RULLETIN 

LJ  Vol.27, No.  l-January-1956 

Chicago  Natural 
History  Mus  e  um 


SPIDER  WEBS— 

Marvels  of  Engineering 
(See  page  3) 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


January,  1956 


Chicago   Natural   History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE  BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Thbodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Hartb Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to   inform   the   Museum 
promptly   of   changes   of   address. 


COLIN  C.  SANBORN, 

MAMMALOGIST,  RETIRES 

Colin  Campbell  Sanborn,  a  member  of  the 
staff  of  the  Department  of  Zoology  since 
1922  and  Curator  of  Mammals  since  1937, 
retired  from  the  service  of  the  Museum 
effective  December  31.  Because  of  ill  health, 
Mr.  Sanborn  will  come 
under  the  provisions 
of  the  Museum's  Pen- 
sion Plan  a  number  of 
years  in  advance  of 
normal  retirement  age. 

Mr.  Sanborn  began 
his  career  at  the  Mu- 
seum at  the  age  of 
twenty-five  as  a  field 
collector.  He  im- 
mediately was  dis- 
patched to  Chile  as 
a  member  of  the  Cap- 
tain   Marshall    Field 

Expedition  (1922-24),  and  his  talents  as 
a  skillful  collector  were  subsequently  em- 
ployed on  the  Captain  Marshall  Field  Ex- 
pedition to  Brazil  (1926-27),  the  Magellanic 
Expedition  (to  Peru,  Chile,  Argentina, 
Bolivia,  1939-40),  two  expeditions  to  Peru 
(1941-42  and  1946),  the  Rush  Watkins 
Zoological  Expedition  to  Siam  (1949),  the 
Aleutian  Zoological  Expedition  (1952),  and 
the  National  Science  Foundation  Trinidad 


m 

Colin  C.  Sanborn 


Field  Trip  (1954).  His  explorations  in  Peru 
have  qualified  him  as  an  authority  on  the 
zoogeography  of  that  country. 

Mr.  Sanborn  was  awarded  a  fellowship 
by  the  John  Simon  Guggenheim  Memorial 
Foundation  for  a  special  research  project  on 
bats  in  1938-39,  during  which  he  made 
notable  studies  of  collections  in  the  British 
Museum  (Natural  History)  and  in  principal 
museums  on  the  European  continent.  Mr. 
Sanborn's  interest  originally  was  in  orni- 
thology, but  early  in  his  association  with  the 
Museum  it  turned  to  mammals.  In  recent 
years  he  specialized  assiduously  in  bats  and 
built  up  for  the  Museum  what  may  be  the 
finest  collection  in  existence.  He  has  con- 
tributed twenty-two  publications  to  the 
zoological  series  published  by  the  Museum 
(Fieldiana)  and  fifty-six  scientific  papers  to 
mammalogical  journals.  He  also  has  written 
popular  leaflets  published  by  the  Museum 
and  articles  for  laymen  that  have  appeared 
in  the  Museum  Bulletin. 

During  World  War  II  Mr.  Sanborn  was 
commissioned  in  the  Navy  as  lieutenant 
and  then  as  lieutenant-commander.  He 
was  assigned  to  special  duties  in  Peru  and 
at  Pearl  Harbor,  Washington,  D.C.,  and 
New  York. 


THREE  STAFF  MEMBERS 
ARE  PROMOTED 

Effective  January  1,  Philip  Hershkovitz 
has  been  appointed  Curator  of  Mammals. 
Mr.  Hershkovitz  was  a  student  at  the 
University  of  Pittsburgh  and  the  University 
of  Michigan,  earning  both  bachelor's  and 
master's  degrees  in  science  at  the  latter. 
He  joined  the  Museum  staff  in  1947  as 
Assistant  Curator  of  Mammals,  and  in  1954 
he  was  appointed  Associate  Curator  of 
Mammals.  For  nearly  four  years  (1947-52) 
he  conducted  the  Zoological  Expedition  to 
Colombia,  one  of  the  longest  continuous 
collecting  undertakings  in  the  history  of  the 
Museum,  and  brought  back  thousands  of 
specimens  providing  a  highly  varied  repre- 
sentation of  the  country's  fauna.  Before 
coming  to  this  Museum,  he  collected  for 
several  years  in  Ecuador  and  Colombia  for 
the  University  of  Michigan  Museum  of 
Zoology  and  the  Smithsonian  Institution. 

Mrs.  M.  Eileen  Rocourt  has  been  ap- 
pointed Associate  Librarian.  She  joined  the 
staff  as  Assistant  Librarian  in  1948.  Before 
coming  here,  she  worked  in  Columbia 
University  Libraries,  on  the  staff  of  Maga- 
zine Digest,  and  as  a  translator  of  five 
European  languages.  She  is  a  graduate 
(B.A.)  of  Victoria  College,  University  of 
Toronto,  and  earned  a  master  of  arts  degree 
at  Columbia  University.  In  the  Museum 
Library  she  has  been  engaged  in  very  im- 
portant cataloguing  and  classification  tasks. 

Miss  Jane  Rockwell,  Assistant  in  Public 
Relations  since  the  beginning  of  1955,  has 
been  promoted  to  Associate  Public  Relations 
Counsel.    She  has  been  a  frequent  contrib- 


-THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


The  spider  in  the  unusual  en- 
larged portrait  on  our  cover  is  the 
female  of  the  common  garden 
spider,  sometimes  called  "yellow 
garden  spider"  or  "orange  garden 
spider."  The  web  it  weaves  is 
a  marvelous  engineering  feat,  as 
can  be  learned  in  a  perusal  of  the 
details  told  by  Lillian  A.  Ross, 
Associate  in  the  Museum's  Divi- 
sion of  Insects,  in  her  article  on 
page  3.  This  spider  is  harmless, 
for  although  it  may  bite  and  in- 
ject poison  into  a  human  intrud- 
er, it  seldom  does,  and  its  poison 
is  not  dangerous  to  people.  The 
picture,  by  Frederick  E.  Seyfarth, 
is  reproduced  here  by  courtesy  of 
Row,  Peterson  and  Company, 
publishers,  of  Evanston,  Illinois, 
by  whom  it  is  copyrighted. 


utor  of  feature  articles  to  the  Bulletin  as 
well  as  active  in  the  Museum's  relations 
with  all  types  of  publicity  media — news- 
papers and  press  services,  magazines,  radio 
and  television.  She  is  a  graduate  (B.A.)  of 
the  University  of  Nebraska  and  was  a  post- 
graduate student  at  New  York  University. 


Audubon  Lecture  on  January  8 

"Rocky  Mountain  Rambles"  is  the  screen- 
tour  to  be  presented  by  the  Illinois  Audubon 
Society  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre  of 
the  Museum  on  Sunday  afternoon,  January 
8,  at  2 :30  o'clock.  The  lecturer,  W.  Emerson 
Scott,  an  authority  on  the  natural  history 
of  the  Rockies,  is  well-known  for  the  excel- 
lence of  his  color  motion-pictures.  Seats  in 
the  reserved  section  of  the  auditorium  are 
free  to  Members  of  the  Museum  and  of  the 
Illinois  Audubon  Society  upon  presentation 
of  their  membership  cards. 

Next  lecture  in  the  Audubon  series,  "The 
Long  Flight  Back,"  will  be  given  by  Robert 
P.  Allen  on  March  18. 


Technical  Publications 

The  following  technical  publications  were 
issued  recently  by  the  Museum: 

Fieldiana:  Botany,  Vol.  24,  Part  II.  Flora 
of  Guatemala.  Part  II:  Grasses  of  Guate- 
mala. By  Jason  R.  Swallen.  Bamboos. 
By  F.  A.  McClure.  November  10,  1955. 
390  pages,  113  illustrations.    $6. 

Fieldiana:  Zoology,  Vol.  34,  No.  32. 
A  New  Species  of  Chondria  with  a  Key 
to  the  Bornean  Species  (Coleoptera:  Endo- 
mychidae).  By  H.  F.  Strohecker.  No- 
vember 10,  1955.    2  pages.     10c. 

Fieldiana:  Zoology,  Vol.  34,  No.  33.  Three 
New  Bulbuls  from  Africa  (Class  Aves). 
By  Austin  L.  Rand.  November  10,  1955. 
4  pages.     10c. 


January,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


PageS 


SPIDER'S   WEB:    ENGINEERING    FEAT   AND   ART    CREATION 


By  LILLIAN  A.  ROSS 

ASSOCIATE,  INSECTS 

ARACHNE  was  the  name  of  a  mytho- 
Xi_  logical  Lydian  princess  who  was 
famous  for  her  exquisite  spinning.  She 
became  so  proud  of  her  work  that  she  chal- 
lenged Athena,  the  Goddess  of  Weaving,  to 
a  contest.  Athena  accepted  the  challenge, 
but  Arachne  produced  such  beautiful 
tapestry  that  the  jealous  goddess  destroyed 
the  weaving  and  changed  the  princess  into 
a  spider,  condemned  to  spin  forever.  From 
the  unfortunate  maiden's  name  is  derived 
the  scientific  name  for  spiders  and  their  kin 
— Arachnida. 

This  ancient  fable  is  proof  of  man's  long- 
time knowledge  of  the  symmetry  and  beauty 


Bridge-line 


Secondary  foun- 
dation line 

Foundation  line 


DIAGRAM  OF  AN  ORB  WEB 

of  the  webs  spun  by  spiders.  In  the  course 
of  evolution,  spiders  have  developed  glands 
that  produce  a  remarkable  substance — their 
silk — and  have  adapted  it  to  manifold  uses. 
From  it  they  make  cocoons  to  protect  their 
eggs  and  young.  It  forms  for  them  a  home, 
a  shelter,  a  weapon  to  use  in  capturing  their 
food,  a  protection  from  the  winter  cold,  and 
a  bridal  veil  that  is  woven  in  courtship. 
One  of  the  most  beautiful  of  their  webs  is 
the  so-called  orb,  which  is  built  by  one 
group  of  spiders,  the  "orb- weavers,"  who 
take  their  name  from  their  work.  This 
circular  silken  web  is  both  a  home  and 
a  trap.  It  is  often  woven  across  a  path 
because  currents  of  air  blow  down  that  path, 
bringing  the  insects  that  are  the  prized  food 
of  the  builder  and  inhabitant  of  the  web. 
This  builder  is  often  hard  to  find,  for  it  is 
a  timid  and  wary  creature. 

AN    ENGINEERING   MARVEL 

One  of  the  familiar  orb  web  spinners  in  the 
Chicago  area  is  the  yellow  garden  spider 
(Argiope  aurantia).  During  July  and  August 
the  Museum  receives  many  inquiries  about 
the  large  and  brilliantly  colored  female, 
whose  web  is  described  in  this  article. 

The  construction  of  the  web  is  a  remark- 
able feat  of  engineering  skill.     First  of  all, 


a  silken  framework  must  be  provided,  for 
the  web  will  blow  in  the  wind  and  rigid 
supports  will  not  withstand  the  resulting 
stresses.  So  the  spider  raises  her  spinnerets 
(her  silk-producers)  in  the  direction  of  the 
wind  and  emits  a  thread  that  blows  through 
the  air  until  it  adheres  to  some  object — 
a  branch,  a  leaf,  or  perhaps  a  post.  Then 
she  runs  along  the  silk  to  the  point  of  ad- 
herence, where  she  pulls  the  thread  until  it 
is  tight  and  then  fastens  it.  To  and  fro 
she  runs  on  the  line,  adding  another  thread 
on  each  trip,  until  she  is  sure  that  this 
bridge-line  (see  drawing)  is  strong  enough 
to  serve  its  purpose.  Then  she  adds  the 
other  foundation  lines  until  she  has  com- 
pleted a  frame,  whose  corners  she  then 
strengthens  by  adding  supports  (secondary 
foundation  lines).  Now  she  must  build  the 
radii.  So  back  to  the  middle  of  the  bridge- 
line  she  goes,  dropping  a  thread  (a  diameter) 
to  the  bottom  of  the  frame,  where  she  fastens 
it.  Then  she  runs  up  this  line  to  a  point 
bisecting  it,  where  the  middle  of  the  web 
will  be,  and  there  she  fastens  another  radius. 
As  she  spins  out  the  silk  for  this  one,  she 
runs  back  up  the  first  one,  holding  the 
thread  free  with  her  hind  leg.  At  the  top 
she  moves  along  the  bridge-line  and  fastens 
the  new  thread.  She  may  even  place  it  at 
a  right  angle  to  the  first  one  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  running  across  the  bridge-line 
and  down  the  side  of  the  foundation  to  the 
desired  point,  there  pulling  the  radius  tight 
and  fastening  it.  Additional  radii  are  built 
in  a  similar  fashion,  until  the  orb  has  been 
filled.  Usually  they  are  put  in  alternately 
on  opposite  sides  of  the  web.  Apparently 
the  spider  decides  on  the  place  for  the  next 
radius  by  checking  the  tension  at  the  center 
of  the  orb.  The  radii  are  seldom  equidistant, 
but  the  stress  on  each  is  the  same. 

Now  she  strengthens  all  the  radii  by 
placing  a  few  turns  of  spiral  thread  around 
the  point  where  they  intersect  (the  hub). 
As  the  line  crosses  each  radius  the  spider 
fastens  the  two  together  for  a  short  distance, 
so  that  the  spiral  line  will  be  firmly  attached. 
This  thread  forms  the  .notched  zone.  Then 
she  goes  to  the  outer  margin  of  the  web, 
spinning  another  spiral  thread  as  she  goes. 
This  spiral  is  a  temporary  structure  that  is 
intended  to  hold  the  radii  in  place  during 
the  subsequent  spinning. 

THE   FINAL   PRODUCT 

The  important  job  is  now  at  hand — the 
part  for  which  all  the  other  work  has  been 
a  basis.  The  spider  now  produces  a  sticky 
thread  and  weaves  it  in  another  spiral. 
She  begins  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  web  and 
goes  around  and  around,  spinning  the  viscid 
thread  as  she  goes.  The  first  lines  may  be 
short  ones  that  fill  in  the  corners  of  the  web 
or  they  may  be  loops  near  the  bottom  that 
swing  only  part  of  the  way  around  the  circle; 


but  after  two  or  three  of  these  have  been 
made,  she  goes  continuously  around  the  web, 
attaching  the  thread  to  each  radius.  She 
may  spin  clockwise  or  counterclockwise. 
As  she  goes,  she  takes  out  the  temporary 
spiral.  Small  silken  remnants  of  it  are  often 
seen  in  the  finished  web.  This  sticky  thread 
is  a  dry  silk  line  evenly  coated  with  a  viscous 
film,  but  as  she  spins  out  the  thread  she 
alternately  tightens  and  releases  it  so  that 
the  viscid  coating  forms  round  droplets.  In 
weaving  the  spiral  the  spider  first  attaches 
the  viscid  thread  to  a  radius  and  then  grasps 
it  with  the  claws  of  her  hind  leg  as  she  swings 
across  to  the  next  radius.  She  usually 
leaves  an  open  space  between  the  spiral 
thread  and  the  notched  zone. 

Her  work  now  finished,  the  spider  returns 
to  the  center  of  the  web.  Treatment  of  the 
center  varies  with  different  species  of  orb- 
builders  but  the  spider  whose  web-building 
has  been  described  above  usually  covers  the 
center  with  a  sheet  of  silk  and  adds  zigzag 
bands  called  stabilimenta  that  probably 
strengthen  and  stabilize  the  web.  This 
spider  hangs  head  down  across  the  hub  of 
the  finished  web,  holding  the  silk  with  her 
claws.  The  web  is,  of  course,  a  trap.  As  the 
great  French  naturalist,  Fabre,  said:  "What 


'WON'T  YOU  STEP  INTO  MY  PARLOR?' 

A  grasshopper,  to  his  eternal  sorrow,  has  fallen  for 

an  old  line. 


a  work  of  art,  just  to  catch  a  mess  of  flies." 
If  an  insect  accidentally  becomes  entangled 
in  the  threads,  the  spider  responds  to  the 
vibrations  by  running  to  the  victim.  A 
small  intruder  is  quickly  swathed  in  a  bit  of 
(Continued  on  page  5,  column  1) 


Page  k 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


January,  19 


DANGEROUS  BIRDS 

By  AUSTIN  L.  RAND 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ZOOLOGY 

FANS  of  our  feathered  friends  wouldn't 
like  it,  but  the  fact  remains:  Some  birds 
can  be  dangerous  to  human  beings — they 
have  caused  damage  and  even  death  through 
physical  violence.  I  don't  want  to  be  an 
alarmist,  and  I  want  to  state  emphatically 
that  most  birds  are  harmless. 

One  day  when  a  woman  called  me  about 
birds  that  were  nesting  on  a  branch  over  her 
back  door  and  I  diagnosed  them  as  robins, 
she  wanted  more  information.  These  birds 
swept  down  at  her  children,  she  said.  Was 
there  a  chance  they  would  do  the  children 
harm?  Of  course  I  told  her  no.  The 
possibility  is  so  remote  that  one  can  almost 


completely  disregard  it.  The  same  is  true 
of  most  of  our  garden  birds.  A  pair  of 
grackles  caused  some  alarm  among  our 
non-ornithological  Museum  workers  by 
"dive-bombing"  anyone  who  walked  a  cer- 
tain path  near  the  Museum.  But  as  soon  as 
everyone  realized  that  the  birds  were  defend- 
ing their  nearby  nest  and  were  not  de- 
mented, the  apprehension  ceased. 

The  screech  owl  is  a  little  different.  It 
makes  its  nest  in  a  hole  in  a  tree,  and  with  a 
spacious  suburban  or  rural  garden  you  can 
hope  to  attract  a  pair  by  putting  up  a  nest 
box.  The  owls  may  catch  a  few  songbirds 
as  well  as  insects  and  mice,  but  to  me  the 
mellow  whistled  trill  or  whining  of  the 
screech  owl  and  the  sight  of  these  birds 
sitting  upright  or  swooping  from  branch  to 
branch  is  ample  recompense  for  the  other 
songsters  they  eat. 

MASKS  FOR  SAFETY 

If  its  larger  cousin,  the  great-horned  owl, 
is  sometimes  called  the  tiger  of  the  woods, 
A.  C.  Bent,  well-known  ornithologist,  says 
the  screech  owl,  scarcely  larger  than  a  robin, 
should  be  called  the  wildcat,  for  it  un- 
hesitatingly attacks  birds  larger  than  itself. 
Ordinarily  inoffensive  at  the  nest,  there  are 
records  of  its  actively  resenting  intrusion. 
One  of  the  most  extreme  cases  was  recorded 
by  William  Brewster,  famous  bird  authority, 
as  happening  in  Concord.  The  owls  raised 
their  brood  near  a  house,  and  when  people 
passed  the  owls'  nesting  place  in  the  evening, 
the  owls  swooped  down.  Repeatedly  people 
were  struck  on  head  and  face,  and  the  owls 
drew  blood.    This  happened  so  often  that 


people  wore  hoods  or  baseball  masks  when 
they  went  out  in  the  evening. 

The  great-horned  owl  is  a  magnificent 
creature,  about  two  feet  long,  with  long 
sharp  talons.  The  tiger  of  the  woodland 
feeds  not  only  on  rabbits  and  the  like  but 
also  on  such  unsavory  characters  as  skunks 
and  such  tough  customers  as  alley  cats  that 
have  run  wild. 

When  a  person  climbs  to  the  owls'  nest, 
which  may  be  in  an  old  crow's  nest  or  on  a 
ledge,  the  parent  owls  may  sensibly  flee  and 
content  themselves  with  hooting  in  the 
distance  or  clicking  their  mandibles  together 
in  anger.  But  now  and  then  one  finds 
a  bolder  pair,  birds  that  won't  give  up 
without  a  struggle.  Bent  himself,  climbing 
to  a  nest,  had  a  great-horned  owl  give  him 
a  stunning  blow  behind  the  ear  that  knocked 
his  hat  a  hundred  feet  away  and  gave  him 
two  ugly  scalp-wounds.  Deciding  he  wanted 
neither  to  be  scalped  nor  knocked  senseless 
to  the  ground,  he  retreated,  leaving  the  owls 
the  masters  of  the  situation. 

SWANS  BEAT  INTRUDERS 

Many  a  farm  lad  has  been  run  off  by 
a  gander.  The  swans  that  sail  about  so 
stately  in  the  ponds  in  our  parks  and  eat 
the  bread  thrown  them  can  vent  their 
displeasure  at  intrusions  into  their  family 
life  by  beating  the  intruder  with  their  wings. 
And  this  they  can  do  vigorously  enough  to 
be  dangerous  to  children. 

The  whooping  crane  is  perhaps  best 
known  for  being  almost  extinct,  as  the  dodo 
is  best  known  for  being  completely  extinct. 
When  the  swamp  and  prairies  of  the  West 
and  Midwest  were  turned  into  wheatfields 
and  pastures,  there  was  no  room  left  for  this 
tall,  shy  bird.  Ernest  Thompson  Seton, 
the  naturalist-artist,  tells  a  story  much  dis- 
cussed in  his  early  days  in  Manitoba  when 
there  were  still  whooping  cranes  to  be 
hunted.  A  young  Indian  near  Portage  la 
Prairie  went  gunning  for  wild  fowl  in  the 
spring.  He  crippled  a  white  crane,  and 
when  he  went  up  to  the  crane  it  struck  its 
long,  strong  bill  through  the  Indian's  eye 
into  his  brain,  killing  him.  Of  course  there 
were  no  witnesses,  but  searchers  found  the 
corpses  of  both  man  and  bird  and  read  the 
story  from  them. 

The  celebrated  English  nature  photo- 
grapher, Eric  Hoskins,  is  minus  the  sight  of 
one  eye  from  an  encounter  at  a  nest  of  a 
tawny  owl,  a  relative  of  our  barred  owl, 
which  he  was  photographing  in  Wales. 
While  Hoskins  was  reaching  up  to  move 
a  piece  of  his  blind,  the  tawny  owl  swooped 
and  hooked  a  talon  into  his  eye.  Despite 
his  companion  driving  him  at  once  to  a 
hospital,  some  two  hundred  miles  away, 
Hoskins  lost  the  sight  of  his  eye. 

The  cassowary  of  New  Guinea  is  an 
ostrich-like  bird  that  may  weigh  up  to  90 
pounds.  Its  inner  toe  is  equipped  with  a 
stout,    straight    claw   about    three   inches 


long,  a  claw  that  is  such  an  effective  weapi 
that  when  some  people  kill  a  cassowa 
they  save  these  claws  to  use  in  tippii 
their  arrows.  When  I  shot  my  first  ra 
sowary  my  native  guide  told  me  to  a 
proach  it  with  care,  as  a  kick  from  a  cri 
pled  bird  could  be  dangerous.  They  al 
told  me  that  New  Guinea  villagers  som 
times  raised  these  birds,  which  becar 
ill-tempered  with  age,  and  that  the  kick 
these  tame  birds  could  be  serious. 

MAN  KILLED  BY  CASSOWARY 

Tom  Gilliard,  of  the  American  Museu 
of  Natural  History,  wrote  of  actually  seeii 
in  northeast  New  Guinea  a  tame  cassowar 
which  had  killed  one  old  man  and  injun 
two  other  people,  make  an  attack  on  a  fourt 
Having  been  released  from  its  pen  to  ] 
photographed,  the  bird  suddenly  turne 
ran,  jumped  a  fence,  and,  coming  upc 
a  native  woman  carrying  a  bag  of  swe 
potatoes,  struck  her  twice  and  then  co 
tinued  running.  One  blow  had  driv< 
a  claw  an  inch  into  her  abdomen;  the  oth 
had  cut  her  right  upper  arm  to  the  bone. 

When  I  was  in  North  New  Guinea  I  hi 
a  chance  to  see  how  a  cassowary  attack 
In  a  stockade  I  had  a  freshly  caught  youi 
cassowary  about  eighteen  inches  high  ai 
a  newly  taken  cuscus,  or  opossum.  Th< 
were  going  round  and  round  the  stockat 
in  opposite  directions.  Naturally,  on  ea< 
circle  they  met  twice.  And  for  a  long  tin 
every  encounter  was  the  same:  the  cusci 
went  right  ahead  and  the  cassowary  jump< 
up,  striking  with  both  feet,  and  fell  over  c 
its  side.  I  formed  a  poor  opinion  of  the  ca 
sowary's  mentality  from  seeing  how  loi 
the  bird  took  to  learn  that  this  method 
handling  a  cuscus  was  not  very  satisfa 
tory. 

