him as does the Philadelphia Zoological Society, 
yet everywhere his co-workers in science lament 
his death. 
Births in Zoological Parks. 
To most people few things are more interest¬ 
ing than living animals. This is the reason why 
the menageries which are often the side show 
of the circus are usually crowded by small boys 
and their parents. In zoological gardens where 
there is more room and animals are more 
numerous and are shown under conditions more 
nearly approaching those of nature, there is 
never any dearth of visitors. 
An interesting feature of such collections is 
the breeding of wild animals under conditions 
which, at best, are highly unnatural, and the 
fact that animals breed and sometimes breed 
freely in such collections is of qourse a strong 
tribute to their excellent condition, and so to 
the good care which is given them. 
In the Zoological Park at New York the 
birth rate during the year 19x0 as shown in the 
detailed report of the society, which has just 
been distributed, was very satisfactory, but 
among the deer and the bears the births were so 
numerous as to embarrass the director, and in 
several collections it was found necessary to 
prevent breeding in order to keep from over¬ 
crowding the accommodations. Among the 
mammalian births were four axis deer, one 
sika deer, one hog deer, three fallow deer, six 
Eld deer, three Barasingha deer, six red deer, 
one Altai wapiti, seven elk, two white-tailed 
deer, two mule deer, one Congo sitatunga, one 
nylghai, six American, bison, one white goat, 
two Persian ibex, two Himalayan tahr, two 
aoudads, one mouflon, two peccaries, two hyrax. 
two grizzly bears, three hybrid Russian-brown 
bears, one litter timber wolves, one litter 
coyotes, one litter black-back jackals, one litter 
Egyptian porcupine mice, four ring-tailed 
lemurs. 
Besides this there were no doubt hatched a 
number of birds, of which we see no record. 
Equally interesting is the list of birds in the 
Philadelphia Zoological Garden, taken from its 
report dated April 27, 1911. This includes be¬ 
sides four monkeys of different sorts, four 
pumas, nine raccoons, one American bison, five 
Indian antelope, one white bearded gnu, two 
aoudads, one elk, two sika deer, three white- 
tail deer, one guanaco, one lima, one Bactrian 
camel, two collared peccaries, one black-tail 
wallaby, two American flying squirrels, Swin- 
hoes and Amherst pheasants, one wood pigeon, 
three gulls, three night herons, four mute swans, 
six Canada geese, together with blackduck, 
woodduck and redheads. 
N. Y. Zoological Society Meeting. 
The annual spring meeting of the members of 
the New York Zoological Society was held at 
the Zoological Park, Monday, May 15. 
The day was beautiful, the park looking its 
best, and there was a large attendance of mem¬ 
bers and others. The members of the society 
were much impressed by the national collection 
of heads and horns, to which has just been 
added the head of a square-mouthed rhinoceros 
killed by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in Africa 
and by him presented to the society. The mount¬ 
ing of the head had only just been completed by 
James Clark, the taxidermist of the American 
Museum of Natural History. 
Tea was served in the Administration Build¬ 
ing, which is reserved for the exclusive use of 
members and their guests. 
During the afternoon a meeting of the Zoo¬ 
logical Society’s Board of Managers was held, 
at which were announced further donations to 
the Society's Endowment Fund, $10,000 each 
from Lispenard Stewart and James J. Hill, and 
two gifts of $500 each from other sources. This 
increases the endowment fund to $280,000. 
Dr. Chas. H. Townsend, who has just returned 
from the Albatross expedition, which he con¬ 
ducted with such signal success, was present at 
the meeting and reported briefly on what had 
happened. The collections of mammals, birds 
and reptiles which he made contain many in¬ 
teresting specimens. About fifty novel lizards 
were captured alive and brought back and are 
now in the park. The story of the elephant 
seals was reto'd. Great collections in botany 
were made. Lower California, being essentially 
a cactus country, the botanical collector secured 
many extraordinary forms, some of which are 
new. 
A great deal of deep sea dredging was done 
and there were discovered in the Pacific a num¬ 
ber of low forms of life hitherto supposed to 
be peculiar to the Atlantic ocean. On the Alba¬ 
tross was a worker in plaster who took molds 
and casts of many of these deep sea anima's 
so soon as they were brought on board. Full 
color and form notes were also taken, so that 
now for the first time we shall be able to 
see these specimens as they actually look in life, 
and not as they appear, shriveled and shrunken, 
after having been for several years in alcohol. 
Dr. W. T. Hornaday referred to p’ans—not 
yet to be announced—for increasing the collec¬ 
tions. New bear dens are in course of construc¬ 
tion, and other important building is being done. 
