USES OF A RESEARCH MUSEUM 165 
The museum curator only a few years since was satisfied to gather 
and arrange his research collections with very little reference to their 
source or to the conditions under which they were obtained. In fact it 
is surprising to find how little information is on record in regard to 
collections contained in certain eastern institutions as accessioned 
previous to about 1885. The modern method, and the one adopted and 
being carried out more and more in detail by our California museum, is 
to make the record of each individual acquired, whether it comes in 
from an outside donor or whether, as is the most usual case, it is se- 
cured by the trained museum collector, as complete a history as prac- 
ticable. 
The field collector is supplied with a separate-leaf note-book. He 
writes his records on the day of observation with carbon ink, on one 
side of the paper only. The floral surroundings are recorded, espe- 
cially with respect to their bearing on the animal secured. The be- 
havior of the animal is described and everything else which is thought 
by the collector to be of use in the study of the species is put on record 
at the time the observations are made in the field. The camera is as 
important a part of his outfit as the trap or gun. These field notes and 
photographs are filed so as to be as readily accessible to the student in 
the museum as are the specimens themselves. 
Furthermore, a rather elaborate system of card cataloguing is main- 
tained in the museum. Three sets of cards, namely, accession, depart- 
ment and reference, which are kept up as a part of the regular work of 
the curators, enable the enquirer to determine quickly what material is 
on hand, in what form it is, when and where obtained, and, by follow- 
ing up the cross references to the field note-books, the conditions under 
which each animal was obtained. 
As a matter of routine, each specimen as it is obtained in the field 
is at once tagged, the label being inscribed in India ink with the exact 
place of capture, date, collector and field number. The original field 
number is the same as that under which the animal is at the same time 
recorded in the field notes. Its original tag is never detached from the 
specimen, no matter what disposition is made of the latter in arranging 
the collections in the museum; and so, reversely, the student may 
quickly trace back again from any particular specimen its history, by 
referring to the card catalogue and field note-book. In addition to the 
original collector’s number there is added on each label a separate de- 
partment number by which it is referred to in the museum records and 
any published articles specifically mentioning it. 
It will be observed, then, that our efforts are not merely to accumu- 
late as great a mass of animal remains as possible. On the contrary, 
we are expending even more time than would be required for the col- 
lection of the specimens alone, in rendering what we do obtain as per- 