Don't  think  that  these  are  every-dj 
occurrences.  They're  not.  They're  excej 
tions.  But  keep  in  mind  that  birds  wil 
equipment  to  protect  themselves  may  u: 
it.  However,  don't  drive  the  screech  ow 
from  your  garden  just  because  they  migl 
scratch  you  if  you  disturb  their  nest,  an 
more  than  you  would  get  rid  of  the  famil 
tabby  just  because  it  might  scratch  you 
you  pulled  its  tail.  And  don't  bothi 
a  cassowary  any  more  than  you  wou] 
molest  a  "tame"  bear. 


Dictionaries  with  three-dimensional  illu 
trations  in  the  form  of  actual  specimens  - 
that's  what,  in  effect,  the  systematic  exhibii 
of  mammals  in  Hall  15  and  of  birds  i 
Boardman  Conover  Hall  (Hall  21)  providi 
Study  of  these  exhibits  is  an  easy  way  t 
become  familiar  with  animal  characteristic 


How  much  do  you  know  about  the  foo 
you  eat?  A  survey  of  the  food  plants  of  th 
world  and  their  products  is  presented  b 
the  exhibits  in  Hall  25. 


January,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


Daily    Guide   Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  P.M.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 


4-H   CLUBS   PRESENT   MERIT  AWARD  TO   MUSEUM 


SPIDER'S  WEB- 

(Continued  from  page  3^ 
silk.  It  may  be  bitten  and  consumed  at 
once  or  trussed  up  in  swathing  bands  and 
attached  to  the  center  of  the  web,  there  to 
await  dinnertime.  Larger  prey  may  be 
handled  more  cautiously. 

If  the  web  entraps  a  more  formidable 
victim  than  the  inhabitant  can  handle,  she 
may  drop  out  of  the  web  to  the  ground  or 
other  convenient  hiding  place.  In  so  doing 
she  always  drops  head  first,  spinning 
a  thread  of  silk  as  she  falls.  This  is  the 
so-called  dragline,  and  on  it  she  climbs  to 
her  home  again  when  the  danger  has  passed. 
If  the  prey  is  large  but  manageable  the  spider 
is  merely  very  cautious:  a  quick  bite, a  retreat 
to  safety,  another  quick  bite  ....  When  the 
venom  has  taken  some  effect,  so  that  the 
victim  is  merely  struggling  rather  feebly,  it 
is  turned  around  and  around  and  wrapped 
in  wide  bands  of  silk  so  that  it  is  completely 
covered.  If  it  is  large  enough  it  may  furnish 
sufficient  food  to  satisfy  the  spider  for  many 
days. 

REMARKABLE   STRENGTH 

Spider  silk  is  an  albuminoid  protein  of 
remarkable  strength  and  elasticity.  It  is 
produced  by  several  types  of  glands  and 
emitted  through  the  spinnerets,  which 
usually  lie  at  the  end  of  the  spider's  ab- 
domen. Its  tensile  strength  is  said  to  be 
second  only  to  that  of  fused  quartz  and  its 
elasticity  is  so  great  that  it  can  be  stretched 
one-fifth  of  its  length.  The  two  varieties  of 
silk  differ  in  these  qualities;  the  viscid  silk, 
for  example,  is  much  more  elastic  and  less 
strong  than  the  other  type.  Its  elasticity, 
no  doubt,  is  an  adjustment  to  its  function, 
as  the  spiral  thread  must  yield  to  greater 
impacts  than  the  other  type.  The  finest 
single  threads  of  silk  are  only  about  one- 
millionth  of  an  inch  in  thickness. 

Silk  is  produced  by  all  spiders,  although 
they  are  not  all  equally  dependent  on  it. 
But  they  have  put  it  to  many  and  varied 
uses  and  it  has  probably  been  largely  re- 
sponsible for  their  survival  over  many 
millions  of  years. 


Each  year  the  Museum  is  host  to  more 
than  a  thousand  4-H  Club  delegates, '  boys 
and  girls  sent  to  Chicago  from  farms  all  over 
the  United  States  and  Canada.  In  recog- 
nition of  the  institution's  thirty-five  years  of 
support,  the  National  Congress  of  4-H  Clubs 
recently  presented  the  Museum  with  the 
4-H  Club  Donor  Merit  Award.  Above, 
Stanley  Field  (center  right),  President  of  the 
Museum,   accepts   the   award   from   G.   L. 


Noble,  Director  of  the  4-H  Club  Nationa 
Committee  on  Boys  and  Girls  Club  Work. 
Others  in  the  group  are  Kenneth  H.  Ander- 
son, Associate  Director  of  the  4-H  National 
Committee  (extreme  left),  and  Dr.  Clifford 
C.  Gregg,  Director  of  the  Museum  (extreme 
right).  During  the  National  4-H  Club  Con- 
gress in  November,  hundreds  of  club  mem- 
bers were  taken  on  special  tours  of  the 
Museum. 


MUSEUM  AMBASSADRESS 
TOURS  N.Y.  STATE 

The  story  of  the  natural  sciences,  and  in 
particular  of  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum's  role  in  the  field,  will  be  told  to 
some  125  high  school  and  "prep"  school 
student  groups  throughout  New  York  state 
on  a  three-month  lecture  tour  by  Miss 
Harriet  Smith  of  the  Raymond  Foundation 
staff,  beginning  early  in  January.  As  on 
a  previous  tour  in  1951-52,  Miss  Smith  will 
be  on  leave  from  her  duties  at  the  Museum  to 
fulfill  this  "on-loan"  engagement  to  the 
School  Assembly  Service  lecture  agency. 
Her  lectures  will  be  illustrated  with  a  spe- 
cially edited  version  of  the  color  motion 
picture  "Through  These  Doors"  made  by 
John  W.  Moyer,  Chief  of  the  Museum's 
Motion  Picture  Division.  Miss  Smith's 
talks  will  replace  the  sound  track  ordinarily 
used,  and  new  sequences  will  be  interpolated 
in  the  film.  The  tour  is  being  undertaken 
both  as  an  educational  project  and  as  an 
extension  of  Museum  public  relations. 


Like  a  scene  from  Biblical  history  is  the 
restoration  of  a  gateway  of  the  ancient  city 
of  Kish  to  be  seen  in  Hall  K. 


The  wave  of  popularity  that  has  brought 
parakeets  into  so  many  homes  in  recent 
years  lends  special  interest  to  an  exhibit  of 
parakeets  and  parrots  of  many  varieties  in 
Boardman  Conover  Hall  (Hall  21). 


LAST  CHANCE  TO  ENTER 
NATURE  PHOTOGRAPHS 

Closing  date  for  entries  in  the  Eleventh 
Chicago  International  Exhibition  of  Nature 
Photography  is  January  16.  Prospective 
contestants  are  urged  to  send  their  prints 
and  color  slides  to  the  Museum  at  once 
because  the  judges  cannot  consider  entries 
received  after  the  deadline. 

Prize  winning  and  other  selected  photo- 
graphic prints  will  be  exhibited  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall  from  February  1  through 
February  26.  All  accepted  color  slides  will 
be  shown  by  projection  on  the  screen  in  the 
James  Simpson  Theatre  on  two  Sunday 
afternoons,  February  12  and  February  19, 
at  2:30  o'clock.  The  show  is  jointly  spon- 
sored by  the  Nature  Camera  Club  of 
Chicago  and  the  Museum. 

Entries,  both  in  the  division  of  prints  and 
the  division  of  slides,  must  qualify  under 
one  of  three  classifications:  (1)  Animal  life, 
(2)  Plant  Life,  or  (3)  General  (including 
scenic  views,  etc.).  Except  for  special 
prizes  awarded  by  the  Photographic  Society 
of  America,  a  full  and  equal  group  of  medals 
and  ribbons  is  offered  in  each  classification 
of  each  division.  Detailed  information  is 
given  in  the  official  entry  forms  that  are 
available  by  request  to  the  Museum. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


January,  1956 


THE     PAPAW,    OUR     LOCAL 

By  JOHN  W.  THIERET 

CURATOR  OF  ECONOMIC  BOTANY 

THE  PAPAW,  with  its  seemingly  exotic 
foliage,  flowers,  and  fruits,  reminds  some 
of  a  plant  displaced  from  the  tropics.  And 
this  it  has  been  called,  for  of  all  the  members 
of  the  Custard  Apple  family — including  the 
bearers  of  such  fruits  as  the  cherimoya, 
sweetsop,  soursop,  and  custard  apple — the 
papaw  alone  is  a  venturer  from  tropical  and 
subtropical  regions.  But  no  alien  this,  not- 
withstanding its  host  of  cousins  in  warmer 
latitudes.      On    the    contrary,    its    maroon 


'TROPICAL'     FRUIT 


THE  AMERICAN   PAPAW-A  FRUITING  BRANCH 

The  drooping  leaves,  often  nearly  a  foot  long,  and  the  clustered  fruits  make  the 

papaw   one   of   autumn's   memorable   sights.     The   specimen    here    shown    was 

collected  near  Chesterton,  Indiana.     A  life-like  model  of  a  fruiting  branch  is 

exhibited  in  Martin  A.  and  Carrie  Ryerson  Hall  (Plant  Life,  Hall  29). 


flowers  with  the  odor  of  over-ripe  straw- 
berries, its  large  leaves,  and  its  pendulous 
clusters  of  heavy  fruits  are  an  integral  and 
familiar  part  of  the  landscape  in  much  of 
the  eastern  United  States  in  the  river  bot- 
toms and  rich  woods  where  this  singular 
species  dwells. 

The  distribution  of  the  papaw  in  relation 
to  the  rest  of  the  Custard  Apple  family  is 
paralleled  by  a  number  of  other  temperate 
United  States  plants  that  are  members  of 
notably  tropical  groups.  As  examples  might 
be  cited  our  catalpa,  trumpet-creeper,  and 
cross-vine  of  the  flamboyant  Bignonia 
family;  meadow  beauty  of  the  Melastoma 
family;  the  American  persimmon,  cousin  of 
the  ebonies;  and  the  buckthorns  of  the  Sapo- 
dilla  family.  These  and  others  are  con- 
sidered remnants  of  a  once  luxurious  sub- 
tropical flora  that  extended  as  far  north  as 
Alaska.  Since  that  distant  age  the  climate 
changed  and  became  colder.     Many  plant 


groups — cycads,  figs,  breadfruits,  rosewoods, 
palms — disappeared  entirely  from  what  is 
now  temperate  North  America,  surviving 
only  in  warmer  areas  nearer  the  equator. 
Others  were  not  completely  wiped  out;  they 
left  in  the  now  cooler  regions  one  or  several 
representatives  that  could  successfully  adapt 
to  the  changed  conditions.  This  is  the  story 
that  present-day  distribution  patterns  and 
the  fossil  record  reveal  to  us. 

Long  before  the  advent  of  Europeans  in 
the  New  World  the  papaw  was  known  to 
the  Indians  who,  along  with  various  wild 
animals — opossums, 
raccoons,  squirrels, 
and  skunks — relished 
the  saccharine  fruit. 
In  the  Mississippi 
Valley  just  over  four 
hundred  years  ago,  the 
followers  of  De  Soto 
were  the  first  white 
men  to  notice  the  pa- 
paw. In  their  journal 
they  mention  its  "very 
good  smell  and  .  .  . 
excellent  taste." 
Nearly  two  centuries 
elapse  before  we  hear 
of  it  again.  In  1736 
the  plant  was  intro- 
duced into  cultivation 
by  Europeans  who 
brought  seeds  to  Eng- 
land. The  first  illus- 
tration of  the  papaw 
appeared  18  years 
later  in  Catesby's 
Natural  History  of 
Carolina  (1754).  On 
the  return  journey  of 
Lewis  and  Clark,  in 
the  early  19th  century, 
the  explorers  found 
the  fruit  a  welcome 
supplement  to  their  meager  fare  as  did,  at 
a  still  later  date,  the  Kansas  pioneers  who 
subsisted  partly  on  pecans  and  papaws  in 
times  of  crop  failure. 

The  common  name  papaw  originated 
apparently  from  a  fancied  resemblance  of 
our  fruit  to  that  excellent  dessert  fruit,  the 
papaw  of  the  tropics,  better  known  in  the 
United  States  as  the  papaya.  The  French 
New  World  colonists  called  the  papaw 
"asiminier" — a  gallicized  form  of  the  Indian 
name  "assimin" — whence  is  derived  the 
name  of  the  genus  to  which  the  plant  be- 
longs, Asimina.  There  are  eight  species  of 
Asimina,  seven  of  which  are  confined  to  the 
southeastern  United  States,  mostly  in 
Florida.  Our  plant,  Asimina  triloba,  ranges 
from  Florida  to  Texas  and  as  far  north  as 
the  southern  Great  Lakes  area.  In  the 
Chicago  region,  native  stands  of  the  papaw 
are  found  in  several  spots,  including  Black 
Partridge  Woods,  Indiana  Dunes  State  Park, 


Pilcher  Park,  and,  most  appropriately,  in 
Paw  Paw  Woods. 

The  papaw  rises  sometimes  to  a  height  of 
fifty  feet  and  develops  a  trunk  exceeding 
two  feet  in  diameter,  although  the  plant 
is  usually  a  smaller  tree  or  a  shrub.  Because 
of  its  suckering  habit  it  is  commonly  found 
in  clumps  or  thickets.  In  days  gone  by, 
some  of  these,  particularly  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  were  many  acres  in  extent.  The 
wood  of  the  papaw  is  greenish-yellow,  light, 
soft,  brittle,  coarse-textured,  and  has  no 
uses.  The  inner  bark,  stripped  off  in  early 
spring,  has  been  used  for  weaving  fiber-cloth, 
for  making  nets,  and  for  stringing  fish. 

YELLOW  FORM  PREFERRED 

The  papaw  flowers  in  the  spring  while  its 
leaves  are  yet  young  and  covered  with  rusty 
down.  The  stigmas  mature  sometimes  long 
before  the  pollen  is  shed,  and,  as  a  result, 
the  early-opening  flowers  set  no  fruit.  The 
fruits,  which  may  weigh  up  to  a  pound  and 
attain  a  length  of  over  five  inches,  are  borne 
either  singly  or  in  clusters  and  change  from 
green  to  brown  or  nearly  black  as  they 
mature.  When  they  ripen — from  August 
to  November,  depending  on  the  locality — 
the  fruits  contain  a  creamy  pulp  surrounding 
several  large,  flattened,  brown  seeds.  There 
are,  it  seems,  two  rather  distinct  forms  of 
the  papaw:  one,  bearing  white-fleshed  fruits 
said  to  be  of  insipid  to  even  disagreeable 
flavor;  the  other,  more  frequent,  bearing 
yellow-fleshed  fruits  that  occasionally  are  of 
an  excellence  that  inspires  some  papaw 
lovers  to  remark  that  this  is  the  most 
delicious  fruit  known  to  man. 

Compared  with  the  temperate  and  tropical 
fruits  that  are  familiar  in  the  northern 
states,  the  papaw  is  relatively  rich  in  nu- 
tritive material.  The  fruit  is  noticeably 
high  in  protein.  In  spite  of  its  food  value 
and  the  pleasing  texture  and  taste  of  the 
better  varieties,  the  papaw  remains  little 
known  and  used  except  by  rural  people. 
It  is  only  rarely  seen  in  the  markets  of  our 
larger  cities. 

Of  the  various  ways  of  using  the  fruit,  one 
author  has  written:  "It  makes  a  splendid 
custard  pie.  There  is  no  finer  dessert  than 
papaw  eaten  with  cream  and  sugar.  It  is 
used  to  make  beer  the  same  as  the  persim- 
mon by  putting  the  fruit  in  a  jar,  mashing 
it,  and  putting  water  on  it  and  letting  it 
stand  until  fermented.  It  also  answers  to 
make  pudding  just  the  same  as  persimmon 
pudding  is  made.  It  is  also  said  that  brandy 
equal  to  peach  brandy  is  made  of  papaws. 
Marmalade  which  is  equal  to  that  made  of 
pears  or  peaches  may  be  made  of  papaws. 
The  custard  [pulp]  may  be  spread  on  a 
board  and  dried  like  pumpkin  leather." 

All  this,  of  course,  is  fine,  but  what  can 
compare  to  a  ripe  papaw,  just  picked  from 
among  the  yellowed  leaves  on  a  frosty 
autumn  day  and  eaten  in  the  woodland. 
It  is  then  that  James  Whitcomb   Riley's 


January,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


words  in  Hoosier  dialect  are  recalled  perhaps 
most  vividly: 

"And  sich  pop-paws!  Lumps  o'  raw 
Gold  and  green, — jes'  oozy  th'ough 

With  ripe  yaller — like  you've  saw 
Custard-pie  with  no  crust  to." 

NEGLECTED  BY  FRUIT  GROWERS 

Although  its  cultivation  and  improvement 
have  been  repeatedly  urged,  the  papaw 
continues  to  be  a  horticultural  Cinderella. 
There  are  few  papaw  orchards,  perhaps 
a  result  of  the  fact  that  little  is  known 
about  the  cultural  requirements  and  re- 
sponse of  the  species.  The  small  number 
of  attempts  that  have  been  made  in  hybridi- 
zation and  selection  have  had  promising 
results.  Several  of  the  finer  varieties  have 
been  named  and  propagated.  Crosses  have 
been  made  between  these  varieties  and 
between  our  plant  and  other  species  of 
Asimina  in  efforts  to  improve  the  fruit. 
Those  who  have  faith  in  the  economic  and 
gustatory  possibilities  of  the  papaw  point 
out  that  even  in  the  wild  state  it  can  produce 
fruits  that  compare  favorably  with  our  long- 
cultivated  Old  and  New  World  fruits.  Thus, 
would  not  some  attention  from  horticul- 
turists result  perhaps  in  the  development 
of  distinctly  superior  papaws? 

As  is  the  case  with  so  many  of  our  de- 
serving native  species,  the  papaw  has  been 
little  used  as  an  ornamental  plant,  although 
it  has  much  to  recommend  it.  It  is  notably 
free  from  diseases  and  pests.  It  may  be 
raised  fairly  easily  from  seed,  or  seedlings  a 


FLOWERS  OF  THE  PAPAW 
The  blossoms,  up  to  two  inches  across,  are  green 
when  newly  opened,  but  soon  change  to  brown  and 
finally  to  maroon.  These  figures  are  reproduced 
from  Charles  Sprague  Sargent's  "Silva  of  North 
America"  (1891). 

foot  or  less  in  height  may  be  transplanted 
from  the  woods.  When  grown  from  seed, 
the  plant  may  take  eight  or  more  years  to 
begin  to  fruit,  although  the  fruiting  of  three- 
year-old  specimens  has  been  reported.  The 
papaw's  handsome  leaves,  its  attractive 
though  somewhat  inconspicuous  flowers,  a"nd 
its    curious,    clustered    fruits    make    it    a 


horticultural  novelty.  In  nature  it  occurs 
as  an  undergrowth  plant,  receiving  shade 
and  protection  from  wind.  This  suggests 
that  in  cultivation  a  sheltered  position 
may  be  more  to  its  liking  than  one  in  the 
open. 

The  American  papaw  is  a  species  that 
deserves  increased  recognition  and  use,  both 
as  an  ornamental  and,  of  more  significance, 
as  a  fruit  tree.  Perhaps  someday  it  will  be 
a  plant  of  considerable  economic  importance. 
This  is  the  end  toward  which  papaw  en- 
thusiasts and  breeders  are  striving. 


Books 


(All  books  reviewed  in  the  Bulletin  are 
available  in  The  Book  Shop  of  the  Museum. 
Mail  orders  accompanied  by  remittance  in- 
cluding postage  are  promptly  filled.) 

THE  STORY  OF  MAN.  By  Carleton  S. 
Coon.  Alfred  A.  Knopf,  Inc.,  New  York. 
437  pages,  32  plates,  54  line  drawings,  10 
maps.     $6.75. 

Books  come  and  go,  but  here  is  one  that 
will  remain  with  us.  The  title  is  forthright 
and  simple  and  so  are  the  language  and 
style.  Dr.  Coon  undertakes  to  describe  the 
main  events  of  human  history  "from  the 
time  man  appeared  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
until  the  present  moment,  when  he  has  the 
power  to  destroy  it."  But  this  is  not  the 
ordinary  dreary  history.  It  is  a  sprightly 
one,  as  a  glance  at  some  of  the  chapter  head- 
ings shows:  "The  Earliest  Men,"  "Wheels, 
Metal,  and  Writing,"  "A  Vision  of  Para- 
dise." 

The  Story  of  Man  begins  about  700,000 
years  ago  and  follows  the  adventures  of  our 
ancestors  to  the  present  time.  For  the  pur- 
poses of  his  book,  Dr.  Coon  divides  his 
material  into  four  major  phases: 

The  first  of  these  deals  with  the  biolog- 
ical phase  of  man's  history.  Because  he 
possessed  a  superior  capacity  for  culture, 
man  had  a  great  advantage  over  animals. 
Before  the  first  phase  ended,  man  had  learn- 
ed to  make  tools,  probably  to  speak,  and 
to  keep  warm  with  fire. 

During  the  second  phase  of  man's  history, 
beginning  about  35,000  years  ago,  man 
cooked  food,  made  warm  clothing,  migrated 
into  hitherto  unoccupied  regions  (the  Arctic 
and  sub- Arctic  and  the  New  World),  in- 
vented the  bow,  and  domesticated  the  dog. 

In  the  third  phase,  man  domesticated  all 
the  barnyard  animals  that  we  know  today, 
began  to  farm,  invented  pottery  and  writing, 
worked  metals,  and  then  moved  swiftly  on 
to  other  advances — money,  cannon,  print- 
ing, deep-water  ships,  coke,  steam  engines. 

Man  now  stands  on  the  threshold  of  the 
fourth  phase  of  his  history.  At  this  time 
the  trend  toward  increasing  differentiation 


between    cultures   has   turned   toward   the 
direction  of  global  cultural  uniformity. 

Perhaps  one  example  of  the  kinds  of  ideas 
that  Dr.  Coon  puts  forward  will  entice  read- 
ers of  the  Bulletin  to  read  The  Story  of 
Man.  In  Greek  times  and  during  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  a  "school" 
consisted  of  one  man  who  taught  all  subjects 
to  the  students  of  the  day.  Gradually  it 
dawned  on  men  that  the  fields  of  human 
knowledge  were  becoming  too  vast  for  one 
man  to  comprehend.  A  division  took  place, 
and  universities  came  into  existence.  A 
student  could  now  learn  geography  from  one 
professor,  law  from  a  second,  and  mathe- 
matics from  a  third.  Thus  it  now  was  pos- 
sible for  scholars  to  specialize,  to  conduct 
experiments,  to  do  research.  A  new  source 
of  energy  was  discovered,  not  by  accident 
but  by  objective  research.  This  new 
source  of  energy  was  the  correct  formula  for 
gunpowder  that  would  explode  instead  of 
merely  fizzling. 

As  a  result  of  objective  research  and 
increase  in  consumption  of  energy  through 
improvements  in  furnaces  and  harnessing 
water  and  wind  power,  three  new  inventions 
came  into  being:  ocean-sailing  ships,  print- 
ing, and  banking.  These  inventions  united, 
as  never  before,  all  the  independent  and 
ancient  civilizations  and  brought  them  into 
the  orbit  of  western  Europe.  Gunpowder 
enabled  the  Turks  to  capture  Constanti- 
nople, thus  blocking  trade  routes  from 
Europe  to  India  and  the  Far  East.  Marine 
architects  then  came  forward  and  designed 
ships  that  could  cross  vast  oceans.  The 
academic  division  of  labor  also  stimulated 
another  great  advance  in  communication — 
the  invention  of  printing.  Now  thousands 
of  ordinary  people,  merchants,  and  artisans 
learned  to  read  and  write.  Communica- 
tion could  now  take  place  among  thousands 
of  people  who  never  saw  one  another. 
Economic  and  commercial  institutions  estab- 
lished trade  relations  with  people  of  dis- 
tant countries.  Traders  and  manufacturers 
needed  capital,  and  banks  were  formed  to 
accommodate  them.  Thus  a  chain  of 
events  brought  about  vast  unthought-of 
changes  and  united  the  parts  of  the  world 
as  never  before. 

Dr.  Coon  has  selected  his  material  with 
such  care  that  the  reader  never  feels  be- 
wildered even  though  the  author  takes  him 
on  many  absorbing  excursions.  The  author 
wisely  resorts  to  speculation  and  imagi- 
nation whenever  necessary,  but  he  plainly 
labels  them  as  his  personal  guesses.  His 
convictions  he  has  stated  with  strength. 

Because  all  of  us  are  vitally  interested  in 
our  futures,  we  can  read  this  book  with 
profit,  enjoyment,  and  optimism. 

Paul  S.  Martin 
Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 


Saturday  afternoon  lectures  and  films  will 
be  given  at  the  Museum  in  March  and  April. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


January,  1956 


A  YOUNG  MARCO  POLO  BEGINS  MUSEUM  JOURNEY 


STAFF  NOTES 


Jimmy  Pavitt,  9,  of  St.  Louis,  takes  off  on 
his  own  private  expedition!  Here  he  em- 
barks on  Museum  Traveler's  Journey  No.  4 
to  visit  toys  of  other  lands  and  cultures. 
Pausing  before  the  special  toy  exhibit  in 
Stanley  Field  Hall,  Jimmy  answers  the  first 
query  on  his  Museum  Traveler's  question- 
naire before  proceeding  to  ancient  Baby- 
lonia, modern  Malaya,  China,  and  our  own 


Plains  and  Southwest  Indian  country  for 
information  about  exotic  toys.  After  filling 
in  all  the  answers  called  for,  Jimmy  will  turn 
his  questionnaire  in  at  the  Museum  where  it 
will  be  checked  for  correctness.  Successful 
completion  of  three  additional  journeys  will 
entitle  Jimmy  to  an  award  designating  him 
as  an  Official  Traveler  of  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(November  16  to  December  15) 

Associate   Members 

Thomas  Boal,  John  M.  Coates,  Dennis 
De  Witt 

Non-Resident  Associate  Member 

Mrs.  Oma  M.  Bradley 

Annual  Members 

Miles  L.  Abel,  William  P.  Ayers,  Harold 
Barclay,  Horace  G.  Barden,  W.  E.  Bikle, 
Miss  Beryl  Ann  Brownell,  James  L.  Cal- 
houn, John  Noble  Campbell,  John  I.  Den- 
nehy,  Edward  F.  Donham,  William  M. 
Doty,  Albert  J.  Epson,  Joseph  Epstein, 
S.  L.  Fee,  Jacob  M.  Fishman,  Louis  Fish- 
man,  Miss  Grace  S.  Flagg,  Dean  D.  Francis, 
Fred.  W.  Frank,  Leon  J.  Gell,  Eugene  G. 
Hart,  Dr.  Helen  Heinen,  James  V.  Insolia, 
Dr.  Michael  C.  Kessler,  Karl  N.  Llewellyn, 
Marshall  Malina,  Edwin  H.  McGrew,  Wes- 
ley C.  Miller,  Walter  A.  Mooney,  Charles 
F.  Naser,  Erik  Nilsson,  Harold  N.  Payne, 
L.  W.  Porter,  Mrs.  M.  Ann  Reiff,  C.  H. 
Rosier,  Miss  Nina  E.  Schlatter,  Robert  B. 
Stitt,  Newton  E.  Turney,  William  Wald, 
Mrs.  Nelson  C.  White,  Mrs.  Jean  Woollett 


For  authentic  natural-history  books  con- 
sult The  Museum  Book  Shop. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of  Anthropology: 

From:  Dr.  Henry  Field,  Coconut  Grove, 
Fla. — 10  plaster  casts  of  seals,  Pakistan; 
Mrs.  Harry  W.  Getz,  Moline,  111.— 2  Nava- 
ho  blankets,  southwestern  United  States 

Department  of  Botany: 

From:  Karl  Bartel,  Chicago — Mimosa 
pudica;  Florida  State  Board  of  Conserva- 
tion, St.  Petersburg,  Fla. — 2  aquatic  phaner- 
ogams; Robert  Sokal,  Chicago — 32  plants, 
southeastern  United  States;  Floyd  A.  Swink, 
Chicago — Populus  canescens;  University  of 
Southern  Illinois,  Carbondale — 6  Andro- 
pogon  Elliottii 

Department   of  Zoology: 

From:  R.  J.  Fleetwood,  Cocorro,  New 
Mexico — 2  snakes;  Dr.  J.  L.  Harrison,  Kuala 
Lumpur,  Malaya — 64  bats;  Dr.  John  R. 
Hendrickson,  Singapore,  Malaya — fish  speci- 
men; Harry  Hoogstraal  and  Lt.  Col.  Robert 
Traub,  Cairo,  Egypt,  and  Kuala  Lumpur, 
Malaya — 117  fleas  on  slides,  Yemen,  Egypt; 
Dr.  Henry  Howden,  Knoxville,  Tenn. — 
5  scarab  beetles,  United  States;  Lt.  Comdr. 
Don  C.  Lowrie,  San  Francisco — 3  frogs, 
5  lizards,  2  snakes,  Riu  Kiu  Islands;  Dr. 
Frederick  J.  Medem,  Colombia — 61  reptiles 


Dr.  Paul  S.  Martin,  Chief  Curator  of 
Anthropology,  attended  the  recent  annual 
meeting  in  Boston  of  the  American  Anthro- 
pological Association  and  the  meeting  of  the 
executive  committee  of  the  Society  for 
American  Archaeology.  He  was  guest  of 
honor  at  the  Twenty-fifth  Anniversary 
Luncheon  of  the  Social  Sciences  Division  of 
the  University  of  Chicago.  Other  Museum 
staff  members  who  participated  in  the 
celebration  were  Dr.  Donald  Collier,  Cu- 
rator of  South  American  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  who  was  in  the  academic  pro- 
cession; George  I.  Quimby,  Curator  of 
North  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnol- 
ogy; Miss  Elaine  Bluhm,  Assistant  in 
Archaeology;  and  Evett  D.  Hester,  Thomas 
J.  Dee  Fellow  in  Anthropology  ....  Two 
members  of  the  Museum  staff  recently  pub- 
lished popular  articles  in  national  maga- 
zines: Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark,  Curator 
of  the  Phanerogamic  Herbarium,  gives  an 
account  of  his  expedition  to  the  "lost  world" 
of  Venezuela  in  the  November  issue  of 
Natural  History  and  Philip  Hershkovitz, 
Curator  of  Mammals,  is  author  of  "Know 
Your  Rabbits"  in  the  December  issue  of 
Sports  Afield ....  A  paper  on  cave  fishes, 
prepared  jointly  by  Loren  P.  Woods,  Cu- 
rator of  Fishes,  and  Dr.  Robert  F.  Inger, 
Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Reptiles,  was 
read  before  a  meeting  of  the  zoological 
section  of  the  American  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science  at  Atlanta  last 
month  .  .  .  .  D.  Dwight  Davis,  Curator  of 
Vertebrate  Anatomy,  lectured  recently  on 
"The  Biology  of  the  Desert"  before  students 
of  North  Central  College,  Naperville,  Illinois 
....  Rupert  L.  Wenzel,  Curator  of  Insects, 
and  Henry  S.  Dybas,  Associate  Curator  of 
Insects,  represented  the  Museum  at  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  Entomological  Society 
of  America  in  Cincinnati . . .  Dr.  Theodor 
Just,  Chief  Curator  of  Botany,  spoke  on 
"Cycads,  Living  and  Fossil"  at  a  recent 
meeting  of  the  Chicago  Ornithological 
Society. 


and  amphibians,  13  mammals;  Museo  de 
Historia  Natural,  Montevideo,  Uruguay — 4 
fresh- water  clams;  Oriental  Institute, 
Chicago — 43  lots  of  ectoparasites,  208  land 
shells,  84  mammals,  Iraq,  Iran,  and  Leb- 
anon; Dr.  Alexander  Sokoloff,  Chicago — 
2  snakes,  Indiana;  Lt.  Col.  Robert  Traub, 
Kuala  Lumpur,  Malaya — 19  slides  of  fleas, 
Africa,  Madagascar,  South  America,  New- 
Guinea;  Fraser  Walsh,  San  Francisco — 
8  dragonflies,  7  butterflies  and  moths,  10 
grasshoppers,  Formosa;  Loren  P.  Woods, 
Homewood,  111. — 4  bats,  Indiana;  Donald  J. 
Daleske,  Chicago — 19  fishes,  North  and 
South  Korea;  W.  E.  Eigsti,  Hastings,  Neb. 
— 41  insects;  Dr.  Howard  Gloyd,  Chicago 
— snake,  Riu  Kiu  Islands;  Dr.  Robert  F. 
Inger,  Homewood,  111. — 400  fishes,  Wyo- 
ming and  South  Dakota 


PRINTED   BY   CHICAGO   NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


RULLETIN 

U  Vol.27,No.2-Februaiy-1956 

Chicago  Natural 
History  Mus  e  um 


\ . 


11th  Chicago  International 

Nature  Photo  Exhibit 

February  1—26 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


February,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

t  Armour  Henry  P.  Ism  am 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wv.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Mdllar Assistant  Secretary 

THE  BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin C*te/  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform   the   Museum 
promptly  of  changes  of  address. 


Museum  Expeditions — I9S6    .    .    . 

RANGE   OF   EXPLORATIONS: 
MILWAUKEE  TO  MINDANAO 

FROM  MILWAUKEE,  Manitowoc,  and 
Muskegon  in  a  Great  Lakes  archae- 
ological survey  to  far-off  Mindanao  in  the 
Philippines  for  zoological  collections,  Mu- 
seum explorers  will  range  over  many  parts 
of  the  world  in  1956  on  expeditions  with 
widely  varied  objectives.  Outstanding  on 
the  list  are  excavations  in  Peru  to  uncover 
prehistoric  cities  that  flourished  before  and 
during  the  time  of  the  Incas  and  penetration 
of  the  jungles  of  Borneo  in  small  boats  and 
afoot  to  collect  reptiles  and  other  fauna. 

The  Archaeological  Expedition  to  Peru, 
to  be  led  by  Dr.  Donald  Collier,  Curator  of 
South  American  Archaeology  and  Eth- 
nology, will  enplane  for  Lima  early  in  Febru- 
ary, where  field  work  will  continue  for  about 
seven  months.  Curator  Collier  will  be 
assisted  by  Don  Thompson,  a  Harvard 
graduate-student  in  archaeology,  and  ad- 
ditional helpers  will  be  recruited  in  Peru. 
The  expedition,  which  is  financed  by  a  grant 
awarded  by  the  National  Science  Founda- 
tion, will  excavate  sites  in  the  Casma  Valley 
near  the  coast  of  Peru,  about  two  hundred 
miles  north  of  Lima  in  search  of  material 
for  exhibits  and  for  research  purposes. 
Collier  plans  eventually  to  use  the  results 


of  his  studies  as  the  basis  of  a  publication 
on  the  prehistoric  growth  of  urban  life. 

BY  CANOE  AND  AFOOT 

The  Zoological  Expedition  to  Borneo, 
which  will  be  led  by  Dr.  Robert  F.  Inger, 
Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Reptiles,  will 
get  under  way  late  in  March.  First  flying 
to  Singapore,  Dr.  Inger  will  there  organize 
for  six  months  of  intensive  field  work  deep 
in  the  interior  of  northern  Borneo.  With 
Malayan  aides  he  will  travel  on  foot  and  by 
motorboat  and  canoe  to  make  a  representa- 
tive collection  of  the  island's  reptiles,  am- 
phibians, and  fresh-water  fishes. 

Dr.  Paul  S.  Martin,  Chief  Curator  of 
Anthropology,  will,  as  in  all  its  past  seasons, 
lead  the  Archaeological  Expedition  to  the 
Southwest,  his  principal  associate  again 
being  Dr.  John  B.  Rinaldo,  Assistant  Cu- 
rator of  Archaeology.  Several  other  per- 
sons will  accompany  the  expedition.  This, 
the  expedition's  22nd  season,  is  the  occasion 
for  moving  the  base  camp  into  new  ter- 
ritory. In  the  first  nine  seasons  excavations 
were  made  in  southwestern  Colorado  and  in 
the  next  twelve  in  New  Mexico,  with  a  brief 
sortie  into  Arizona  in  1955.  The  expedi- 
tion's work  now  will  be  moved  entirely  to 
an  area  near  Showlow  in  east-central 
Arizona.  Because  of  the  transfer  of  the 
scene  of  operations,  the  first  season's  work 
in  the  new  area  will  be  largely  reconnais- 
sance, and  if  use  of  an  airplane  can  be 
arranged,  aerial  surveys  will  be  made. 

Reference  in  the  opening  paragraph  to 
Milwaukee,  Manitowoc,  and  Muskegon  in- 
dicates only  a  small  part  of  the  territory 
to  be  surveyed  by  George  I.  Quimby,  Cu- 
rator of  North  American  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  who  will  begin  field  work  for 
a  study  of  the  paleogeography,  archaeology, 
and  ethnology  of  the  western  Great  Lakes 
region,  centering  upon  the  area  within  the 
drainage  basin  of  Lake  Michigan  but  in- 
cluding regions  bordering  on  Lake  Superior 
and  Lake  Huron.  His  studies  will  embrace 
a  period  beginning  about  10,000  B.C.  and 
continuing  to  a.d.  1800. 

BIRDS   OF   THE   PHILIPPINES 

Mindanao,  also  mentioned  in  the  first 
paragraph,  refers  to  the  continuance  of 
zoological  collecting,  principally  of  birds,  by 
an  expedition  begun  in  the  Philippines 
several  years  ago  by  Dr.  D.  S.  Rabor,  Field 
Associate,  who  will  work  in  the  Mindanao 
area  and  other  regions.  Dr.  Robert  L. 
Fleming,  another  Field  Associate,  will  con- 
tinue collecting  birds  in  Nepal,  where  he  has 
been  for  several  years. 

Dr.  Sharat  K.  Roy,  Chief  Curator  of 
Geology,  will  return  to  Central  America  to 
continue  studies  of  volcanoes.  Dr.  Rainer 
Zangerl,  Curator  of  Fossil  Reptiles,  and  Dr. 
Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr.,  Curator  of  Fossil 
Invertebrates,  will  go  for  a  month  in  the 
summer  to   the  salt  marshes  of  southern 


■THIS  MONTH'S  COVBR- 


Our  cover  picture,  entitled 
"Mother  and  Child,"  one  of  sev- 
eral thousand  entries  for  the  11th 
Chicago  International  Exhibition 
of  Nature  Photography  to  be  held 
at  the  Museum  February  1 
through  February  26,  was  made 
by  J.  Musser  Miller,  of  La  Grange, 
Illinois.  This  interesting  animal 
duo  represents  the  white-mouthed 
langur,  native  to  the  high  forests 
of  Burma,  Siam,  and  Indochina. 
Langurs,  or  leaf-eating  monkeys, 
are  the  common  simians  of  India 
and  southeastern  Asia.  Their 
slender  bodies  and  limbs,  their 
very  long  tails  used  for  balancing, 
and  their  long  hands  curved  like 
hooks  for  grasping  enable  them  to 
run  and  leap  through  the  trees 
with  exceptional  speed  and  agil- 
ity. They  seldom  descend  to  the 
ground  except  for  water  and  to 
raid  cultivated  fields. 

The  photo  contest  and  exhibit 
are  jointly  sponsored  by  the  Na- 
ture Camera  Club  of  Chicago  and 
the  Museum. 


Louisiana.  There  they  will  study  recent 
sediments  for  comparison  with  the  Mecca, 
Indiana,  black  shales  and  fossils  that  have 
been  their  major  project  for  the  past  two 
years.  Curator  Richardson  will  also  make 
several  short  trips  to  Will  and  Grundy 
counties  in  Illinois  to  study  distribution  of 
fossils  in  spoil  heaps  of  strip  mines. 

MARINE   LIFE   IN   BAHAMAS 

Dr.  Fritz  Haas,  Curator  of  Lower  In- 
vertebrates, will  spend  May  and  June  in 
Florida  and  at  the  biological  station  in 
Bimini,  the  Bahamas,  collecting  and  study- 
ing specimens  of  marine  life  as  the  first  step 
in  a  long-range  program  of  preparation  of 
exhibits  for  a  hall  of  marine  invertebrate 
life. 

William  D.  Turnbull,  Assistant  Curator 
of  Fossil  Vertebrates,  and  Orville  L.  Gilpin, 
Chief  Preparator  of  Fossils,  will  work  in  the 
late  summer  and  early  autumn  in  the 
Washakie  Basin  of  Wyoming.  Their  ex- 
pedition has  as  its  goal  faunal  collections 
from  each  level  of  the  Washakie  formation. 

A  number  of  staff  members  will  be  engaged 
in  a  variety  of  projects  classified  as  field  trips 
rather  than  major  expeditions.  Rupert  L. 
Wenzel,  Curator  of  Insects,  will  collect 
histerid  beetles  and  other  insects  in  the  Cum- 
berland Mountains  of  eastern  Tennessee. 
Henry  S.  Dybas,  Associate  Curator  of  In- 
sects, will  collect  samples  of  microscopic 
fauna  in  northeastern  areas  of  the  United 
States.  Loren  P.  Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes, 
(Continued  on  page  S,  column  1) 


February,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  S 


BEST    EN    NATURE    PHOTOS    ON    EXHIBITION    THIS    MONTH 


FEBRUARY  is  Nature-Photo  Month  at 
the  Museum. 
From  February  1  through  February  26 
several  hundred  photographs  of  animal  life, 
plant  life,  and  scenery  judged  to  be  the  best 
from  among  several  thousand  submitted  by 
contestants  all  over  the  world  will  be  dis- 
played in  Stanley  Field  Hall.  Several  hun- 
dred color-transparencies  will  be  projected  in 
James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum  at 


bition  of  Nature  Photography,  an  annual 
event  sponsored  jointly  by  the  Nature 
Camera  Club  of  Chicago  and  the  Museum. 
This  exhibit,  the  largest  in  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  nature  photography 
and  one  of  the  largest  photography  exhibits 
of  any  sort,  is  the  result  of  much  work  by 
enthusiastic  members  of  the  Nature  Camera 
Club  as  well  as  the  effort  of  hundreds  of 
amateur    and    professional    photographers 


•JUNIPER'- AN  ENTRY  IN  NATURE  PHOTO  EXHIBIT 
Submitted  in  General  Division  (landscapes,  etc.)  by  Gertrude  L.  Pool  of  Palo  Alto,  California. 


2:30  o'clock  on  two  Sunday  afternoons, 
February  12  and  February  19.  These  three 
events — the  Stanley  Field  Hall  exhibit  of 
photographic  prints  and  the  two  theatre 
showings  of  color  transparencies — comprise 
the  Eleventh  Chicago  International  Exhi- 


submitting  pictures.  Camera  club  members 
have  devoted  hours  in  evening  and  weekend 
sessions  to  processing  the  thousands  of  en- 
tries and  doing  all  the  clerical  tasks  required 
to  safeguard  the  pictures  and  assure  even- 
tual return  to  their  owners.     Five  judges 


EXPEDITIONS- 

(Continued  from  page  2) 

will  engage  in  research  on  West  Coast  fishes 
at  Los  Angeles,  San  Francisco,  and  Stanford 
University.  Dr.  Robert  H.  Denison,  Cu- 
rator of  Fossil  Fishes,  will  collect  Devonian 
fishes  in  quarries  in  northern  Michigan  and 
will  prospect  in  New  York  state.  Dr.  John 
W.  Thieret,  Curator  of  Economic  Botany, 
will  collect  economic  plants  of  the  Midwest 
for  the  study  collections  and  for  revision  of 
the  economic  botany  exhibits. 

George  Langford,  Curator  of  Fossil  Plants, 
will  make  a  field  trip  with  Chief  Preparator 
Gilpin  to  Lower  Eocene  and  Upper  Cre- 
taceous clays  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi 


and  to  Pennsylvanian  deposits  of  Will 
County,  Illinois,  with  Dr.  and  Mrs.  R.  H. 
Whitfield,  Associates  in  the  Division  of 
Fossil  Plants.  Miss  Elaine  Bluhm,  Assistant 
in  Archaeology,  will  continue  her  archae- 
ological investigations  in  the  Chicago  area, 
conducted  during  the  past  two  years  in 
association  with  members  of  the  Earth 
Science  Club  of  Northern  Illinois.  Taxi- 
dermist Carl  W.  Cotton  will  spend  some 
time  in  February  at  the  American  Museum 
of  Natural  History  in  New  York  and  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington, 
D.C.,  for  consultations  with  colleagues  in 
the  taxidermic  arts  and  for  studies  of  new 
exhibition  techniques  that  may  be  applicable 
to  future  work  in  this  Museum. 


in  day-long  sessions  have  performed  the 
difficult  task  of  carefully  appraising  each  of 
the  thousands  of  pictures  submitted  and 
finally  selecting  those  worthy  of  display  and 
those  to  be  awarded  medals  or  ribbons. 
This  board  of  judges  was  composed  of 
William  J.  Beecher,  Naturalist  of  the  Cook 
County  Forest  Preserve  District;  Philip 
Hershkovitz,  Curator  of  Mammals  at  the 
Museum;  John  W.  Mulder,  Ranger-Natura- 
list of  the  National  Park  Service;  and 
George  W.  Blaha  and  George  M.  Wood, 
well-known  in  Chicago  for  their  own  work 
with  cameras. 

Each  of  the  two  divisions  in  the  exhibit, 
prints  and  color  slides,  is  divided  into  three 
classifications:  animal  life,  plant  life  and 
general  (scenery,  clouds,  geological  forma- 
tions, etc.).  First  prize  in  each  classification 
of  each  division  is  a  medal;  in  addition, 
ribbons  are  awarded  to  many  others  as 
honorable-mention  awards.  The  Nature 
Division  of  the  Photographic  Society  of 
America  also  awards  two  special  prizes  for 
the  best  photographic  work  using  comple- 
mentary colors  and  adjacent  colors.  Names 
of  winners  are  placed  on  a  bronze  plaque, 
contributed  by  Mrs.  Myrtle  R.  Walgreen, 
herself  a  camera  enthusiast  and  an  active 
member  of  the  Nature  Camera  Club.  A 
catalogue  with  reproductions  of  award- 
winning  photographs  will  be  published  by 
the  camera  club.  This  Bulletin  went  to 
press  before  the  list  of  winners  was  available, 
but  their  names  will  appear  in  the  next 
issue. 

With  this  year's  exhibit  now  ready  for 
inspection  by  the  public,  the  contestants 
have  already  been  notified  of  their  success 
or  failure,  and  many  are  doubtlessly  think- 
ing of  what  to  do  for  next  year's  nature- 
photo  contest  and  show. 


MUSEUM  OFFICERS 
RE-ELECTED 

All  officers  of  the  Museum  who  served  in 
1955  were  re-elected  for  1956  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  held  on 
January  16.  With  the  new  term,  Stanley 
Field  has  now  begun  his  forty-eighth  year 
as  President.  The  others  retained  in  office 
are:  Marshall  Field,  First  Vice-President; 
Hughston  M.  McBain,  Second  Vice-Presi- 
dent; Joseph  N.  Field,  Third  Vice-President; 
Solomon  A.  Smith,  Treasurer;  Dr.  Clifford 
C.  Gregg,  Director  and  Secretary;  and  John 
R.  Millar,  Assistant  Secretary. 

President  Field's  tenure  of  office  corre- 
sponds with  the  most  active  period  of  ex- 
pansion and  development  of  the  Museum  in 
expeditions,  in  scope  of  exhibits,  and  in  ex- 
tent of  research  and  publications.  Plans  for 
the  present  building  were  brought  to  fruition 
after  his  accession  to  the  presidency. 


Page  1> 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


February,  1956 


COLLECTION  OF  BEETLES  ARRIVES  FROM  VIENNA 


By  RUPERT  L.  WENZEL 

CURATOR  OF  INSECTS 

DURING  the  first  week  of  January,  the 
staff  of  the  Division  of  Insects  wel- 
comed a  present  that  had  arrived  on  the 
last  working-day  of  December,  a  little  too 
late  to  be  included  in  the  Christmas  cele- 


Dr.  Eduard  Knirsch,  a  Viennese  dentist 
who  was  an  amateur  coleopterist  (beetle 
specialist)  and  who  built  up  significant  gen- 
eral and  specialized  collections  of  beetles. 
One  of  these  collections  was  accumulated  by 
Dr.  Karl  Brancsik,  of  Trencsen  (later  in 
Czechoslovakia),  who  had  been  an  adviser 


MORE  THAN  A  TON  OF   BEETLES  ARRIVES 

Much  manpower  is  required  to  move  huge  packing-case  from  Vienna  onto  Museum's   receiving   platform, 

an  elevator  that  carries  shipment  from  outdoors  into  basement  freight  room.    The  crate,  6  by  6  by  7  feet, 

contains  approximately  119,000  specimens.     These  include  both  European  and  worldwide  collections. 


bration  but  in  time  for  the  New  Year's 
greeting.  The  gift — from  the  Museum's 
Board  of  Trustees — was  contained  in  a  large 
packing  case,  6  by  6  by  7  feet  and  weighing 
2,600  pounds,  large  even  by  museum  stand- 
ards, shipped  from  Vienna,  Austria.  The 
case  contained  a  collection — more  properly, 
two  collections — of  approximately  119,000 
beetles.  Its  arrival  marked  the  successful 
culmination  of  negotiations  and  plans  begun 
more  than  six  months  previously,  but  that 
had  their  origin  in  plans  and  hopes  dating 
back  a  good  many  years. 

In  the  hectic  week  that  followed  the  ar- 
rival and  unpacking  of  the  collection,  five 
questions  were  so  repeatedly  asked  that  it 
seems  desirable  to  answer  them  here,  at 
least  in  part.  The  questions  were:  What  is 
it?  Why  was  it  purchased?  How  do  you 
find  out  about  such  collections?  How  did  you 
go  about  getting  it?  And  finally,  why  on 
earth  was  the  whole  collection  packed  in  one 
tremendous  box  instead  of  in  several  smaller 
boxes  that  could  be  more  easily  handled? 

The  collection  actually  consists  of  two 
separate  collections,  both  purchased  from 


to  Emperor  Franz  Josef  and  a  professor  of 
higher  physics  in  Trencsen.  He  was  an 
ardent  amateur  naturalist  and  had  accumu- 
lated significant  collections  of  mollusks, 
bugs,  flies,  bees  and  wasps,  grasshoppers  and 
their  allies,  and  beetles.  His  general  world- 
collection  of  beetles 
consisted  of  about 
150,000  specimens  re- 
presenting 35,000 
identified  species. 

Shortly  after  Bran- 
csik's  death  in  1915, 
his  beetle  collection 
was  sold  to  Dr. 
Knirsch.  The  col- 
lection at  present  con- 
sists of  about  67,000 
specimens  represent- 
ing about  20,000  iden- 
tified species  (parts  of 
it — containing  certain 
large  families — had 
been  disposed  of  before 
it    was    acquired    by 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum). 
The  remaining  valuable  series  of  identified 
beetles,  particularly  from  Africa,  Australia, 
Europe,  and  the  New  World  tropics  help 
to  fill  out  our  world  representation  of  iden- 
tified material  to  the  extent  that  we  now 
have  some  of  the  more  important  genera 
at  least  represented  by  "signposts"  that 
will  aid  us  in  identifying,  organizing,  and 
handling  unidentified  research  materials 
from  these  parts  of  the  world.  Before  the 
acquisition  of  the  Brancsik  Collection,  we 
had  almost  no  African  material. 

The  second  collection,  of  about  53,000 
specimens  representing  about  8,500  species 
consists  of  Eurasian  and  North  African 
beetles  and  was  formed  by  Knirsch  himself. 
It  is  a  palearctic  collection;  that  is,  it  con- 
sists of  specimens  from  the  Old  World  north- 
temperate  zone  (see  map).  Such  collections 
are  of  particular  importance  to  students  of 
the  North  American  insect  fauna  because 
of  the  close  relationships  that  exist  between 
many  of  the  animals  of  the  Old  and  New 
World  (nearctic)  north-temperate  zones, 
which  together  constitute  the  zoogeographic 
region  called  the  holarctic. 

RESEARCH   SCOPE   BROADENED 

In  the  past,  entomologists  of  the  United 
States  largely  confined  their  studies  to  North 
American  insects.  Our  fauna  was  large  and 
unknown  and  the  entomologists  engaged  in 
classifying  the  American  species  felt  that 
they  had  enough  to  do  without  venturing 
abroad.  Further,  the  important  world- 
collections  so  necessary  for  studies  of  the 
insects  of  other  parts  of  the  world  were  in 
Europe  and  thus  were  essentially  unavail- 
able to  American  workers.  Time  and  events 
have  caused  the  world  to  shrink  for  United 
States  entomologists,  too.  More  than  ever 
before  they  recognize  that  the  more  pro- 
vincial their  studies  are,  the  less  valuable 
they  are.  They  particularly  realize  that 
because  of  the  many  genera  and  species  that 
are  common  to  North  America  and  Eurasia, 
(Continued  on  page  7,  column  1) 


o 


Holarctic  region 

Areas  of  palearctic  collection 


GEOGRAPHIC  SOURCES  OF  BEETLE  COLLECTIONS 

Map  of  the  world  showing  holarctic  region  (shaded)  and  areas  (solid  black) 
well  represented  by  Knirsch  Collection. 


February,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


PREHISTORIC    CULTURE   OF   CHICAGO    AREA   UNCOVERED 


By  ELAINE  BLUHM 

ASSISTANT  IN  ARCHAEOLOGY 

and  DAVID  J.  WENNER,  Jr. 

EARLY  IN  JUNE,  1953,  a  Cook  County 
Forest  Preserve  superintendent,  John 
Eenigenburg,  learned  that  a  new  super- 
highway was  to  pass  over  an  area  in  the 
forest  where  many  Indian  artifacts  had  been 


the  crew  worked  carefully  with  no  compen- 
sation other  than  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  they  were  contributing  to  scientific  re- 
search. 

In  terms  of  area  tested  and  amount  of 
material  recovered,  the  dig  represented  the 
largest  scientific  excavation  ever  conducted 
in  the  Chicago  area  and  one  of  the  largest 


CHICAGO  AREA  'DIG' 

Excavation  of  prehistoric  Indian  site  was  begun  by  classic  archaeological  method:  opening  selected  squares, 
in  this  case  about  five  feet  in  dimensions.    The  earth  removed  was  then  systematically  sifted  for  artifacts. 


found.  Because  he  believed  that  this  site 
might  be  important,  members  of  the  Mu- 
seum staff  were  notified  of  its  location. 
During  that  spring  and  summer,  members 
of  the  Earth  Science  Club  of  Northern 
Illinois  had  been  conducting  a  survey  (under 
the  direction  of  Wenner)  of  archaeological 
sites  in  the  Chicago  area.  When  the  notice 
of  the  site  in  the  forest  preserve  came  to  the 
Museum,  we  visited  it  and  decided  that  it 
would  be  well  to  excavate  part  of  it  before 
it  was  destroyed. 

Members  of  the  Earth  Science  Club 
agreed  to  do  the  digging  and  to  be  respon- 
sible for  collecting  and  cleaning  the  speci- 
mens. A  permit  to  excavate  was  granted 
the  group  by  Charles  G.  Sauers  of  the  Cook 
County  Forest  Preserve  District,  with  the 
provision  that  the  specimens  be  sent  to 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  and  the 
University  of  Illinois  so  that  they  would  be 
available  to  students  for  study  in  the  future. 
Then  the  work  began. 

The  Hoxie  Farm  Site,  as  it  was  named, 
was  excavated,  under  our  direction,  in  ten 
weekends  during  the  summer  by  members 
of  the  Earth  Science  Club  and  other  in- 
terested amateur  archaeologists.  Usually 
the  weather  was  hot  and  disagreeable,  but 


in  the  state.  The  number  of  specimens 
found  and  the  information  obtained  from 
the  site  about  its  former  inhabitants  stand 
as  a  tribute  to  this  group  of  excavators.  The 
success  of  the  work  also  must  be  credited  to 
the  kindness  and  co-operation  of  Mr. 
Eenigenburg  and  Andrew  Ross,  of  the  forest 
preserve  staff,  who  realized  the  value  of  the 
site  and  protected  it  from  vandalism  during 
the  weekdays  that  we  could  not  be  there. 

Archaeological  sites  in  the  Chicago  area 
frequently  are  not  very  large  or  very  rich, 
and  many  are  doubtlessly  destroyed  as  the 
city  and  suburbs  expand.  Therefore  it  is 
important  that  we  locate  and  protect  the  few 
that  remain  so  that  they  may  be  studied  and 
the  story  of  the  early  Indian  inhabitants  of 
the  area  may  be  revealed  before  it  is  too  late. 

The  Hoxie  Farm  Site  was  located  on 
a  sandy  ridge  about  fifteen  feet  above 
a  stream.  Records  by  early  settlers  in- 
dicate that  as  late  as  1850  this  stream  was 
navigable  by  small  boats  and  that  the  low- 
land to  the  north  and  east  was  a  swampy 
area  that  attracted  many  birds  and  other 
animals.  The  quantity  of  animal  bones 
recovered  from  the  excavation  indicates  that 
this  condition  must  have  prevailed  in  abo- 
riginal times.    Deer,  elk,  raccoons,  beavers, 


ducks,  turkeys,  turtles,  and  many  fishes 
were  represented  in  the  collection  (presum- 
ably these  animals  were  used  as  food  by  the 
Indians).  To  the  south  and  southeast  and 
across  the  stream  were  fields  suitable  for 
agriculture.  Thus  this  site,  with  sandy  soil 
that  provided  good  drainage  and  dry  footing 
for  houses,  land  for  cultivation,  water  for 
household  needs  and  transportation,  and  an 
abundance  of  mammals,  birds,  and  fish  for 
food,  satisfied  all  the  requirements  of  the 
aboriginal  inhabitants  of  our  area  who  had 
to  utilize  every  resource  in  order  to  sustain 
their  primitive  society. 

FIREPITS   AND  BURIALS   POUND 

At  the  beginning  of  the  project  we  ex- 
tended a  long  line  down  the  length  of  the 
site  and  divided  the  area  into  five-foot 
squares.  Selected  five-foot  squares  were 
then  excavated,  the  soil  from  each  being 
removed  in  six-inch  layers.  All  objects 
recovered  were  sacked  and  identified  by 
square  and  level,  so  that  we  would  know 
where  each  had  been  found.  Walls  and  floors 
of  the  squares  were  carefully  smoothed, 
and  firepits,  refuse  pits,  burials,  and  other 
features  found  in  the  soil  were  plotted  on 
graph  paper.     In  addition,  the  whole  site 


oooo  oootwmoc 


sT00' 


SI 


A 

INSTRUMENT    STATIONS 

zzz 

ROAD 

URKD   WIRC   FENCE 

aoa 

HEDGE  ROW 

x 

THEE 

r:::::i 

1  ■  :■.»»*  n  !    IDE* 

m 

TRACTOR    TRENCH 

ORE)     STAKES 

HOXIE  FARM  SITE  -  I  l-Ck-336 

THORNTON  TOWNSHIP 
COOK   COUNTY,  LLMOIS 

SCALE 

«0  *t£T 


HOXIE  FARM  SITE 
Map  shows  total  area  that  has  been  excavated. 

was  mapped,  using  surveyors'  instruments, 
and  thus  we  now  have  a  record  of  all  of  the 
excavated  area. 

The  major  purpose  of  any  archaeological 
excavation  is  to  find  out  how  the  inhabitants 
lived,  what  kinds  of  tools  and  objects  they 
made  and  used,  and,  if  possible,  when  they 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


February,  1956 


lived  there,  how  long  the  site  was  occupied, 
and  who  they  might  have  been.  This  in- 
formation is  obtained  by  study,  with  plans 
and  notes  of  the  site,  of  the  artifacts, 
skeletons,  animal  bones,  and  objects  in 
refuse  pits  and  by  comparing  this  material 
with  that  from  other  sites. 

Once  the  pottery  and  stone  and  bone 
artifacts  were  catalogued,  the  job  of  study 
and  analysis  began,  and  it  is  not  yet  com- 
plete. The  animal  bone  was  turned  over  to 
an  osteologist  and  the  shell  tp  Dr.  Fritz 
Haas,  Curator  of  Lower  Invertebrates  in  the 
Museum's  Department  of  Zoology,  for  iden- 
tification. Results  of  their  work  were 
studied  by  Philip  Young,  a  student  member 
of  the  expedition. 

THOUSANDS  OF  POTTERY  FRAGMENTS 
More  than  10,000  potsherds  (broken 
pieces  of  pottery)  were  recovered  from  the 
site.  More  than  90  per  cent  of  these  are 
shell-tempered — that  is,  when  the  pottery 
was  made,  the  Indians  mixed  tiny  pieces  of 
ground  clamshells  in  the  moist  clay  to 
prevent  it  from  cracking  when  it  was  fired. 
Shell-tempered  pottery  in  the  Middle  West 
is  an  indication  of  a  late  site,  dated,  we  guess, 
from  between  a.d.  1300  to  1600.  Most  of 
these  sherds  indicate  that  the  pottery  ves- 
sels were  of  globular  shape  with  outflaring 
rims  and  sometimes  small  handles  on  the 
sides.  Surfaces  of  most  sherds  were  smooth- 
ed, but  others  were  cordmarked.  Many  pots 
were  small,  between  6  and  10  inches  in 
diameter,  but  some  sherds  indicate  that  the 
Indians  also  made  much  larger  containers. 
The  usual  decoration  on  the  pottery  con- 
sists of  wide  trailed  or  incised  lines  in  pat- 
terns of  chevrons  or  parallel  lines. 

Some  of  the  pottery  was  grit-tempered 
and  had  been  traded  perhaps  from  Indian 
villages  near  what  is  now  the  Northwest 
Side  of  Chicago  or  Joliet.  Other  sherds 
resemble  types  found  in  northern  Indiana, 
Ohio,  and  southern  Wisconsin. 

In  addition  to  the  pottery,  we  found  more 
than  1,200  stone  tools  and  some  of  bone  and 
antler.  Most  of  the  stone  tools  were  chipped 
from  cream-colored  flint  found  in  nearby 
creeks  and  glacial  deposits.  More  than  half 
of  the  tools  were  small  scrapers  with  re- 
touched edges,  used  for  smoothing  hides  as 
well  as  other  things. 

There  were  slender,  tapering  flint  drills 
and  small  thin  flakes  with  sharpened  edges, 
probably  used  much  as  we  use  paring  knives 
and  pocket  knives  today.  Projectile  points, 
or  arrowheads,  represented  one-fourth  of  the 
chipped  stone  artifacts;  most  of  them  were 
small,  thin,  well-made  triangular  points. 

There  were  also  some  ground  stone  tools 
in  the  collection — sandstone  pieces  with 
grooves  used  to  straighten  arrow  shafts  and 
to  sharpen  awls;  flat  shallow  stones  and 
smaller  hand  stones  used  for  grinding  corn 
and,  in  one  case,  for  grinding  red  pigment; 
and  rounded  pebbles  used  as  hammerstones 
for  chipping  flint. 


There  was  an  unusual  variety  of  bone  and 
antler  tools  at  the  site.  Antler  tips  were 
hollowed  out  for  fastening  on  a  shaft  to 
serve  as  arrowheads.  Other  antler  tips  were 
found  that  showed  use  as  tools  for  chipping 
flint.  Fragments  of  ribs  and  long  bones 
served  as  awls,  and  one  was  perforated  for 
use  as  a  needle.  Other  fragments  were 
smoothed  for  use,  we  postulate,  as  counters 
in  a  gambling  game.  One  rib  fragment  was 
notched,  and  we  believe  it  served  as  a  musi- 
cal rasp,  making  a  sound  somewhat  like  that 
of  a  washboard.  Short  sections  of  hollow 
bird-bones  were  cut  and  smoothed  to  form 
tubular  bone  heads.     A  whole  turtle  shell 


PREHISTORIC  CHICAGOAN 
An   extended  burial   found   on   Hoxie   Farm   Site. 

was  found  that  may  have  been  a  musical 
rattle.  The  largest  bone  tools  were  the  hoes 
made  from  the  shoulder  blades  of  the  deer 
and  elk.  These  were  often  found  in  pairs 
on  the  top  of  cache  pits. 

The  excavation  revealed  a  little  about  the 
village  itself.  Many  round-bottomed  pits 
were  uncovered,  particularly  in  the  southern 
half  of  the  site.  These  may  have  been  used 
originally  for  storage  of  corn  and  later  were 
filled  in  with  refuse.  A  few  firepits  were 
also  found.  We  searched  diligently  for 
evidence  of  houses,  but  found  only  one  or 
two  places  where  sturdy  posts  had  once 
been  driven  into  the  ground  and  several 
traces  of  what  may  have  been  smaller  posts. 
This  is  not  conclusive  evidence,  but  it 
suggests  that  perhaps  the  Indians  lived  in 
houses  supported  by  sturdy  center  posts  and 
light  superstructure  built  on  smaller  posts 
that  were  not  planted  very  firmly  in  the 
ground.  Similar  houses  with  mat  or  bark 
walls  and  roofs  are  known  to  have  been  used 
by  historic  tribes  in  this  area. 


The  burials  were  the  most  exciting  finds 
in  the  site.  Eleven  were  recovered  from  the 
burial  area  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
village;  others  were  uncovered  but  in  some 
cases  the  bone  was  so  soft  that  it  could  not 
be  removed  without  crumbling.  The  bodies 
had  been  placed  on  their  backs  in  shallow 
rectangular  pits.  Often  a  small  pot  was 
placed  near  the  head  of  the  burial.  Near  the 
shoulder  of  one  individual  had  been  placed 
an  otter  skull,  covered  with  a  piece  of 
copper  and  powdered  red  ochre.  The  otter 
has  ceremonial  significance  for  some  Indian 
groups  in  this  area  and  may  indicate  the 
man  was  an  important  member  of  his  family 
or  clan.  Other  burials  had  arrowheads  or 
copper  ornaments  placed  with  them. 

cultural  traits  traced 
All  in  all,  our  summer  excavations  at  the 
Hoxie  Farm  site  were  well  worth  while.  We 
learned  much  about  the  Indians  who  lived 
in  that  village  on  the  edge  of  the  creek.  We 
know  they  hunted  and  fished,  and  we  assume 
they  planted  corn  and  other  crops  nearby, 
although  we  found  only  the  agricultural 
tools  and  none  of  the  corn.  Their  houses  are 
still  something  of  a  mystery,  but  we  have 
much  evidence  about  their  storage  pits  and 
firepits.  We  know  they  buried  their  dead 
in  an  area  somewhat  apart  from  the  main 
living-area  of  the  village,  with  some  care  and 
ceremony,  placing  objects  with  them  that 
show  their  daily  life  or  perhaps  prepared 
them  for  the  journey  to  the  other  world. 
Their  tools  were  well  made  and  reflect  much 
of  their  daily  life  and  economy.  Pipe  frag- 
ments were  found,  which  indicates  smoking, 
a  ceremonial  activity  among  the  Indians. 
The  bone  rasp  and  possible  turtle-shell 
rattle  are  indications  of  their  musical  know- 
ledge. 

Trade  was  carried  on  with  other  areas  and 
sites.  The  copper  probably  came  from 
northern  Michigan,  a  pipe  found  at  the  site 
came  from  Wisconsin,  and  some  of  the 
pottery  may  have  been  traded  from,  or 
influenced  by,  groups  in  Wisconsin,  Indiana, 
and  other  sites  in  Illinois. 

Exactly  when  this  site  was  occupied  we 
do  not  know.  We  found  no  trade  silver  or 
brass,  which  suggests  the  Indians  lived  there 
some  time  before  the  white  men  came  into 
the  area  in  the  latter  part  of  the  17th  cen- 
tury. Probably  the  site  was  occupied  some 
time  around  a.d.  1500  to  1600.  Who  these 
Indians  were  is  still  an  unsolved  mystery, 
but  perhaps  if  we  excavate  other  late  sites 
and  study  documented  sites  in  the  area  we 
may  someday  be  able  to  identify  this  group. 
We  can  now  say  that  they  might  have  been 
Miami  or  Pottawatomi.  As  is  true  of  every 
archaeological  excavation,  we  have  un- 
covered some  information,  but,  in  addition, 
we  have  found  more  problems  that  can  be 
solved  only  by  future  work. 


Sunday  afternoon  lectures  and  films  will 
be  given  at  the  Museum  in  March  and  April. 


February,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


BEETLES- 

(Continued  from  page  i) 

it  is  undesirable — and  in  many  cases  virtually 
impossible — to  do  certain  types  of  work  on 
the  fauna  of  the  one  subregion  without 
reference  to  that  of  the  other.  Yet,  good 
representative  general  collections  of  Euro- 
pean insects  have  been  largely  lacking  in 
this  country.  Our  staff  has  long  wanted  to 
acquire  such  collections,  but  no  opportu- 
nities arose  that  would  make  it  possible  to 
translate  these  wishes  into  reality.  The 
collections  simply  were  not  being  offered  on 
the  market. 

In  the  spring  of  1955, 1  attended  a  meeting 
of  insect  curators  in  Washington,  D.C.,  that 
was  held  to  discuss  mutual  problems  and 
policies,  and  to  exchange  information  on 
subjects  ranging  from  collections  to  tech- 
nique. One  of  the  items  discussed  was  the 
desirability  of  stressing  the  need  for  Ameri- 
can entomologists  to  study  the  palearctic 
fauna,  and  the  associated  need  for  United 
States  museums  to  acquire  Eurasian  col- 
lections. Dr.  P.  J.  Darlington,  Jr.,  of  the 
Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  at  Har- 
vard, informed  me  that  they  had  recently 
been  offered  a  large  collection  of  palearctic 
beetles  by  Dr.  Knirsch  and  that  they  had 
purchased  one  large  segment,  the  ground 
beetles,  for  their  collection.  The  Harvard 
museum  was  not  in  a  position  to  purchase 
the  main  collection. 

This  information  was  surprising,  because 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  had  been 
corresponding  with  Dr.  Knirsch  since  1946 
in  connection  with  other  collections  that  he 
was  offering  for  sale  and  Knirsch  had  never 
given  any  indication  that  he  had  a  pale- 
arctic collection.  The  information  was 
passed  on  to  Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director 
of  our  Museum,  who  forwarded  an  inquiry 
about  the  collection  to  Dr.  Knirsch's  repre- 
sentative. His  answer  revealed  that  Knirsch 
still  had  the  palearctic  collection  and  that 
he  also  had  a  general  world-collection,  the 
Brancsik  collection,  that  he  was  offering  for 
sale. 

Dr.  Austin  L.  Rand,  Chief  Curator  of 
Zoology,  then  approved  a  memorandum 
submitted  to  him  by  the  Division  of  Insects 
and  recommended  to  the  Director  that 
action  be  taken  and  that  an  offer  be  made. 
This  recommendation  was  concurred  in  by 
the  Director  and  Stanley  Field,  President 
of  the  Museum. 

In  the  correspondence  that  followed, 
a  tentative  purchase  price  was  agreed  upon, 
pending  an  examination  of  the  collections 
by  a  representative  of  the  Museum.  Fortu- 
nately, Dr.  Charles  H.  Seevers,  Research 
Associate  in  our  Division  of  Insects,  was  in 
London  studying  rove  beetles  at  the  British 
Museum  (Natural  History) .  At  our  request 
he  flew  to  Vienna  and,  with  the  help  of 
Mrs.  Seevers,  examined  and  inventoried  the 
collections.  He  then  sent  us  a  critical, 
detailed,  and  comprehensive  report.    On  the 


basis  of  his  report,  it  was  decided  to  proceed 
with  the  purchase.  John  R.  Millar,  Deputy 
Director  of  the  Museum,  then  began  ar- 
rangements with  the  American  Express 
Company  in  Vienna,  and  later  in  Chicago, 
for  the  shipment  of  and  payment  for  the 
collection.  Dr.  Josef  Eiselt  of  the  Natur- 
historisches  Museum  of  Vienna  had  assisted 
me  in  packing  the  Bernhauer  Collection  for 
shipment  in  1951.  He  agreed  to  do  the  same 
work  on  the  Knirsch  collections.  During 
the  period  that  the  collection  was  being 
packed,  Dr.  Knirsch  died  and  progress  was 
delayed  for  a  short  time  pending  clarification 
of  the  legal  status  of  the  transaction.  Pay- 
ment was  made  through  a  lawyer  appointed 
by  the  Austrian  courts  as  executor  of  the 
estate,  in  favor  of  Knirsch's  widow. 

SAFEGUARDS   IN   TRANSIT 

The  final  crating  of  the  collection,  as  for 
the  Bernhauer  Collection,  was  accomplished 
by  Bauml  &  Co.,  a  Viennese  firm  that 
handled  the  packing  and  shipping  of  the 
Viennese  art  treasures  during  their  extended 
tour  of  the  United  States  following  World 
War  II.  It  was  at  their  suggestion  that  the 
collections  were  packed  in  the  single  huge 
liftvan.  Their  experience  had  been  that 
when  large  collections  of  extremely  fragile 
materials  were  packed  into  a  container  that 
could  be  lifted  only  by  a  crane,  damage  was 
reduced  to  negligible  proportions  and  fre- 
quently eliminated  altogether.  Further, 
fragments  of  the  shipment  could  not  go 
astray.  From  our  own  experience,  as  well 
as  that  of  other  institutions,  we  know  this 
to  be  a  sound  procedure  for  such  large  trans- 
oceanic shipments.  Two  large,  valuable, 
and  extremely  fragile  collections  have  now 
been  moved  from  Vienna  to  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum  without  loss  of  any  kind. 

The  complex  task  of  negotiating  for  the 
purchase,  arranging  for  permits,  packing, 
crating,  shipping,  and  payment  of  such 
a  collection  from  a  foreign  country  can  be 
fully  appreciated  only  by  those  who  have 
had  to  see  it  through.  It  is  time-consuming, 
at  times  exasperating,  and  always  sur- 
rounded by  doubts  and  difficulties,  as  Mr. 
Millar  can  testify.  But  the  day  of  arrival 
and  unpacking  that  tells  you  whether  or  not 
judgment  was  sound  and  the  fates  kind  is 
exciting  and  satisfying. 


Daily  Guide  Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 


SATURDAY  LECTURES 
BEGIN  MARCH  3 

"North  to  Adventure,"  a  lecture  by 
Frederick  Machetanz  illustrated  with  a  real- 
ly thrilling  color  motion-picture  of  life  in 
the  Yukon  country,  will  be  presented  in  the 
James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum  on 
March  3  at  2:30  p.m.  It  is  the  opening 
program  in  the  spring  course  of  lectures  and 
films  on  science  and  travel  for  adults — the 
105th  such  series  to  be  offered  under  the 
provisions  of  the  Edward  E.  Ayer  Lecture 
Foundation  Fund.  Eight  other  lectures  will 
be  given  on  Saturday  afternoons  throughout 
March  and  April,  all  at  2:30  o'clock. 

Machetanz,  received  with  acclaim  by 
Museum  audiences  at  lectures  in  other  sea- 
sons, spent  more  than  a  year  in  exploration 
of  the  fabulous  pass  between  the  Indian 
village  of  Kaltag,  Alaska,  on  the  Yukon 
River  and  the  Bering  Sea  while  making  his 
latest  film.  He  was  accompanied  by  his 
wife  and  a  team  of  sled  dogs  headed  by 
his  famous  white  dog  Seegoo. 

A  schedule  of  the  other  eight  lectures  will 
appear  in  the  March  issue  of  the  Bulletin. 
For  all  the  programs,  a  section  of  the  theatre 
is  reserved  for  Members  of  the  Museum, 
each  of  whom  is  entitled  to  two  reserved 
seats.  Requests  for  reserved  seats  should 
be  made  in  advance  by  telephone  (W Abash 
2-9410)  or  in  writing.  Seats  will  be  held  in 
the  Member's  name  until  2:25  p.m.  on  the 
day  of  the  program. 


Free  Movies  for  Children 

Nine  free  programs  of  motion  pictures  for 
children  will  be  presented  on  Saturday 
mornings  throughout  March  and  April  in  the 
spring  series  offered  by  the  James  Nelson 
and  Anna  Louise  Raymond  Foundation. 
First  program,  on  March  3,  will  be  "North 
to  Adventure,"  and  Frederick  Machetanz, 
the  explorer  who  made  the  film,  will  be 
present  to  give  a  children's  version  of  the 
lecture  he  will  give  for  adults  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  same  day.  No  tickets  are 
needed.  Children  are  welcome  either  alone, 
accompanied  by  parents  or  other  adults,  or 
in  groups  from  schools,  clubs,  and  other 
centers.  A  schedule  of  the  eight  other  pro- 
grams will  appear  in  the  March  Bulletin. 


Books  by  Machetanz 

Books  by  Frederick  Machetanz,  lecturer 
on  Alaska  scheduled  for  both  the  adult  and 
children's  programs  at  the  Museum  on 
March  3,  are  available  in  The  Book  Shop 
of  the  Museum.  Those  for  adults  are  Here 
Is  Alaska  ($3.50)  and  Where  Else  But 
Alaska  ($3).  Titles  for  children  are  Panuck, 
an  Eskimo  Sled  Dog  ($2.50),  On  Arctic  Ice 
($2.50),  Barney  Hits  the  Trail  ($2.50),  and 
Rick  of  High  Ridge  ($2.50). 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


February,  1956 


HUGE  WHALE  SKELETON 
RECEIVED  AS  GIFT 

The  Museum  recently  received  by  truck 
the  skeleton  of  a  California  finback  whale 
as  a  gift  from  the  Wistar  Institute  of  Anat- 
omy and  Biology,  Philadelphia.  The  skele- 
ton, which  was  originally  presented  to  the 
Institute  by  the  late  eminent  E.  D.  Cope 
and  was  exhibited  there  for  many  years, 
is  65  feet  long.  The  finback  skeleton  is 
15  feet  longer  than  the  right- whale  skeleton 
that  it  will  replace. 

Because  Chicago  is  remote  from  the  sea, 
the  skeleton  of  a  right  whale  has  for  many 
years  been  one  of  the  Museum's  major  at- 
tractions. It  will  be  gratifying  to  replace 
it  with  one  of  the  largest  of  whales. 


Annual  Attendance   Over  Million 
for   Twenty-ninth   Time 

Attendance  at  the  Museum  in  1955  ex- 
ceeded a  million,  reaching  a  total  of 
1,072,676  visitors.  Since  1926,  a  period 
of  twenty-nine  successive  years,  annual 
attendance  has  never  dropped  below  a  mil- 
lion. 

As  in  other  years,  comparatively  few 
visitors  (129,151,  or  barely  over  12  per  cent) 
paid  the  25-cent  admission  charged  adults 
on  Mondays,  Tuesdays,  Wednesdays,  and 
Fridays.  The  overwhelming  majority 
(943,525)  came  on  the  three  free  days  or 
belonged  to  those  groups  to  whom  admission 
is  free  at  all  times  (Members  of  the  Museum, 
children,  teachers,  members  of  the  armed 
forces,  etc.). 

The  number  of  visitors  coming  into  the 
building  is,  of  course,  an  incomplete  measure 
of  the  Museum's  effectiveness.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  of  people  are  repeatedly 
reached  through  extramural  activities  such 
as  the  circulation  throughout  the  school 
year  of  natural-history  exhibits  by  the  N.  W. 
Harris  Public  School  Extension  and  the 
lecturers  with  films  and  slides  sent  into  the 
schools  by  the  James  Nelson  and  Anna 
Louise  Raymond  Foundation.  Less  directly 
the  Museum's  influence  is  spread  to  count- 
less others  by  publications  of  the  Museum 
press  and  by  radio,  television,  magazines, 
and  newspapers. 


STAFF  NOTES 


Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology,  has  been  appointed  to  the  Ameri- 
can Institute  of  Biological  Sciences'  advisory 
committee  on  systematic  biology  to  the 
National  Science  Foundation  ....  Dr. 
Sharat  K.  Roy,  Chief  Curator  of  Geology, 
is  spending  several  weeks  in  Washington, 
D.C.,  at  the  United  States  National  Museum 
in  research  on  meteorites  ....  Dr.  Julian 
A.  Steyermark,  Curator  of  the  Phanero- 


gamic Herbarium,  recently  lectured  before 
the  Evanston  Garden  Club  on  his  Venezuela 
"lost  world"  expedition  ....  Loren  P. 
Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  recently  was  the 
speaker  before  the  Conservation  Council  on 
"Conservation  in  the  Great  Lakes."  .... 
Cameron  E.  Gifford,  formerly  an  assist- 
ant in  taxidermy,  has  been  appointed  Pre- 
parator  of  Fossils  in  the  Department  of 
Geology.  He  received  the  degree  of  Bache- 
lor of  Science  at  Earlham  College  in  June, 
1955,  before  he  joined  the  Museum  staff. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(December  16  to  January  13) 

Contributor 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair 

Associate  Members 

Alfred  S.  Alschuler,  Jr.,  Mrs.  Robert  T. 
Borcherdt,  F.  B.  Milhoan,  Robert  H.  Reid, 
Mrs.  William  M.  Scudder 

Annual   Members 

Lore  W.  Alford,  Milton  R.  Beasley,  W.  S. 
Bodman,  Howard  A.  Carlton,  Peter  Cola- 
darci,  M.  M.  Cole,  Walter  W.  Denman, 
F.  J.  Dittrich,  Dr.  Jerome  Fishman,  An- 
thony M.  Frale,  Elton  A.  Herrick,  Emil  T. 
Johnson,  Richard  B.  Keck,  John  0.  Kin- 
dahl,  Robert  J.  Koretz,  Maxwell  Kunin, 
Wenzel  J.  Love,  Dr.  Saul  Mackoff,  R.  E. 
McGreevy,  James  P.  McGuffin,  Louis  Nip- 
pert,  J.  V.  Paffhausen,  Lutz  Pennigsdorf, 
Carl  Dan  Pierson,  Dr.  R.  W.  Pilcher,  Mrs. 
William  F.  Ray,  James  A.  Reynolds,  Jr., 
Robert  S.  Russell,  Aaron  B.  Weiner 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of  Anthropology: 

From:  Mrs.  Edward  R.  Finnegan,  Chicago 
— pottery  jar,  Dean's  Island  Arkansas;  E.  C. 
Holden,  Chicago — object  of  horn  and  lead; 
Robert  A.  Stough,  Chicago — Chinese  rub- 
bing, Hengshan,  Hunan  Province,  China 

Department  of  Botany: 

From:  Roger  Boe,  Broadview,  Illinois — 2 
fungi;  Dr.  Fay  K.  Daily,  Indianapolis — 
alga,  New  York;  Margaret  Fox,  London, 
England — alga,  Sierra  Leone;  Dr.  Leroy  J. 
Gier,  Liberty,  Missouri — moss;  Dr.  Herbert 
Habeeb,  Grand  Falls,  New  Brunswick — 
892  algae;  Institut  National  pour  l'Etude 
Agronomique,  Belgian  Congo — 52  samples 
of  seeds  of  agricultural  Leguminosae;  Dr. 
Jacques  Rousseau,  Montreal — 2  algae;  Emil 
Sella,  Chicago — 2  lichens,  Oregon;  Dr.  I. 
Umezaki,  Maizura,  Japan — 3  algae;  M.  B. 
Valero,  Quezon  City,  Philippine  Islands — 
3  algae;  Mrs.  Marion  Wolf,  Lafayette,  La. 
— fruits  of  Cercis,  Mimosa,  Campsis,  Ipo- 
moea,  Wisteria,  3  herbarium  specimens 

Department   of  Geology: 

From:  H.  J.  Carlson,  Anchorage,  Alaska 
— jar  of  volcanic  ash;  University  of  Chicago 
— 107  fossil  plant  specimens;  Shell  Develop- 
ment Co.,  Houston,  Tex. — undetermined 
placoderm  plate,  Canada;  Dr.  and  Mrs.  R. 
H.  Whitfield,  Evanston,  111. — Lepidoderma 


MELVIN  TRAYLOR  JOINS 
CURATORIAL  STAFF 

Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Jr.,  who  has  been 
associated  with  the  Museum's  Division  of 
Birds  in  various  capacities  since  1937,  has 
been  appointed  Assistant  Curator  of  Birds. 
He  assumed  his  duties  last  month. 

Mr.  Traylor's  interest  in  birds  began  in 
his  boyhood  and  continued  as  an  adult 
hobby,  finally  leading  to  his  decision  to 
adopt  ornithology  as  a  profession.  His 
serious  work  in  ornithology  got  under  way 
with  two  collecting  expeditions  in  Yucatan 
that  he  conducted  on  behalf  of  the  Museum 
in  1937  and  in  1939-40.  Upon  his  return 
from  the  latter,  he  joined  the  Museum  staff 
on  a  volunteer  basis  as  Associate  in  the 
Division  of  Birds,  and  later  he  was  appointed 
Research  Associate.  In  1941  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Leon  Mandel  Galapagos  Expedi- 
tion, and  the  Southwest  Zoological  Expedi- 
tion. He  also  conducted  an  expedition  in 
the  Veracruz  area  in  1948.  He  is  a  graduate 
of  Harvard  University,  where  he  majored 
in  biology. 

Mr.  Traylor  joined  the  U.  S.  Marine 
Corps  in  1941,  enlisting  as  a  private.  He 
served  with  distinction  through  the  war  and 
was  commissioned  successively  as  lieutenant, 
captain,  and  major  and  won  the  Silver  Star 
for  valor  in  the  Pacific  theater.  After 
retiring  from  the  Marines  in  1946,  he  re- 
turned to  his  ornithological  studies  at  the 
Museum;  then  for  several  years  he  was 
engaged  in  private  business  ventures. 
In  his  new  position  at  the  Museum  Mr. 
Traylor  will  specialize  in  Old  World  birds, 
while  Curator  Emmet  R.  Blake  will  con- 
tinue to  give  his  attention  primarily  to  the 
New  World  collections. 


mazonense  and  collection  of  Pennsylvanian 
fossil  plant  specimens,  Braidwood,  Illinois 

Department   of   Zoology: 

From:  Chicago  Zoological  Society,  Brook- 
field,  111. — mammal,  Madagascar;  D.  Dwight 
Davis,  Richton  Park,  111. — mammal;  Fred- 
erick R.  Fechtner,  Champaign,  111. — col- 
lection of  fresh- water  clams;  U.  S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service,  Milford,  Conn. — 14  para- 
sitic snailshells;  Cameron  E.  Gifford,  Valpa- 
raiso, Ind. — 13  small  mammals,  Cook 
County;  Harry  Hoogstraal,  Cairo,  Egypt — 
43  frogs,  95  lizards,  27  snakes,  12  birdskins, 
98  mammals;  Gary  Manda,  Chicago — 5 
small  mammals;  University  of  Michigan, 
Ann  Arbor — 5  paratypical  land-shells,  South 
and  Central  America;  John  R.  Millar, 
Skokie,  111. — 7  small  mammals;  Jack  T. 
Moyer,  Hamilton,  N.Y. — 225  birdskins, 
Japan;  Oriental  Institute,  Chicago — 11  bird 
skeletons,  2  birds,  6  mammal  skeletons,  Iraq; 
Dr.  Ralph  S.  Palmer  and  Frances  Benedict, 
Albany,  N.Y. — 800  labeled  microscope  slides 
of  bat  hairs;  Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark, 
Barrington,  111. — mammal  skin;  Roland  von 
Hentig,  Chicago — 3,142  insects,  Borneo  and 
Sumatra;  Dr.  Frederick  J.  Medem,  Bogota, 
Colombia — 4  lots  of  nonmarine  shells 


PRINTED   BY  CHICAGO   NATURAL   HISTORY   MUSEUM   PRESS 


T 

RULLETIN 

LJ  Vol.27, No.3-March- 1956 

\    Chicago  Natural 

History  Museum 


HHHHHfli 


THIS    BARRIER 
WILL    BE 
v      REMOVED  ON 

DINOSAUR 
NIGHT 

*       TUESDAY 

MARCH  27 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


March,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wh.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE  BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly   of  changes   of  address. 


'SO  YOU  WORK 
IN  A  MUSEUM!' 

The  above  exclamation,  in  astonished 
voice,  and  its  complementary  question, 
"How  come?"  or  variants  thereof,  are  fre- 
quently heard  by  members  of  the  staff  of 
this  and  other  museums  when  their  occupa- 
tion is  revealed  for  the  first  time  to  friends 
and  acquaintances. 

The  question  was  recently  asked  of  Melvin 
A.  Traylor,  Jr.,  who  at  the  beginning  of  this 
year  terminated  a  career  in  business  to  join 
the  Museum  staff  in  a  full-time  position  as 
Assistant  Curator  in  the  Division  of  Birds. 
The  interrogator  was  a  reporter  for  the 
Chicago  Sun-Times,  who  scented  a  feature 
story  behind  the  announcement  of  the 
appointment. 

"Birds  are  better  than  business,"  the 
reporter  was  told  by  Traylor,  for  whom  the 
new  Museum  job  was  a  return  rather  than 
a  beginning.  He  had  first  become  associated 
with  the  Division  of  Birds  in  1937  as  a  volun- 
teer worker  and  was  a  member  of  a  number 
of  Museum  expeditions.  After  gallant  war 
service  with  the  U.  S.  Marines,  Traylor  had 
resumed  his  volunteer  activities  at  the  Mu- 
seum. In  the  next  few  years  friends  kept  up 
a  constant  pressure,  he  told  the  reporter. 

"They  told  me  I  was  wasting  my  life. 
They  said  I  would  never  know  what  I  might 


be  able  to  accomplish  in  business  if  I  didn't 
give  it  a  try.  I  began  to  wonder  what  the 
answer  might  be." 

Finally,  in  1951,  Traylor  and  two  other 
young  men  formed  the  Allied  Barge  Com- 
pany. A  little  later  Traylor  was  offered  and 
accepted  the  presidency  of  a  toy-manufac- 
turing company. 

"I  had  offices  in  a  Loop  building  opposite 
two  second-hand  book  stores,"  he  said. 
"I  would  spend  most  of  my  lunch  hour  in 
one  or  the  other  hunting  for  good  buys  in 
books  on  science.  That  became  the  one 
happy  hour  of  my  day.  It  was  the  only 
time  I  felt  free  of  pressures.  My  business 
work  did  not  leave  me  with  the  feeling  I  was 
doing  anything  constructive.  In  the  Mu- 
seum's work  I  had  had  a  sense  of  accom- 
plishment. The  study  of  birds  helps  man 
toward  an  understanding  of  all  of  nature. 

"Since  my  return  to  the  Museum  several 
businessmen  friends  have  told  me  they  envy 
me.  They're  not  happy  in  their  work  but 
they  have  such  a  stake  in  it  through  time 
spent  and  big  paychecks  coming  in  that  they 
can't  bear  to  give  it  up  and  turn  to  some- 
thing more  appealing. 

"But  I  haven't  found  any  unhappy  people 
working  in  the  Museum.  They're  here 
because  it's  here  they  want  to  be." 


BROTHER  LEON 

(Dr.  Joseph  Sylvestre  Sauget  y  Barbier) 
1871—1955 

With  the  death  on  November  20,  1955,  of 
Brother  Leon  the  Museum  lost  one  of  its 
highly  esteemed  Corresponding  Members. 
Born  December  31,  1871,  in  Mesnay-les- 
Arbois,  France,  he  was  educated  in  Besancon 
and  Dijon.  He  joined  the  order  of  Christian 
Brothers  in  1885  and  taught  mathematics 
and  natural  science  in  France,  Canada,  and 
Cuba,  where  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  his 
life.  His  special  field  of  interest  was  the 
vegetation  of  Cuba,  particularly  its  palms. 
Renowned  professor  at  the  Colegio  de  la 
Salle  in  Vedado,  Havana,  he  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  that  institution. 

A  monument  to  the  founders  stands  in 
the  patio  of  the  Colegio  in  Vedado,  but  the 
monument  entirely  his  own  will  be  the  her- 
barium he  established  and  the  publications 
he  wrote.  With  Brother  Marie  Victorin  of 
the  University  of  Montreal,  he  collaborated 
in  Itineraires  Botaniques,  an  account  of  their 
explorations  of  the  vegetation  of  Cuba.  His 
outstanding  work  is  the  Flora  of  Cuba,  three 
volumes  of  which  have  been  issued,  while 
the  fourth  and  last  is  still  in  the  very  com- 
petent hands  of  his  pupil  and  collaborator 
Brother  Alain  of  the  same  Colegio  de  la 


-THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


The  barriers  that  have  aroused 
the  curiosity  of  the  young  visitors 
in  our  cover  picture  will  be  re- 
moved on  Dinosaur  Night  (the 
evening  of  Tuesday,  March  27)  to 
reveal  to  Members  of  the  Museum 
and  guests  the  completed  exhibit 
of  Gorgosaurus  -  and  Lambeo- 
saurus.  Details  of  this  event  will 
be  found  on  page  3.  On  pages  4 
and  5  are  pictures  of  stages  in  the 
long  and  intricate  process  of  pre- 
paration. 


Salle,  co-author  also  of  the  second  and  third 
volumes. 

In  recognition  of  his  outstanding  work, 
Brother  Leon  received  in  1927  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Science,  honoris  causa,  from 
Columbia  University  and  many  other  honors 
from  various  institutions.  On  May  16, 
1949,  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Chicago 
Natural  History  Museum  elected  Brother 
Leon  a  Corresponding  Member. 


DINOSAUR    NIGHT 

Tuesday,   March   27 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(January  16  to  February  13) 

Contributor 

Hughston  M.  McBain 

Associate   Members 

Robert  A.  Kroeschell,  John  F.  Milliken, 
Mrs.  Harry  J.  O'Rourke,  Dr.  Edward  L. 
Schrey,  Lester  N.  Selig,  Carl  J.  Sharp, 
Leonard  P.  Spacek,  John  Stewart,  S.  C. 
Waldman,  Dr.  Paul  K.  Weichselbaum 

Non-Resident  Associate  Member 

Gabriel  N.  Vas 

Annual   Members 

J.  Kenneth  Baird,  George  L.  Bower,  Dr. 
Paul  L.  Bower,  Alfred  J.  Brennan,  Richard 
P.  Brown,  Jr.,  John  C.  Chatterton,  Joseph 
F.  Clary,  Andrew  F.  Conlin,  C.  W.  Duncan, 
Dr.  N.  Ercoli,  Mrs.  Anna  Erichsen,  Cyril 
Ewart,  Isadore  Fishman,  Julius  Fishman, 
Mrs.  Mildred  C.  Fletcher,  Allyn  J.  Franke, 
Miss  Mary  Garcia,  Don  R.  Grimes,  George 
J.  Handzik,  James  Hansen,  Mrs.  Nina  Har- 
rell,  John  G.  Heiland,  George  J.  Heitz, 
Howard  J.  Johnson,  Mrs.  Ray  W.  Leonard, 
Edward  Logrbrinck,  Charles  O.  Main,  Leo 
S.  Maranz,  Howard  T.  Markey,  W.  Stirling 
Maxwell,  John  C.  McWilliams,  Dr.  Irene 
T.  Mead,  Chester  F.  Mikucki,  Wesley  A. 
Miner,  Robert  T.  Morley,  Albert  E.  Noel, 
DeWitt  O'Kieffe,  Robert  E.  Oscar,  John  C. 
Ott,  Walter  C.  Paeth,  F.  W.  Pain,  Sidney 

A.  Paradee,  Roy  J.  Pierson,  John  J.  Poister, 

B.  B.  Provus,  Theodore  H.  Reed,  Joseph  E. 
Rich,  Dr.  William  L.  Riker,  Dr.  John 
Francis  Ruzic,  Dr.  Wilma  C.  Stafford,  Wirt 
W.  Stafford,  Fred  W.  Storner,  Harry  R. 
Swanson,  Kenneth  R.  Turney,  Walter  Yust, 
Frank  O.  Zimmermann 


March,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


PageS 


DINOSAUR   NIGHT'    FOR   MUSEUM   MEMBERS-MARCH    27 


(Pictures  on  pages  4  and  5) 

GORGOSAURUS,  a  giant  dinosaur  26 
feet  long,  with  his  head  towering  to 
a  height  of  15  feet,  will  make  his  debut  at 
the  Museum  in  a  preview  for  Members  on 
the  evening  of  Tuesday,  March  27.  The 
event  has  been  designated  as  Dinosaur 
Night.  Featured  will  be  a  lecture  by  Dr. 
Edwin  H.  Colbert,  outstanding  paleontol- 
ogist. 

Gorgosaurus,  a  predatory  carnivorous 
character,  will  be  displayed  with  Lambeo- 
saurus,  his  victim,  also  a  large  dinosaur  but 
vegetarian  in  habits  and  probably  a  gentler 
creature.  After  the  Members'  preview,  these 
spectacular  prehistoric  animals  will  remain 
in  Stanley  Field  Hall  on  permanent  exhibi- 
tion for  the  general  public. 

Only  Seven  Known  Skeletons 

Gorgosaurus,  king  of  beasts  some  75  mil- 
lion years  ago  and  a  tyrannical  monarch, 
has  survived  in  almost  complete  fossil  skele- 
ton form.  Most  important  acquisition  the 
Museum  has  received  in  recent  years,  Gorgo- 
saurus comes  to  the  Museum  as  a  gift  from 
members  of  its  Board  of  Trustees  who  con- 
tributed thousands  of  dollars  for  its  pur- 
chase. It  is  an  extremely  rare  specimen. 
Only  seven  skeletons  of  this  genus  have  so 
far  been  collected. 

Lambeosaurus,  a  duck-billed  dinosaur  of 
a  variety  believed  to  have  been  a  favorite 
prey  of  Gorgosaurus,  has  been  in  the  Mu- 
seum for  years  awaiting  a  suitable  installa- 
tion such  as  now  has  been  made.  This 
skeleton  was  excavated  in  Alberta,  Canada 
(where  Gorgosaurus  also  was  discovered),  in 
1922  by  an  expedition  sponsored  by  Marshall 
Field,  now  First  Vice-President  of  the  Mu- 
seum. Leader  of  the  expedition  was  Elmer 
S.  Riggs,  former  Curator  of  Paleontology. 

Presentation  Ceremony 

At  the  Dinosaur  Night  ceremony,  the 
presentation  address  will  be  made  by  Louis 
Ware,  Museum  Trustee  who  initiated  the 
move  that  resulted  in  bringing  Gorgosaurus 
to  the  Museum.  The  acceptance  speech  will 
be  made  by  Stanley  Field,  President  of  the 
Museum.  Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director, 
will  act  as  master  of  ceremonies. 

The  exhibit  showing  Gorgosaurus  looking 
down  upon  a  dead  Lambeosaurus  is  installed 
in  a  central  location  in  Stanley  Field  Hall,  to 
the  south  of  the  famous  fighting  African 
elephants  mounted  by  Carl  E.  Akeley.  Be- 
cause of  the  vast  dimensions  of  the  hall  and 
the  large  assemblage  of  the  Museum  Mem- 
bers and  guests  expected,  arrangements 
have  been  made  to  assure  that  all  may  hear 
by  providing  a  public-address  system  to 
amplify  the  voices  of  speakers. 

The  presentation  ceremony  is  scheduled 
for  8:30  P.M.,  but  the  doors  of  the  Museum 
will  be  open  at  7  p.m.     Early  visitors  will 


have  the  opportunity  to  tour  the  two  large 
halls  of  prehistoric  life  on  the  second  floor — 
Ernest  R.  Graham  Hall  (Hall  38)  and 
Frederick  J.  V.  Skiff  Hall  (Hall  37)— where 
they  may  inspect  not  only  other  dinosaur 
exhibits  but  other  forms  of  fossils  including 
the  lowest  invertebrates  that  flourished  many 
hundreds  of  millions  of  years  ago. 

Preceding  the  presentation  there  will  be 
an  informal  gathering  of  Museum  Members, 
other  guests,  and  members  of  the  staff.   Visi- 


HOW  THEY  LOOKED  IN  LIFE 

Miniature   sculptured   restoration   of   Gorgosaurus 

(right)  and  Lambeosaurus,  by  Maidi  Wiebe,  Artist 

of  the  Department  of  Geology.    This  model  will  be 

exhibited  with  the  actual  skeletons. 

tors  will  have  opportunity  to  "talk  shop" — 
dinosaur  shop — with  the  paleontologists  and 
preparators  whose  thought  and  toil  resulted 
in  the  exhibit  of  Gorgosaurus  and  Lambeo- 
saurus. 

Illustrated  Lecture  in  Theatre 

At  9  p.m.  on  Dinosaur  Night,  guests  are 
invited  to  the  Museum's  James  Simpson 
Theatre  where  an  illustrated  lecture  will  be 
given  by  Dr.  Edwin  H.  Colbert,  one  of  the 
world's  leading  students  of  fossil  reptiles 
and  mammals.  Dr.  Colbert  is  Curator  of 
Fossil  Reptiles  and  Amphibians  at  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
New  York,  and  Professor  of  Vertebrate 
Paleontology  at  Columbia  University.  He 
is  author  of  many  scientific  papers  and  of 
The  Dinosaur  Book,  which  is  widely  regarded 
as  the  best  semipopular  account  of  fossil 
reptiles.  Dr.  Colbert  is  responsible  for  the 
recent  reoganization  of  fossil-reptile  exhibits 
at  the  American  Museum.  He  has  led  many 
expeditions,  and  recently  discovered  an 
aggregation  of  small  early  dinosaurs  in 
Triassic  deposits  of  New  Mexico. 

Souvenir  Pamphlet 

An  illustrated  leaflet  on  Gorgosaurus  and 
Lambeosaurus,  especially  prepared  for  Dino- 
saur Night  by  Dr.  Rainer  Zangerl,  Curator 


of  Fossil  Reptiles  at  this  Museum,  will  be 
distributed  to  all  who  are  present  on  this 
occasion. 

The  assembling  of  the  Gorgosaurus  skele- 
ton, a  major  installation  feat,  was  performed 
by  Orville  L.  Gilpin,  Chief  Preparator  of 
Fossils.  He  was  assisted  by  Preparators 
Stanley  Kuczek  and  Cameron  E.  Gifford 
and  by  William  D.  Turnbull,  Assistant  Cu- 
rator of  Fossil  Mammals.  Curator  Zangerl 
supervised  the  entire  operation. 

In  life,  Gorgosaurus  is  believed  to  have 
weighed  about  six  tons.  The  fossil  skull  is 
42  inches  long  and  weighs  more  than  200 
pounds.  The  more  placid  vegetarian  dino- 
saurs that  were  contemporaries  had  little 
chance  to  escape  when  Gorgosaurus  pounced 
upon  them.  The  flesh-eating  monster  was 
powerful  and  agile,  despite  his  great  bulk. 
His  jaws  are  studded  with  large  teeth  having 
sharp  edges  and  suggesting  his  fearful 
potentialities  as  a  killer.  He  was  first  cousin 
to  the  better-known  Tyrannosaurus,  which 
also  was  a  terror  to  its  herbivorous  contem- 
poraries in  the  prehistoric  world. 

Gorgosaurus  was  excavated  from  the 
Belly  River  Formation  in  the  Red  Deer 
River  area  of  the  province  of  Alberta,  Can- 
ada, not  far  from  the  city  of  Edmonton. 

Special  Bus  Service 

For  the  convenience  of  visitors  on  Dino- 
saur Night,  there  is  ample  free  parking-space 
at  the  north  of  the  Museum  building.  For 
those  who  do  not  wish  to  drive  their  cars, 
special  free  motor-bus  service  has  been  ar- 
ranged. A  special  bus  marked  to  indicate 
Museum  shuttle-service  will  leave  Jackson 
Boulevard  at  State  Street  at  15-minute 
intervals  beginning  at  6:45  p.m.  The  last 
bus  will  leave  the  Museum  at  11  p.m.  In  both 
directions  the  bus  will  make  intermediate 
stops  on  Michigan  Avenue  at  Jackson  and 
at  7th  Street.  This  transportation  is  free — 
no  fares  collected,  no  transfers  required. 


Daily  Guide  Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  P.M.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 


Disease  Chaser 

Among  the  Tinguian  people  in  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  natives  weave  potek  (a  variety 
of  bamboo)  into  necklaces  and  anklets  worn 
to  ward  off  smallpox. 


1 


Plaster  jackets  removed  and  bones  prepared,  L.im- 
•   beosaurus  awaits  move  to  main  hall. 


X)i  has****  —         lr?a%y 

GORGOSAURUJ 


1        But  Orville   Gilpin  was   faced  with   months 
"     of  patient  chipping. 


f~*  ORGOSAURUS,  one  of  the  largest  and  most  vici< 
make  their  debut  March  27  as  a  permanent  exhibit 
toil  by  staff  paleontologists.  Gorgosaurus  is  some  26  ft 
six  tons.  It  is  a  recent  gift  from  the  Museum's  Trustee 
cavated  years  ago  by  an  expedition  sponsored  by  Marsh 
here  are  the  principal  steps  involved  in  restoring  these  n 


Steel  construction  for  skeleton  eliminates  vertical 
*     supports  and  maintains  balance. 


I       Metal  discs  that  separate  vertebrae  are 
•     welded  into  place. 


Gilpin  and  William  Turnbull  bolt  leg-  O 

irons  to  frame. 


Skull  is  hoisted  fif 
*     and  tackle. 


Page  i 


-Giant  Jigsaw  Puzzle 


I        Skull  is  unpacked;  it  weighs  205  pounds  and  is  an 
•     impressive  42  inches  long. 


'.        Skeleton    of    Gorgosaurus    arrives    in    seven    large 
*     crates;  Gilpin  and  assistant  remove  scapula. 


linosaurs,  and  its  unfortunate  victim,  Lambeosaurus,  will 
tanley  Field  Hall.  They  represent  18  months  of  arduous 
ng,  towers  15  feet  above  floor,  and  in  life  weighed  about 
ambeosaurus,  a  plant-eating  duck-billed  dinosaur,  was  ex- 
ield,  now  First  Vice-President  of  the  Museum.  Pictured 
ptilian  enemies  of  75  million  years  ago. 


11 


DRESS  REHEARSAL  in  workroom  is  a  success.     Two  skeletons  reach  final  stages  of  prepara- 
•    tion  for  Dinosaur  Night,  Tuesday,  March  27,  when  Museum  Members  are  invited  to  a  preview. 


I  eet  on  block 


Cameron  Gifford  assists  Gilpin  and  Turnbull  10 

in  placing  skull.  v 


Skull  and  jaws  emphasize  terrifying  character 
•     of  giant  carnivore. 


Page  5 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


March,  1956 


SEE     THE     WORLD     IN    LECTURE-FILMS     ON     SATURDAYS 


IF  YOU  CAN'T  get  away  from  town,  you 
can  still  see  the  world.  In  fact,  you  can 
see  places  and  phases  of  life  you  would 
scarcely   encounter   as   a   tourist.     Yukon 


as  well  as  the  continuation  of  exploration 
in  outboard-motored  boats  during  the 
milder  summer.  The  life  of  the  Eskimos 
is  well  documented. 


TOUGH  DOGS  FOR  TOUGH  TRIP 
Fred  Machetanz,  lecturer  to  appear  at  Museum  March  3,  and  wife  (left)  harness  their  team  of  malemutes  to 
haul  sledge  on  rugged  journey  through  fields  of  ice  and  snow  in  Alaska  between  the  Yukon  and  Bering  Sea. 


country  .  .  .  mountains  and  jungles  of  Ecua- 
dor . .  ."down  under"  in  the  bushland  of 
Australia  . . .  the  Nile  deep  in  Africa  beyond 
Egypt .  .  .  the  forbidding  icy  slopes  of 
Mount  Everest.  These  are  a  few  of  the 
out-of-the-way  places  to  be  brought  to 
Chicago  audiences  in  color  motion-pictures 
and  lectures  by  explorers  of  eminence  on  the 
nine  Saturday  afternoons  during  March  and 
April. 

The  Edward  E.  Ayer  Lecture  Foundation 
for  the  105th  time  will  provide  vicarious 
adventures  abroad  for  those  whose  stay-at- 
home  obligations  prevent  satisfaction  of 
wanderlust.  The  programs,  to  be  given  in 
the  James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum, 
all  will  begin  at  2:30  p.m.  Admission  is  free. 
Only  adults  can  be  accommodated,  but  on  the 
mornings  of  the  same  Saturdays  the  Museum 
provides  free  motion-pictures  for  children. 
Following  is  a  synopsis  of  the  programs  for 
adults: 

March  3 — North  to  Adventure 

Fred  Machetanz 

This  program  takes  you  on  a  long  trip 
through  Alaska  by  dog  team — in  much  more 
comfort  than  if  you  actually  made  the  trip. 
Machetanz,  who  lives  in  Alaska,  an  artist 
and  author  of  many  books,  was  accompanied 
by  his  wife  on  this  journey  by  sledge  and  on 
snowshoes.  His  film  shows  the  exploration 
in  subzero  weather  of  a  rugged  pass  between 
the  Yukon  and  the  shore  of  the  Bering  Sea 


March  10 — Ecuador 

Eric  Pavel 

Pavel  presents  in  color  film  a  survey  of 
Ecuador  from  end  to  end.  Shown  are  its 
gateway  port  of  Guayaquil,  its  mountain 
areas  in  the  Andes,  its  wild  jungles  where  the 
headhunting  Jivaro  Indians  dwell,  and  its 
offshore  possession,  the  Galapagos  Islands, 
where  Darwin  developed  his  theory  of 
evolution.  The  Otavalo  Indians,  famed  for 
woodcarving  and  painting,  are  seen  at  work 
and  play,  in  picturesque  markets,  and  at 
a  colorful  wedding  ceremony.  The  Gala- 
pagos sequences  provide  studies  of  unique 
giant  tortoises  and  other  strange  animal 
life. 

March  17 — Northern     and     Western 
Australia 

Alfred  M.  Bailey 

Dr.  Bailey,  Director  of  the  Denver  Mu- 
seum of  Natural  History,  presents  the  first 
film  in  natural  color  of  out-of-the-way  places 
in  the  vast  western  half  of  Australia.  A  land 
of  contrasts — red  desert  and  green  palms, 
salt  lakes,  and  vast  cattle  stations — it  is  the 
home  of  aborigines  still  living  in  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  Stone  Age.  The  film  includes 
intimate  studies  of  strange  animal  and  plant 
life  found  in  dunes,  mountains,  and  lakes. 


Besides  the  wilderness  areas,  Dr.  Bailey 
shows  the  interesting  cities  of  Adelaide, 
Darwin,  Derby,  Carnarvon,  and  Perth. 

March  24 — Kayaks  Down  the  Nile 

John  Goddard 

The  Nile,  longest  river  in  the  world, 
yielded  its  secrets  to  the  camera  of  John 
Goddard,  who  had  the  interesting  idea  of 
traveling  its  4,200  miles  in  small  boats 
patterned  after  Eskimo  kayaks.  Only 
a  fourth  of  this  great  river's  length  lies 
within  Egypt.  The  Nile  in  the  wilder  Africa 
beyond,  strewn  with  roaring  cataracts  and 
passing  through  steaming  fever-ridden  jun- 
gle, ranks  among  the  most  treacherous  of  all 
waters.  This  is  the  first  complete  color- 
record  of  the  Nile's  entire  course.  During 
his  adventure-packed  voyage  Goddard  en- 
countered hazardous  rapids,  wild  animals, 
river  pirates,  and  even  the  threat  of  star- 
vation. Many  of  the  strange  and  vast  areas 
he  invaded  had  seldom  before  been  glimpsed 
by  explorers. 

March  31 — Spain 

Clifford  J.  Kamen 

Spain  from  the  Pyrenees  on  the  north  to 
Andalucia  in  the  south,  ancient  Spain  where 
the  Greeks,  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  and 
Romans  settled  centuries  ago,  Spain  of  the 
700-year  occupation  by  Moorish  conquerors, 
and  busy  modern  Spain  dotted  here  and 
there  with  isolated  communities  where  yes- 
terday's ways  have  changed  but  little  over 
the  centuries — all  these  are  made  vivid  in 
Kamen's  comprehensive  color-film  and  nar- 
rative. The  film  is  a  remarkably  thorough 
survey  of  the  story  of  a  great  nation.    The 


DINOSAUR    NIGHT 
Tuesday,   March   27 


THESE  LECTURES  ON  SATURDAYS; 
TWO  OTHERS  ON  SUNDAYS 

The  Museum  wishes  to  empha- 
size that  the  lectures  announced 
on  this  page  will  be  given  on 
Saturday  afternoons.  A  brief 
notice  in  the  last  Bulletin  stating 
that  there  would  be  Sunday  after- 
noon lectures  in  March  and  April 
referred  only  to  March  18  and 
April  22,  when  the  Illinois  Audu- 
bon Society  will  present  lectures 
in  the  Museum. 

No  tickets  are  needed  for  either 
the  Museum's  Saturday  lectures 
or  the  Audubon  Sunday  lectures. 
Members  of  the  Museum  are  each 
entitled  to  two  reserved  seats. 
Reservations  may  be  made  by 
telephone  (WAbash  2-9410)  or  in 
writing.  Seats  will  be  held  in  the 
Member's  name  until  2:25  p.m. 


March,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


Alhambra  in  Granada,  quaint  old  Seville, 
medieval  castles,  and  a  festival  in  the  Basque 
country  where  the  inhabitants  hold  to  old 
and  unique  traditions  are  features  of  in- 
terest. 

April  7 — The  Challenge  of  Everest 

Norman  G.  Dyhrenfurth 

Dyhrenfurth's  film  of  an  attempt  to  scale 
the  forbidding  giant  of  the  Himalayas  has 
been  acclaimed  as  one  of  the  most  spec- 
tacular ever  produced.  The  lecturer  was 
official  photographer  of  the  second  Everest 
Expedition  (1952)  that  climbed  to  within 
900  feet  of  the  long-sought  summit.  Ten- 
zing  Norkay  of  Sir  John  Hunt's  later 
successful  British  expedition  was  a  member 
of  the  Swiss  party,  and  the  experience 
gained  was  credited  with  being  a  large  factor 
in  the  final  conquest  of  the  peak.  Dyhren- 
furth's lecture  and  film  combine  to  tell 
a  fascinating  story  of  intrepid  mountaineers 
desperately  battling  enormous  glaciers, 
steep  icy  slopes,  and  freezing  gales. 

April  14 — Saga  of  the  Swamplands 

Earl  L.  Hilfiker 

If  you  like  to  commune  with  nature,  this 
film  will  stir  memories  and  let  you  relive 
cherished  days  and  nights  when  you  sat  in 
duckblinds  or  poled  an  old  flatbottomed 
boat  on  a  meandering  stream  between  solid 
green  walls  of  cattails.  If  you  have  never 
done  these  things,  Hilfiker's  film  and  lecture 
will  introduce  you  to  a  fascinating  segment 
of  the  world  of  out-of-doors.  You  will  see 
a  dead  marsh  come  alive  with  a  chorus  of 
frogs  and  peepers,  while  geese  by  the  thou- 
sands and  ducks  by  the  tens  of  thousands 
wing  their  way  to  feed  and  rest  during  their 
migration  toward  their  northern  breeding 
grounds. 

April  21 — Penguin  Summer 

Olin  Sewall  Pettingill,  Jr. 

Penguins,  those  comical  seabirds  that 
seem  to  be  nature's  caricatures  of  men,  are 
seldom  seen  except  in  zoos  because  they 
dwell  and  nest  in  some  of  the  most  in- 
accessible lands  of  the  southern  hemisphere. 
Dr.  Pettingill 's  movie  and  lecture  take  you 
to  a  colony  of  100,000  or  more  penguins  in 
the  Falkland  Islands,  300  miles  east  of  the 
southern  tip  of  South  America.  Three 
species — gentoo,  rockhopper,  and  jackass 
penguins — are  the  film's  featured  players. 
All  are  social  birds,  nesting  in  communities 
that  are  in  constant  and  dramatic  turmoil. 
Courtship  and  family  rearing  are  conducted 
with  the  deadpan  seriousness  of  circus 
clowns.  Juvenile  penguins  romp  and  play, 
annoy  their  parents,  and  are  so  completely 
fascinated  by  human  beings  that  they  fol- 
low them  around. 

April  28 — Blizzards  to  Blossoms 

William  Parsons 

A  large  part  of  this  film  is  devoted  to  the 
blizzard  of  1952  that  almost  buried  the  state 


of  Maine.  Not  only  are  the  scenes  of  this 
terrific  storm  recorded  on  the  film,  but  even 
the  fearful  sound  of  the  vicious  wind  and  the 
crashing  of  trees  and  houses  are  heard  from 
an  accompanying  tape  recording.  What 
a  blizzard  can  do  to  man  and  beasts  is  shown 
in  a  gripping  demonstration  of  nature's  fury 
and  force  that  most  people  would  prefer  to 
experience  in  the  comfort  of  the  lecture 
auditorium  rather  than  on  the  scene.  Ten- 
sion is  relieved  by  sequences  of  the  beauty 
and  beneficence  of  nature  in  her  gentler 
moods  with  the  coming  of  spring  to  the 
north  country. 


DINOSAUR    NIGHT 

Tuesday,   March   27 


Audubon  Lecture  March  18 
on  Bird  Conservation 

"The  Long  Flight  Back,"  a  lecture  by 
Robert  P.  Allen,  Research  Director  of  the 
National  Audubon  Society,  will  be  presented 
at  2:30  p.m.  on  Sunday,  March  18,  in  the 
James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Illinois  Audubon 
Society.  Allen,  a  leader  in  the  movement 
to  preserve  birds  from  the  fate  that  befell 
the  lamented  passenger  pigeon,  will  tell  the 
story  of  "returning  wings"- — birds  such  as 
the  whooping  crane,  roseate  spoonbill,  and 
American  flamingo  that  had  been  threatened 
with  extinction  but  are  now  being  aided  in 
survival  by  conservation  measures.  His 
notable  color-film  of  wildlife  from  the  Carib- 
bean to  northern  Canada  shows,  among 
many  other  birds,  the  now  abundant  Ameri- 
can egrets  and  their  relatives  that  have  been 
saved  from  extinction. 

Seats  in  the  reserved  section  of  the  audi- 
torium are  free  to  Members  of  the  Museum 
and  of  the  Illinois  Audubon  Society  upon 
presentation  of  their  membership  cards. 

Final  lecture  in  the  Audubon  series  will  be 
"Rhapsody  in  Bluegrass"  by  Walter  H. 
Shackleton  on  Sunday  afternoon,  April  22. 


STAFF  NOTES 


Using  the  resources  of  the  Missouri 
Botanical  Garden  during  a  recent  visit  to 
St.  Louis,  Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark,  Cu- 
rator of  the  Phanerogamic  Herbarium,  has 
been  continuing  his  studies  of  Missouri  flora. 
Curator  Steyermark  has  also  had  a  stren- 
uous lecture  schedule,  relating  his  Ven- 
ezuelan "lost  world"  expedition  experiences 
before  audiences  at  Washington  University 
and  Henry  Shaw  School  of  Botany  in  St. 
Louis  as  well  as  the  Chicago  Ornithological 
Society,  Barrington  Lions  Club,  and  Evans- 
ton  Garden  Club  and  talking  on  wildflowers 
before  the  Lake  Bluff  Garden  Club  and  the 
Downers  Grove  Garden  Club  ....  Dr.  Paul 


PROGRAMS  FOR  CHILDREN 

ON  NINE  SATURDAYS 

Eight  free  programs  of  motion  pictures 
and  a  puppet  show  will  be  given  for  children 
on  the  nine  Saturdays  in  March  and  April. 
On  four  of  the  film  programs  the  explorers 
who  did  the  camera  work  will  appear  to  tell 
their  stories  in  person.  The  programs,  pre- 
sented by  the  James  Nelson  and  Anna 
Louise  Raymond  Foundation,  will  all  begin 
at  10:30  a.m.  Children  are  invited  to 
attend  in  groups  from  schools,  clubs,  or  other 
centers,  or  they  may  come  individually,  with 
or  without  their  parents  or  other  adults.  No 
tickets  are  needed.  Following  are  the  titles 
and  dates. 

March  3 — North  to  Adventure  (Alaska) 

Story  told  by  Fred  Machetanz 

March  10 — Below  the  Sahara 

A  technicolor  picture  made  on  African 
safari  to  find  and  photograph,  not  to 
kill,  animals 

March  17 — Northern  and  Western 
Australia 

Story  told  by  Alfred  M.  Bailey 

March  24 — Spring  Is  an  Adventure 

A  look  at  the  out-of-doors  in  the  spring 

March  31 — Bible  Lands 

April  7 — In  the  Circus  Arena 

A  close-up  view  of  the  circus  with  all  its 
exciting  acts  and  animals 

April  14 — The  Little  House  by  the  Creek 

Living  close  to  Mother  Nature's  children 
Story  told  by  Earl  L.  Hilfiker 

April  21 — Wild  Animals  in  India 

Story  told  by  John  Moyer 

April  28 — The  Amazing  Voyage  of  Nicky 
Noodle 

Puppet  stage-production  by  Coleman  Pup- 
pets, Maywood,  Illinois 


New  Contributors  Elected 

In  recognition  of  notable  gifts  to  the 
Museum,  Wm.  McCormick  Blair  and 
Hughston  M.  McBain,  eminent  Chicagoans, 
were  recently  elected  Museum  Contributors 
by  the  Board  of  Trustees.  Contributors  are 
a  special  membership  class  including  all 
whose  gifts  in  funds  or  materials  are  valued 
at  $1,000  to  $100,000. 


S.  Martin,  Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology, 
recently  appeared  in  the  series  "Visits  with 
Interesting  People"  at  the  Central  Y.M.C.A. 
in  Chicago  ....  Dr.  John  B.  Rinaldo, 
Assistant  Curator  of  Archaeology,  spoke  on 
careers  in  anthropology  before  an  assemblage 
of  students  at  Lyons  Township  High  School 
in  La  Grange. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


March,  1956 


NATURE  PHOTO  CONTEST 
WINNERS  NAMED 

Stanley  Field  Hall  was  a  busy  place  last 
month  as  throngs  of  people  came  to  view 
photographs  of  animals,  plants,  and  scenic 
phenomena  at  the  Eleventh  Chicago  Inter- 
national Exhibition  of  Nature  Photography. 
More  than  200  prints  were  displayed  in  the 


DINOSAUR    NIGHT 

Tuesday,  March  27 


HYDRANGEA 
By  William  L.  Van  Allen,  of  Bend,  Oregon.  Awarded 
first-prize  silver  medal  in  Plant-Life  Section  of  Na- 
ture Photography  Exhibition. 

exhibition  hall,  and  more  than  800  color 
transparencies  were  shown  to  the  public  on 
the  screen  of  the  James  Simpson  Theatre 
on  two  Sunday  afternoons.  The  prints  and 
slides  were  selected  from  more  than  3,700 
entries  sent  to  the  Museum  and  to  the  Na- 
ture Camera  Club  of  Chicago,  co-sponsors. 
Prints  and  slides  for  this  exhibition,  the 
largest  nature-photography  show  held  any- 
where, were  received  from  amateur  and  pro- 


fessional photographers  all  over  the  world. 
Six  contestants  won  silver  medals,  and  111 
honorable  mentions  were  awarded,  seventeen 
of  them  to  Chicago-area  residents.  Two 
special  medals  were  awarded  by  the  Photo- 
graphic Society  of  America  for  color  har- 
mony in  color-transparencies.  Following 
are  names  of  entrants  who  received  silver 
medals  and  honorable-mention  awards: 

MEDAL  WINNERS 
Prints: 

Animal-Life  Section:  Leslie  Campbell,  Belcher- 
town,  Mass. — Evening  Grosbeak 

Plant-Life  Section:  William  L.  Van  Allen,  Bend, 
Ore. — Hydrangea 

General  Section:  Mrs.  Gertrude  L.  Pool,  Palo  Alto, 
Calif.— The  Blizzard 

Color  Slides: 

Animal-Life  Section:  S.  G.  Blakesley,  Merced, 
Calif. — Mocker 

Plant-Life  Section:  Mrs.  Mabel  Fuller,  Riverside, 
111. — Clinlonia 

General  Section:  M.  Hilo  Himeno,  Madison,  N.J. 
— Lava  Flow 

HONORABLE  MENTIONS 

Chicago  Area 
Prints: 

Animal-Life  Section:  Ted  Farrington 
Plant -Life  Section:  Louise  K.  Broman,  Louis  A. 
Schulz 

General  Section:  John  S.  Bajgert,  Lillian  Ettinger 


THE  BLIZZARD 

By    Gertrude    L.    Pool,    of    Palo    Alto,    California. 

Awarded  first-prize  silver  medal  in  General  Section 

of  Nature  Photography  Exhibition. 


EVENING  GROSBEAK 

By  Leslie  Campbell,  of  Belchertown,  Massachusetts. 

Awarded    first-prize    silver    medal    in    Animal-Life 

Section  of  Nature  Photography  Exhibition. 

Color  Slides: 

Animal-Life  Section:  W.  J.  Javurek 

Plant-Life  Section:  Mary  Abele,  J.  H.  Boulet,  Jr., 
Willard  H.  Farr,  Ethel  P.  Owen,  Dr.  Frank  E.  Rice 

General  Section:  Henry  Krull,  M.  J.  Schmidt, 
Anne  E.  Stroh,  Phyllis  Wolgemuth 

Outside  Chicago  Area 
Prints: 

Animal-Life  Section:  Nevrouw  Van  den  Bussche, 
Antwerp,  Belgium;  W.  T.  Davidson,  Warren,  Pa.; 
James  Ford,  Louisville,  Ky.;  John  H.  Gerard,  Alton, 
III.;  H.  Lou  Gibson,  Rochester,  N.Y.;  Dr.  Gerhard 
Graeb,  Cologne,  Germany;  Mrs.  Harold  Kuhlman, 
Oklahoma  City ,  Okla. ;  Robert  Leatherman,  San  Bernar- 


EXPEDITION  TO  EXCAVATE 
ANCIENT  PERU  SITES 

The  Museum's  first  expedition  of  1956  is 
under  way.  It  is  the  Archaeological  Ex- 
pedition to  Peru,  which  will  seek  material 
both  for  new  Museum  exhibits  and  for 
research  that  will  be  the  basis  of  future 
publication  on  development  of  urban  life 
in  prehistoric  times.  The  leader,  Dr.  Donald 
Collier,  Curator  of  South  American  Archae- 
ology and  Ethnology,  left  Chicago  on 
February  4  by  air  for  Lima,  where  he  was 
joined  by  Don  Thompson,  a  Harvard 
graduate-student  in  archaeology.  A  group 
of  local  helpers  was  organized,  and  field 
operations  were  begun  at  the  sites  of  ancient 
civilization  to  be  excavated  in  the  Casma 
Valley  near  the  coast,  about  200  miles  north 
of  Lima. 

Excavation  of  these  sites,  which  were 
occupied  from  about  1000  B.C.  to  A.D.  1470, 
both  before  and  during  the  time  of  the  Incas, 
will  continue  for  about  seven  months.  The 
expedition  is  financed  by  a  grant  from  the 
National  Science  Foundation. 


dino,  Calif.;  Charles  J.  Long,  San  Antonio,  Tex.; 
Charles  J.  Ott,  McKinley  Park,  Alaska;  R.  W.  Poulter, 
Horicon,  Wis.;  Dr.  Olof  Theander,  Stockholm,  Sweden; 
G.  H.  Wagner,  Omaha,  Neb. 

Plant-Life  Section:  Cy  Coleman,  Detroit,  Mich.; 
Rudolph  G.  Flores,  Los  Angeles,  Calif.;  Otto  Litzel, 
New  York,  N.Y.;  Dr.  Carrol  C.  Turner,  Memphis, 
Tenn. 

General  Section:  Otto  Litzel,  New  York,  N.Y.; 
George  J.  Munz,  Bergenfield,  N.J.;  Edward  A.  Nus- 
baum,  Richmond,  Ind.;  Mrs.  Gertrude  L.  Pool,  Palo 
Alto,  Calif.;  Leonard  Lee  Rue,  Columbia,  N.J.;  Henry 
W.  Ryffer,  San  Diego,  Calif. 

Color  Slides: 

Animal-Life  Section:  George  Clemens,  McConnels- 
ville,  Ohio;  Alford  W.  Cooper,  Worland,  Wyo.;  Bernice 
Foster,  Worcester,  Mass.;  Charles  B.  Harris,  Merced, 
Calif.;  Torrey  Jackson,  Marblehead,  Mass.;  Ted  John- 
son, Worthington,  Minn.;  B.  J.  Kaston,  New  Britain, 
Conn.;  Eugenie  Manheim,  New  York,  N.Y.;  Harry  W. 
Pike,  Springfield,  111.;  Louis  Quitt,  Buffalo,  N.Y.; 
George  W.  Robinson,  Merced,  Calif.;  Arthur  H. 
Rosien,  White  Plains,  N.Y.;  Dr.  Fred  Ruch,  Plainfield, 
N.J.;  Mrs.  Irma  Louise  Rudd,  Redondo  Beach,  Calif.; 
Le  Roi  Russel,  Prescott,  Ariz.;  Frances  Steffensen, 
Omaha,  Neb.;  J.  R.  Swain,  Winsted,  Conn.;  Grace 
Thompson,  El  Paso,  Tex.;  H.  A.  Thornhill,  Watertown, 
N.Y.;  Burdette  E.  White,  Ferris,  Calif.;  Robert  Leath- 
erman, San  Bernardino,  Calif. 

Plant-Life  Section:  Dr.  Blanche  E.  Burton,  To- 
ronto, Canada;  J.  Campbell,  Coal  City,  111.;  William 
I.  Campbell,  Guelph,  Ontario,  Canada;  Ellen  Cubitt, 
Toronto,  Canada;  E.  J.  Flesher,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.;  H.  L. 
Gebhardt,  Erie,  Pa.;  J.  E.  Goodwin,  Toronto,  Canada; 
Henry  Greenhood,  Hollywood,  Calif.;  Ferrel  W.  Hess- 
ing,  St.  Louis,  Mo.;  Harry  G.  Hoke,  Stillwater,  Okla.; 
Jim  Huber,  St.  Joseph,  Mich.;  Safford  L.  Jory,  Berkeley, 
Calif.;  Adolph  Kohnert,  Amenia,  N.Y.;  Henry  M. 
Mayer,  Cleveland,  Ohio;  E.  L.  O'Brien,  Peoria,  111.; 
J.  B.  Pearson,  Mt.  Vernon,  Ohio;  C.  H.  Pulver,  Vestal, 
N.Y.;  Jack  Roche,  Caldwell,  N.J.;  Hoyt  L.  Roush, 
Charlotte,  N.C.;  John  H.  Tashjian,  Oakland,  Calif.; 
Grace  Thompson,  El  Paso,  Tex.;  William  L.  Van  Allen, 
Bend,  Ore.;  N.  E.  Weber,  Bowmansville,  Pa.;  M.  V. 
Westmark,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

General  Section:  K.  F.  Blakie,  Los  Angeles,  Calif.; 
Beatrice  Bruin,  Toronto,  Canada;  Raymond  Feagans, 
Bremerton,  Wash.;  H.  E.  Foote,  New  York,  N.Y.; 
H.  Gantner,  New  York,  N.Y.;  Katherine  Jensen, 
Pittsford,  N.Y.;  R.  H.  Kleinschmidt,  Rochester,  N.Y.; 
J.  A.  Krimmel,  Denver,  Colo.;  Smith  MacMullin, 
Los  Angeles,  Calif.;  C.  R.  McLead,  Raleigh,  N.C.; 
J.  O.  Milmoe,  Golden,  Colo.;  Ruth  J.  Nicol,  Butte, 
Mont.;  Bernard  G.  Purves,  Glendora,  Calif.;  Richard 
F.  Smith,  Lititz,  Pa.;  Ruby  Watters,  Toronto,  Canada; 
Otto  Litzel,  New  York,  N.Y. 

SPECIAL  MEDALS  FOR  COLOR  SLIDES 

(Awarded  by  the  Photographic  Society  of  America) 
Otto  Litzel,  New  York,  N.Y. — Frozen  Brook 
Benjamin  Koehler,  Urbana,  111. — Obsidian  and  Lt- 
chens 

PRINTED   BY   CHICAGO   NATURAL   HISTORY  MUSEUM   PRESS 


Vol.27.No.4-April-1956 

Chicago  Natural 
History  Mus  e  um 


*-*■■ 


\. 


""^s..  f"\ 


H 

Hi 


■ ' 


V.W'T^.'M^  •  •VIJJtA?**  »f /.«  UVMf ».(  IAV«  »'#</A«  »AVI»T/..»A 


♦  ♦.4.VOV 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


April,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henby  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

W».  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Waltheb  Bochen  John  T.  Pirie.  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field TMrd  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 


THE  BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  H arte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly   of  changes   of  address. 


EXHIBIT  OF  DINOSAURS 
INSPIRES  VERSES 

Dinosaur  Night,  held  March  27  to  give 
Members  of  the  Museum  a  preview  of  the 
new  exhibit  of  Gorgosaurus  and  Lambeo- 
saurus  skeletons  in  Stanley  Field  Hall,  in- 
spired a  member  of  the  Department  of 
Geology  staff  to  produce  the  following  verses : 

The  World's  First  Self-Supporting  Dinosaur 
By  Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr. 

Come  and  see  the  Gorgosaurus, 
Tall  as  life,  though  somewhat  thinner, 
Standing  in  the  hall  before  us, 
Interrupted  in  his  dinner. 

Hundred  million  years  ago,  he 
Found  a  Lambeosaur  to  munch  on. 
Something  stopped  his  feast,  and  so  he 
Never  had  that  final  luncheon 

Long  ago  (the  date,  Cretaceous) 
Gorgosaurus  roamed  Alberta 
Ever  hungry,  fierce,  voracious, 
Seeking  smaller  prey  to  murder. 

Then  he  died,  became  a  fossil 
Buried  near  the  Red  Deer  River; 
Passed  the  years  asleep  and  docile. 
Giving  not  a  jerk  or  quiver. 

Found  and  shipped  to  the  Museum 
With  that  meal  he  never  tasted, 


Here  he  stands  and  here  you  see  him; 
Not  a  bone  of  him  was  wasted. 

Other  skeletons  of  his  bulk 
Must  be  held  erect  by  crutches; 
Not  a  post  is  seen  on  this  hulk — 
Just  the  floor  is  all  he  touches. 

Engineers  may  well  be  baffled 
By  the  structure  we're  reporting: 
Here  he  stands  without  a  scaffold; 
Gorgosaur  is  self-supporting! 

The  new  dinosaur  group  is  now  open  to 
the  public  as  a  permanent  exhibit.  The 
Gorgosaurus  specimen,  extremely  rare,  is 
a  gift  to  the  Museum  from  the  Trustees. 
The  Lambeosaurus  skeleton  was  collected 
in  1922  by  an  expedition  sponsored  by 
Marshall  Field,  now  First  Vice  President  of 
the  Museum. 


principal  technician  in  the  actual  assem- 
blage of  the  skeletons,  will  appear  with 
specimens  of  bones  and  demonstrate  various 
stages  of  the  work. 


GORGOSAURUS  STORY 

ON  CHANNEL  11 

The  story  of  the  Museum's  new  exhibit 
of  the  giant  skeletons  of  Gorgosaurus  and 
Lambeosaurus,  and  a  brief  survey  of  the 
subject  of  dinosaurs  in  general,  will  be 
presented  by  members  of  the  Museum's 
scientific  staff  over  WTTW,  Chicago's 
educational  television  station  (Channel  11) 
on  Tuesday,  April  3  at  9:30  p.m.  The 
program  is  in  the  series  given  under  the 
general  title  "The  Curious  One."  Dr. 
Rainer  Zangerl,  Curator  of  Fossil  Am- 
phibians and  Reptiles,  who  supervised  the 
erection  of  the  skeletons  in  the  Museum,  and 
Dr.  Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr.,  Curator  of 
Fossil  Invertebrates,  will  discuss  dinosaurs, 
and  demonstrate  with  models,  motion  pic- 
tures and  other  material.  Orville  L.  Gilpin, 
Chief  Preparator  of  Fossils,  who  was  the 


Audubon   Sunday  Lecture 
Set  for   April   22 

"Rhapsody  in  Bluegrass"  is  the  title  of 
the  final  lecture  in  the  Illinois  Audubon 
Society's  series  for  the  current  season  at 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum.  Walter 
H.  Shackleton,  naturalist  of  Louisville, 
Kentucky,  is  the  lecturer.  He  will  present 
a  color  film  screen-tour  of  his  native  state. 
The  lecture  will  be  on  Sunday  afternoon, 
April  22,  at  2:30  in  the  James  Simpson 
Theatre  of  the  Museum. 

Seats  in  the  reserved  section  of  the 
Theatre  are  free  to  Members  of  the  Museum 
and  of  the  Illinois  Audubon  Society  upon 
presentation  of  their  membership  cards. 


Indochina  Bronze  Drum 
Presented  to  Museum 

Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology,  and  M.  Kenneth  Starr,  Curator 
of  Asiatic  Archaeology  and  Ethnology, 
recently  accepted,  for  the  Museum,  a  rare 
bronze  fertility  drum  from  Northern  Laos, 
Indochina,  presented  by  Oden  Meeker, 
Mission  Chief  of  Laos  for  CARE,  on  behalf 
of  the  CARE  organization.  Dr.  Schmidt 
and  Mr.  Starr  accepted  the  gift  during 
a  reception  March  13  commemorating  the 
tenth  anniversary  of  CARE  held  in  Chicago 
recently.  Mr.  Meeker  served  for  several 
summers  as  a  volunteer  assistant  to  Dr. 
Schmidt  in  the  Museum's  Division  of 
Reptiles. 


THIS  MONTHS  COVER- 


To  anyone  who  suspects  an  April  First  prank  in  our  cover,  we  quote  the  late  Dr. 
Earnest  A.  Hooton  of  Harvard,  a  famed  anthropologist,  who  said  that  if  fossil  man  were 
dressed  in  contemporary  clothing  he  might  be  passed  on  the  street  without  being 
identified  or  attracting  any  unusual  attention.  In  order  that  readers  may  draw  their 
own  conclusions  on  this  point,  Artist  Gustaf  Dalstrom  of  the  Museum's  Department  of 
Anthropology  has  dressed  four  prehistoric  types  in  opera  capes  and  top  hats.  These  fossil 
"men  of  distinction"  are:  Pithecanthropus  erecius  (lower  left)  who  lived  in  Java  perhaps 
150,000  or  300,000  years  ago;  Sinanthropus  pekinensis  (lower  right)  who  lived  in  China 
at  about  the  same  period;  Homo  Neanderthalensis  (upper  left)  who  lived  in  Europe 
about  30,000  or  50,000  years  ago,  and  Cro-Magnon  man,  an  European  type  of  some 
10,000  or  20,000  years  ago.  The  drawings  are  based  upon  reconstructions:  that  of 
Sinanthropus  made  by  the  late  Dr.  Franz  Weidenreich  who  was  associated  with  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  and  the  other  three  by  Professor 
J.  H.  McGregor,  a  Columbia  University  zoologist  who  was  associated  with  the  American 
Museum.  These  reconstructions  are  on  exhibition  in  the  Hall  of  the  Stone  Age  of  the 
Old  World  (Hall  C).  A  further  comment  of  Dr.  Hooton's  is  pertinent:  "We  do  not 
know  anything  of  the  minutiae  of  the  appearance  of  the  Pithecanthropus  ....  or 
Neanderthal  types.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  their  hair  form,  hair  distribution, 
pigmentation  ....  You  can  with  equal  facility  model  on  a  Neanderthal  skull  the 
features  of  a  chimpanzee  or  the  lineaments  of  a  philosopher." 


April,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  3 


PROBLEMS    OF    CONSERVATION    IN    THE    GREAT    LAKES 


By  LOREN  P.  WOODS 

CURATOR  OF  FISHES 


THERE  EXIST,  in  Lake  Michigan,  and 
in  the  other  Great  Lakes,  numerous 
complex  problems  of  conservation  as  im- 
portant as  any  in  the  United  States  today. 
The  history  of  Lake  Michigan  fisheries  re- 
flects our  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  lake  en- 
vironment as  a  whole  and  the  interactions 
of  the  whole  assemblage  of  animals  living 
here.  The  lake  fisheries  show  effects  of  lack 
of  proper  use  in  the  diminishing  over-all 
catch  and  in  the  depletion  to  a  point  of 
non-profitable  commercial  exploitation  of 
three  of  the  most  valuable  Lake  Michigan 
species:  sturgeon,  lake  trout,  and  whitefish. 
The  total  amount  of  fish  produced  by  the 
United  States  waters  of  the  Great  Lakes 


Its  surface  area  is  22,400  square  miles 
(about  the  size  of  West  Virginia)  and  the 
median  depth  is  258  feet.  It  is  clear,  deep, 
and  cold. 

The  lake  environment  appears  to  be 
fairly  uniform  throughout  the  year. 
Changes  of  temperature  and  turbidity 
affect  only  the  surface  layers  and  waters 
near  shore.  Below  350  feet  the  temperature 
is  only  a  few  degrees  above  freezing  at  all 
times.  The  volume  of  the  lake  is  relatively 
constant,  the  fluctuation  level  being  only 
x/i  to  l)-£  feet  in  the  course  of  a  year,  with 
an  extreme  periodic  fluctuation  of  6  feet, 
4  inches.  The  currents  vary  in  strength 
between  4  and  90  miles  per  day.  Winds 
affect  the  surface  and  shoals  causing  large 
upwellings  of  cold  water  from  the  bottom 


shore,  principally  for  whitefish  and  lake 
trout.  In  the  1850's  pound  nets  came  into 
use,  and  as  a  result  of  a  reported  fall-off 
in  production  in  1871  the  first  survey  of 
fisheries  was  made.  The  decrease  in  fisheries 
production  during  the  years  1858  to  1872 
was  estimated  to  be  50  per  cent,  principally 
affecting  the  lake  trout  and  whitefish.  The 
decline  was  blamed  on:  (1)  capture  of  im- 
mature fishes  by  pound  nets;  (2)  lost  gill 
nets;  (3)  practice  of  fishermen  of  throwing 
offal  on  fishing  ground,  and  (4)  pollution 
from  sawdust,  slabs,  sidings,  etc.  floating 
widely  over  the  lake. 

The  first  to  go  was  the  lake  sturgeon, 
regarded  as  a  pest  by  the  early  fishermen 
because  sturgeon  frequently  became  en- 
tangled in  the  nets.     They  were  removed 


LAKE  TROUT  WHITEFISH  LAKE  STURGEON 

Probably  millions  of  the  people  who  have  eaten  these  three  fishes  have  never  seen  what  they  looked  like  before  they  reach  the  table. 


fluctuates  between  75  and  100  million 
pounds  per  year.  In  dollar  value  these 
fisheries  are  of  considerable  importance, 
averaging  around  fifteen  million  dollars — 
equivalent  in  value  to  that  of  the  Pacific 
sardine  industry  when  that  fishery  was  at 
its  peak.  The  lake  trout,  backbone  of  the 
lake  fisheries,  formerly  yielded  10  million 
pounds  annually.  This  was  worth  $4,000,000, 
equal  to  the  dollar  value  of  the  U.  S.  codfish 
industry.  The  lake  trout  fishery  is  now 
gone  from  Lakes  Huron  and  Michigan  and 
is  in  a  precarious  state  in  Lake  Superior. 

It  is  obvious  that  extensive  fisheries,  near 
such  concentrations  of  population  as  border 
the  lakes,  are  of  prime  importance  because 
of  their  food  value  as  well  as  their  dollar 
value.  The  decline  or  loss  of  part  of  this 
resource  concerns  us  all.  Numerous  other 
benefits  are  derived  from  the  lakes:  their 
effect  on  the  climate  of  the  bordering  states, 
their  use  as  water  supplies  and  as  power 
sources  for  cities  and  industry,  their  value 
as  shipping  lanes,  their  advantages  as 
sources  of  recreation  for  residents  and 
tourists.  Sound  fishing  policies  need  to  be 
co-ordinated  with  these  other  uses. 

CHARACTERISTICS   OF  LAKE   MICHIGAN 

The  basin  of  Lake  Michigan  is  a  long, 
narrow  trough  scooped  out  by  the  action  of 
ice  during  the  last  (Wisconsin)  glaciation. 
In  years  it  is  not  very  ancient,  probably 
only  10,000  or  11,000  years  old,  having  been 
its  present  size  for  less  than  4,000  years. 


layers  but  only  rarely  is  there  more  than 
a  mild  effect  in  the  deeper  waters.  Two 
important  effects  of  the  wind  are  on  shore 
erosion  and  in  occasionally  breaking  up  the 
summer  temperature  stratification. 

Lake  Michigan  has  had  the  highest  pro- 
duction per  unit  of  area  of  the  four  deep 
members  of  the  Great  Lakes  chain.  This 
is  due  to  the  high  production  of  Green  Bay 
that  formerly  contributed  between  one- 
fourth  and  one-third,  and  now  contributes 
from  60  to  70  per  cent  of  the  total  Lake 
Michigan  fishes  caught  commercially. 
Although  it  has  maintained  its  second  place 
position  (Lake  Erie  is  first)  in  commercial 
fish  production,  Lake  Michigan  suffered 
a  decline  of  45  per  cent  during  the  50-year 
period  from  1891  to  1940. 

OTHER  LAKES  LESS  DEPLETED 

The  per  cent  of  decrease  in  production  in 
the  other  lakes,  though  marked,  has  been 
much  less  (Erie  16,  Huron  23,  Superior  9). 
These  figures  are  from  years  before  the 
appearance  of  the  sea  lamprey  and  the 
disappearance  of  the  lake  trout  or  decline 
of  the  whitefish. 

The  problem  is  not  one  simply  of  over- 
fishing if  that  ever  were  the  reason,  but  also 
probably  of  selective  fishing.  Accounts  by 
some  early  explorers  of  Indian  fishing  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  lake  and  by  settlers  as 
late  as  1835  indicate  an  unbelievable  abun- 
dance of  fishes.  Prior  to  1850  fishing  was 
largely  by  gill  nets  and  large  seines  along 


from  the  lake  and  piled  on  the  beaches  or 
buried.  The  fishery  for  sturgeon  began 
around  1870,  taking  10,000  to  20,000  fish 
per  year.  In  1885,  8  million  pounds  were 
taken.  Thereafter  they  declined  rapidly  and 
have  not  been  commercially  important 
during  the  20th  century. 

BROAD  FLUCTUATION 

Since  World  War  I,  annual  production  of 
Lake  Michigan  has  fluctuated  widely:  the 
least  amount,  16  million  (1923)  and  the 
most,  35  million  (1929).  In  1952,  production 
reached  32  million  pounds  without  the  lake 
trout  which  formerly  accounted  for  from 
4  to  6  million  pounds  of  the  Lake  Michigan 
production.  Thus  it  would  appear  that 
production  was  holding  up  fairly  well,  that 
an  over-all  decline  is  only  temporary,  and 
that  there  is  no  need  to  worry  about  the 
disappearance  of  one  species  as  another  will 
rise  to  take  its  place.  This  is  certainly  what 
seems  to  have  happened.  There  have  been 
considerable  changes  in  rank  of  most 
abundant  species  through  the  years  as  the 
following  tabulation  shows: 

J  95  J 
Chubs 

Lake  herring  (cisco) 
Smelt 

Whitefish        Chubs  Perch 

Chubs  Carp  Whitefish 

Lake  herring  (cisco)    Carp 

We  note  that  by  1942  two  introduced 
fishes  (smelt  and  carp)  are  among  the  six 
more  important  species.    By  1953  the  chubs 


189S  191,2 

Herring  Lake  trout 

Lake  trout  Smelt 

Perch  Perch 


^'tft^yy} '*•'•'*> \"'' *i,.vi*  «  •  'US+W  i  •  r >.#♦.* v«  rwt.t  ».*v«  •*».«  •  *\-«  *■**  .  ■  tvi  »-, 


%   «%"«-*-.*., 


Page  i- 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


April,  1 956 


and  cisco  replaced  the  trout.  These  changes 
plus  the  widely  fluctuating  annual  produc- 
tion are  of  considerable  concern.  What  are 
the  ecological  factors  that  have  occurred 
allowing  the  less  desirable  fishes  to  become 
more  plentiful  as  the  more  desirable  ones 
grew  scarce? 

SUSPECTED   CAUSES 

Many  causes  for  these  changes  have  been 
set  forth  by  fishermen,  and  by  interested 
observers.  The  truth  is,  no  one  knows.  The 
reasons  for  this  lack  of  knowledge  will  be 
discussed  later.  First  we  will  examine  some 
of  the  suspected  causes. 

1.  Climatic  changes  have  perhaps 
brought  about  hydrographic  changes  such 
as  changes  in  volume.  High  lake  levels, 
reaching  582  feet,  are  known  in  the  years 
1917  and  1918.  Fish  production  was  also 
high  during  those  years,  29.3  million  and 
26.7  million  pounds  respectively.  Lake 
levels  decreased  during  the  years  1920  to 
1926  (to  577.35  feet,  low  record)  and  during 
all  these  years  fish  production  was  at  an 
all-time  low.  As  the  lake  level  went  up,  fish 
production  reached  its  peak  for  recent  years 
in  1929  and  again  in  1952,  both  high  level 
years.  The  trouble  with  this  correlation  is 
that  it  takes  a  varying  number  of  years 
(2  to  6)  for  the  different  species  leading  the 
catch  to  reach  commercial  size  so  the  causal 
relations  are  obscure.  Changes  in  extreme 
range  of  temperature,  seasons,  and  amounts 
of  ice  may  have  some  effect  on  the  survival 
of  young. 

2.  Different  types  of  fishing  gear,  regu- 
lations, and  closed  seasons  have  been  tried. 
Here  the  fishery  biologists  have  had  the 
opportunity  to  actually  test  the  type  of  gear 
and  mesh  size  permitted  and  have  done 
considerable  checking  on  the  effects  of  gear 
used.  Their  results  did  not  indicate  that 
the  type  of  gear  now  in  use  is  unduly  waste- 
ful or  harmful  to  desirable  species.  How- 
ever, the  effect  of  selective  fishing  on  the 
stock  of  the  desired  species  and  the  effect  on 
unexploited  species  or  underexploited  species 
of  the  same  locality  where  the  nets  are  set, 
has  not  been  studied. 

3.  Pollution  has  often  been  stated  as 
a  major  cause  for  deterioration  of  fishing. 
Quite  possibly  pollution  has  driven  the 
whitefish  from  local  areas  of  southern  Lake 
Michigan  and  contributes  to  the  fluctuation 
in  available  numbers  of  this  species.  Pollu- 
tion in  the  form  of  sawdust,  silt,  and  domes- 
tic and  industrial  sewage  undoubtedly  has 
influenced  fish  production,  but  to  what 
extent  is  unknown.  In  southern  Lake 
Michigan  there  was  dumping  of  garbage, 
trash,  and  cinders,  and  large  quantities  of 
clay  from  excavations  are  still  dumped. 
This  material  is  carried  in  suspension  so  that 
it  spreads  over  wide  areas  in  the  south  basin 
of  the  lake  covering  the  fishes'  spawning  and 
feeding  grounds.  The  dumping  of  cinders 
from  steamships  and  the  pumping  of  oily 


bilge  into  the  lake  also  have  sometimes  had 
local  and  temporary  effects,  but  probably 
have  not  greatly  changed  the  entire  ecologi- 
cal complex  in  the  lake.  It  is  doubtful  that 
the  total  biological  production  of  the  lake 
has  ever  declined  significantly  because  of 
pollution  or  that  total  fish  production  has 
declined  for  this  reason  alone.  Possibly 
certain  species  have  been  adversely  affected 
by  pollution  but  I  know  of  no  studies 
proving  pollution  has  harmed  fishing  in  the 
lake  as  a  whole. 

3.  Exotic  species:  Since  World  War  II 
there  has  been  a  great  amount  of  publicity 
given  to  the  sea  lamprey  and  its  detrimental 
effect  on  the  lake  trout  and  other  species. 
The  whitefish  had  already  disappeared  from 


RESEARCH  VESSEL  'CISCO' 

In  1954  and  1955  this  ship  of  the  U.  S.  Fish  and 

Wildlife  Service  made  a  number  of  cruises  on  Lake 

Michigan  collecting  materials  and  data  for  studies 

of  fishery  and  hydrographic  conditions. 

Lake  Huron  by  the  time  the  lamprey 
appeared  in  large  numbers.  In  the  1920's 
the  cisco  disappeared  from  Lake  Erie.  Very 
likely  the  sea  lamprey  is  the  principal  cause 
for  the  disappearance  of  the  trout,  other 
factors  being  trap  net  fishing,  rise  and 
decline  of  smelt,  appearance  of  the  alewife, 
disease,  etc.  We  are  assured  that  means  of 
controlling  the  sea  lamprey  are  available 
and  it  is  only  a  matter  of  time  until  this  pest 
is  no  longer  the  destructive  agent  it  was 
between  1940  and  1955. 

Several  other  species  of  fishes  are  estab- 
lished that  were  not  in  Lake  Michigan  in 
any  numbers  before  1900.  Probably  the 
most  abundant  of  these  is  the  smelt,  which 
became  established  throughout  Lake  Michi- 
gan by  1936  (see  Bulletin,  March,  1954). 
By  1942  smelt  production  reached  3.5  mil- 
lion pounds  and  then  the  fish  died  out  in 
1943,  gradually  recovering  until  now  more 
are  taken  annually  than  in  the  former  peak 
year  of  1942.  Smelt  were  one  of  the  princi- 
pal foods  of  the  lake  trout.  The  effect  of  the 
decline  of  smelt  on  lake  trout  is  not  known. 
The  presence  of  the  carp  is  an  unknown 
factor  in  the  lake.  Most  likely  its  effect  is 
important  only  in  very  shoal  waters,  bays, 
lagoons,  and  along  shores. 

The  effect  of  the  rainbow  trout,  introduced 


and  established  in  the  northern  end  of  the 
lake,  is  unknown.  Its  numbers  are  not 
large  and  its  effect,  if  any,  probably  small. 

The  alewife  has  recently  invaded  and 
become  established  in  Lake  Michigan  but 
its  numbers  are  unknown.  It  is  considered 
to  be  a  menace  because  it  competes  for  food 
with  the  lake  herring  and  with  young  fishes. 

Two  other  exotic  species,  the  eel  and 
Atlantic  shad,  have  been  reported  in  Lake 
Michigan  but  very  likely  are  not  estab- 
lished here. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  delineate  the 
gradual  change  in  the  fish  fauna  of  Lake 
Michigan.  Some  kinds  are  reduced  in 
numbers,  some  kinds,  especially  the  smaller 
species  (smelt,  chubs),  have  become  ex- 
ceedingly abundant.  Kinds  new  to  the  lake 
have  entered  the  scene  resulting  in  new 
predators  (sea  lamprey,  rainbow  trout),  in 
new  food  sources  for  the  fishes  (smelt, 
alewife),  and  in  new  competitors  for  food 
(smelt,  alewife). 

OVER-ALL  survey  needed 

The  principal  need  of  the  fisheries  is  an 
over-all  study  of  the  lake,  a  complete 
limnological  survey  to  determine  total 
biological  productivity.  Such  a  study 
should  analyze  communities  rather  than  in- 
dividual species,  and  should  include  studies 
of  the  environment  and  its  seasonal  changes. 
Particularly  there  is  a  need  to  study  the 
interactions  among  species — how  each  is 
affected  by  changing  environmental  condi- 
tions as  well  as  by  selective  fishing  pressure. 
Recently,  a  comprehensive  survey  was  made 
by  the  U.  S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  staff 
on  their  research  vessel  Cisco,  working  in 
the  southern  half  of  Lake  Michigan  in  1954 
and  the  northern  half  in  1955.  This  work 
should  be  continued  for  a  number  of  years. 
Such  background  studies  are  needed  to 
learn  the  inner  workings  of  the  lake  and 
the  factors  that  influence  the  sudden  abun- 
dance or  scarcity  of  particular  species.  The 
central  need  in  the  lakes  is  for  biological 
understanding  based  on  adequate  factual 
information.  This  can  only  be  arrived  at  by 
a  long-term  biological  survey. 

There  is  an  immediate  need  to  develop 
an  educational  program  that  follows  closely 
with  the  development  of  a  research  program. 
Particularly  we  need  an  enlarged  basic  re- 
search program.  A  backlog  of  basic  infor- 
mation will  help  in  meeting  the  problems 
that  will  arise  with  the  completion  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  Seaway  such  as  continuing 
invasion  by  lampreys,  alewives  and  white 
perch,  and  the  problems  of  increasing 
industrial  expansion  with  its  increased 
pollution. 

The  various  states  surrounding  the  lake 
have  generally  concerned  themselves  with 
their  inland  waters  and  only  occasionally 
contributed  staff  and  funds  to  Lake  Michi- 
gan studies.  The  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service 
has  been  restrained  in  its  research  program 


April,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


by  reduced  and  fluctuating  budgets,  a  small 
staff  and  lack  of  oceanographic  equipment. 
Recently  however  a  beginning  has  been 
made  by  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service 
along  several  lines.  In  1953  the  Fish  and 
Wildlife  research  vessel  Cisco  began  work  in 
Lake  Superior  on  the  lamprey  and  lake 
trout.  In  1954  the  Cisco  was  in  Lake 
Michigan  studying  chubs  to  see  if  this 
species    was    becoming    stunted    or    poor. 

INSTITUTE  ESTABLISHED 

Recently,  the  Great  Lakes  Research  In- 
stitute was  established  at  the  University  of 
Michigan  to  promote  basic  research  par- 
ticularly in  Lakes  Erie,  Huron,  Michigan 
and  Superior.  Associated  with  the  Great 
Lakes  Research  Institute  is  the  Great  Lakes 
Research  Committee  of  Canada. 

In  January,  1956,  the  Great  Lakes  Com- 
mission was  established  by  the  states  bor- 
dering the  lakes  "to  promote  the  orderly, 
integrated  and  comprehensive  development, 
use,  and  conservation  of  the  water  resources 
of  the  Great  Lakes  Basin." 

In  addition  to  the  Great  Lakes  Com- 
mission consisting  of  the  border  states,  there 
recently  was  established  a  Great  Lakes 
Fishery  Commission  between  the  United 
States  and  Canada.  The  commission  will 
have  as  one  of  its  major  activities  the 
application  of  sea  lamprey  control.  In 
addition  it  is  expected  that  this  Fishery 
Commission  will  co-ordinate  many  of  the 
disjointed  efforts  to  do  research  on  the 
Great  Lakes. 

Previous  attempts  to  carry  on  large-scale 
basic  research  on  the  lakes  have  failed 
largely  because  of  a  lack  of  strong,  active, 
organized  leadership.  This  need  appears  to 
have  been  met.  Now  the  need  is  for  sup- 
port. To  date  only  minimal  amounts  of 
money  have  been  allotted  to  government 
agencies  for  research  on  the  lakes  and  these 
allotments  principally  for  investigation  of 
some  immediate  critical  problem  such  as 
sea  lamprey  control.  The  establishment  of 
organizations  devoted  to  research  on  the 
lakes  should  have  as  one  function  that 
of  educating  the  public  at  large  and  thereby 
gaining  support  and  funds  for  furthering 
basic  research. 

Effective  conservation  measures  for  the 
Great  Lakes  fisheries  can  be  brought 
about  only  when  there  is  international  and 
interstate  agreement  regarding  regulations, 
gathering  of  statistics,  and  co-ordinated 
research. 


formerly  employed  in  a  similar  capacity  in 
a  business  concern. 

Mr.  Krueger  left  the  Museum's  employ 
to  accept  a  commercial  position. 


Acting  Auditor  Appointed 

Miss  Marion  K.  Hoffman  has  been  ap- 
pointed Acting  Auditor  of  the  Museum,  due 
to  the  vacancy  occurring  with  the  recent 
resignation  of  Robert  A.  Krueger,  Auditor. 

Miss  Hoffman  joined  the  Museum  staff 
in  1952  as  Bookkeeper,  and  was  promoted 
to   Assistant   Auditor   in    1955.      She   was 


LECTURES  FOR  ADULTS 
ON  FOUR  SATURDAYS 

Four  illustrated  lectures  on  travel  and 
science  remain  to  be  given  on  Saturday 
afternoons  during  April  in  the  spring  series 
provided  by  the  Edward  E.  Ayer  Lecture 
Foundation  Fund.  These  lectures  all  begin 
at  2:30  p.m.,  and  are  presented  in  the  James 
Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum.  Ad- 
mission is  free,  and  no  tickets  are  required. 
While  only  adults  can  be  accommodated,  the 
Raymond  Foundation  provides  free  enter- 
tainment for  children  on  the  mornings  of 
the  same  Saturdays. 

Members  of  the  Museum  are  each 
entitled  to  two  reserved  seats  at  all 
lectures.  Reservations  may  be  made 
by  telephone  (WAbash  2-9410)  or  in 
writing.  Seats  will  be  held  in  the  Mem- 
ber's name  until  2:25  p.m. 

Following  are  the  dates,  subjects,  and 
lecturers  in  the  adult  series: 

April  7 — The  Challenge  of  Everest 

Norman  G.  Dyhrenfurth 

April  14 — Saga  of  the  Swamplands 

Earl  L.  Hilfiker 

April  21 — Penguin  Summer 

Olin  Sewall  Petlingill,  Jr. 

April  28 — Blizzards  to  Blossoms 

William  Parsons 


Daily  Guide  Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 


Venezuelan  Botanist  Here 

Leandro  Aristeguieta,  botanist  at  the 
Institute  Botanico  of  the  Ministerio  de 
Agricultura  y  Cria  in  Caracas,  Venezuela, 
has  come  to  the  United  States  for  two  years 
to  study  the  Compositae  (Sunflower  Family) 
as  represented  in  Venezuela. 

Mr.  Aristeguieta,  after  studies  at  the 
New  York  Botanical  Garden  and  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington,  is 
now  engaged  in  work  on  collections  at 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum,  and 
consulting  with  Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark, 
Curator  of  the  Phanerogamic  Herbarium. 


EXHIBIT  TELLS  THE  FACTS 
ABOUT  CROCODILIANS 

The  Museum's  program  of  exhibition  of 
crocodilians — the  group  including  alligators, 
caimans,  crocodiles,  and  gavials — began  in 
1923  with  the  Marshall  Field  Expedition  to 
Central  America.  One  of  the  prime  purposes 
of  the  field  party,  which  consisted  of  Dr. 
Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus  of 
Zoology,  and  former  Taxidermist  Leon 
Walters,  was  the  gathering  of  materials  for 
a  habitat  group  of  the  American  crocodile. 
The  successful  result  of  the  trip  was  the 
excellent  Lake  Ticamaya  habitat  exhibit  that 
has  been  on  display  in  the  Hall  of  Reptiles 
(Hall  18)  since  1926. 

Two  years  later  Mr.  Walters  went  to 
southeastern  Georgia  and  collected  the 
female  alligator  and  nest,  which  he  made 
into  one  of  the  fascinating  exhibits  of  the 
Hall  of  Reptiles.  In  the  intervening  years, 
two  models  of  small  Central  American 
crocodilians  have  been  prepared. 

A  new  screen  on  crocodilians,  recently  in- 
stalled, rounds  out  our  exhibition  of  this 
ancient  and  interesting  order  of  reptiles. 
Prepared  by  Taxidermist  Ronald  J.  Lambert 
according  to  plans  developed  by  the  Division 
of  Reptiles,  this  screen  emphasizes  those 
aspects  of  the  biology  of  crocodilians  not 
covered  by  other  exhibits.    About  one-third 


SKULL  OF  MAN-EATER 
This  specimen,  decorated  by  Filipino  tribesmen 
who  killed  the  crocodile,  now  is  featured  in  the 
center  section  of  new  exhibits  in  Albert  W.  Harris 
Hall  (Hall  18).  The  small  cut-outs  convey  an  idea 
of  the  size  range  of  crocodiles  and  relatives. 

of  the  screen  is  devoted  to  the  basic  adap- 
tations of  the  order  to  its  aquatic  environ- 
ment: propulsion  by  a  flattened  tail  and 
exclusion  of  water  from  body  openings  by 
special  valves.  Another  section  presents 
some  of  the  differences  between  crocodiles 
and  alligators.  Size,  another  topic  that  seems 
to  interest  the  public,  is  also  treated.  And, 
finally,  the  question  of  man-eaters  among 
the  crocodiles  is  dealt  with. 

Robert  F.  Inger 
Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Reptiles 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


April,  1 956 


EXPEDITION  TO  BORNEO 
GETS  UNDER  WAY 

By  ROBERT  F.  INGER 

CURATOR  OF  AMPHIBIANS  AND  REPTILES 

(Editor's  Note:  As  part  of  the  research  pro- 
gram in  the  Department  of  Zoology,  the  Mu- 
seum has  launched  its  1956  Borneo  Zoological 
Expedition.  The  expedition  is  in  charge  of 
Dr.  Inger,  writer  of  the  following  article,  who 
left  Chicago  by  plane  on  March  23.) 

THE  MUSEUM  sent  its  first  expedition 
to  North  Borneo  in  1950.  The  writer, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  earlier  field  party, 
will  conduct  the  Borneo  Zoological  Expedi- 
tion of  1956.  The  work  will  again  be  done 
in  the  tropical  rain  forest  that  covers  Borneo, 
and  it  is  hoped  that  certain  problems 
arising  from  the  study  of  the  collections  and 


EVOLUTION  OF  HEAD-HUNTER'S  'ART' 
Since  human  head  hunting  has  been  suppressed  in 
Borneo,  the  Dyak  tribesmen  keep  their  art   alive 
by  using  the  skulls  of  gibbons.    This  one  was  given 
to  the  Museum's  1950  Expedition  by  a  Dyak. 

notes  made  in  1950  may  now  be  solved. 
Operations  will  continue  in  North  Borneo 
and  Sarawak  for  approximately  six  months. 
The  principal  field  activities  will  be  the 
collecting  and  observing  of  reptiles,  am- 
phibians, and  fishes,  especially  as  these 
relate  to  an  understanding  of  the  rain  forest 
environment.  Equipment  and  supplies 
were  sent  ahead  at  the  end  of  January 
in  order  to  reach  Borneo  approximately  at 
the  same  time  operations  were  scheduled 
to  begin. 

A  portable  tape  recorder  is  being  used 
to  record  the  calls  of  frogs  and  toads, 
because  these  sounds  are  significant  in  the 
classification  of  amphibians.  An  important 
segment  of  the  equipment  is  that  to  establish 
a  small  weather  station  in  the  rain  forest. 
A  thermohumidigraph  will  make  a  con- 
tinuous record  of  temperature  and  humidity. 
A  maximum-minimum  thermometer  set 
half-way  up  the  trees  will  show  how  con- 
ditions differ  from  those  closer  to  the  ground. 
Since  the  work  will  be  done  in  the  rain  forest, 
a  rain  gauge  rounds  out  the  meteorological 
equipment. 

But   why  this   interest   in   tropical   rain 


forests?  For  a  biologist  the  answer  is  that 
this  is  the  richest  and  most  complex  environ- 
ment in  the  world,  and  therefore  the  most 
fascinating  and  challenging  natural  labora- 
tory. For  every  human  being  a  partial 
answer  is  a  bit  more  difficult  to  state. 

About  one-half  of  the  world's  forest  area 
is  tropical  rain  forest,  characterized  by  an 
almost  solid  roof  or  canopy  formed  by  the 
crowns  of  tall  trees,  by  a  small  amount  of 
undergrowth,  and  by  dense  shade  and  high 
humidity  near  ground  level.  Prior  to  the 
coming  of  white  men,  the  great  forests  of 
our  own  Southeast  had  the  same  character- 
istics. But  two  climatic  factors,  continu- 
ously warm  temperatures  throughout  the 
year  and  abundant  rainfall  in  every  month, 
typical  only  of  parts  of  the  tropics,  enable 
the  rain  forest  trees  to  retain  their  leaves 
the  year  around.  Individual  leaves  fall  all 
the  time  in  this  tropical  forest,  but  they  are 
being  replaced  continuously  so  that  any 
single  tree  is  always  fully  clothed.  In 
effect,  the  tropical  rain  forest  is  an  evergreen 
forest,  though  it  should  not  be  confused  with 
the  evergreen  forests  of  our  West  and  North. 
The  tropical  forest  contains  no  conifers — no 
pines,  junipers,  firs,  etc., — and  its  leaves  are 
broad  and  not  needle-like. 

The  amount  of  living  plant  material  in 
either  our  Southeastern  deciduous  forests  or 
in  a  tropical  rain  forest  such  as  covers 
Borneo,  is  immense.  One  log  may  weigh 
four  tons  and,  if  we  add  to  it  all  the  branches 
and  leaves  that  are  not  weighed  and  then 
multiply  by  the  many  millions  of  trees 
within  these  forests,  we  would  come  out 
with  some  astronomical  number.  To  pro- 
duce this  mass  of  living  matter  the  soil  must 
be  relatively  rich  in  the  minerals  needed  for 
good  plant  growth.  We  found  that  to  be 
true  when  we  cut  down  most  of  our  South- 
eastern forests  and  planted  regular  farm 
crops.  Similarly,  whenever  man  cut  the 
tropical  rain  forest  and  planted  crops,  the 
harvest  was  good,  but  only  for  one  or  at 
most  two  years.  Then  the  unfortunate 
farmer — Bornean,  African,  or  South  Ameri- 
can Indian — had  to  move  on  to  cut  another 
patch  of  forest  where  he  planted  crops  for 
a  year  or  so  before  moving  on  to  cut  and 
plant  elsewhere. 

RAPID  SOIL   DETERIORATION 

Why  should  this  shifting  kind  of  agri- 
culture be  necessary?  Is  the  tropical  farmer 
incompetent?  The  answers  lie  in  a  natural 
process  beyond  man's  control.  The  nutrient 
minerals  are  washed  out  of  tropical  soils  by 
the  heavy  rains  (more  than  100  inches  per 
year)  and  what  remains  is  changed  chemi- 
cally— literally  cooked  out — by  the  intense 
heat  of  the  sun  after  the  forest  is  removed. 
The  same  processes  go  on  in  the  soils  here, 
but  at  a  much  slower  pace.  It  took  50  to  80 
years  to  exhaust  the  cotton  lands  in  the 
South,  a  snail's  pace  compared  to  the  rate 
in  the  tropics. 


Africa  and  Southeast  Asia  are  areas  in 
which  the  needs  of  rapidly  increasing  human 
populations  will  exert  more  and  more  pres- 
sure on  the  neighboring  rain  forests.  But, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  traditional  agricul- 
tural techniques  are  proven  failures  in  such 
areas.  Whether  man  will  learn  to  use  these 
forested  countries  in  a  way  that  will  insure 
long-range  productivity  is  still  unknown. 

Yet  one  thing  seems  certain:  we  will  not 
master  this  problem  without  knowing 
a  great  deal  more  about  tropical  rain  forests 
than  we  do  at  present.  Whenever  man  has 
successfully  adapted  a  culture  to  the  cli- 
matic, geologic,  and  biological  factors  of 
a  particular  area,  he  has  usually  done  so 
only  after  much  trial  and  error,  which  in  the 
long  run  means  that  he  finally  has  accumu- 
lated a  large  body  of  information  and  has 
understood  how  all  the  facts  fit  together. 
In  the  tropics  where  the  pace  of  erosion 
and  soil  deterioration  is  at  least  25  times 
faster  than  in  our  country,  man  may  not  be 
allowed  the  luxury  of  trial  and  error.  He 
had  better  have  the  information  and  com- 
prehension first. 

Chicago  Natural  History  Museum, 
through  its  support  of  basic  research  in 
botany,  geology,  and  zoology,  contributes 
to  man's  knowledge  and  understanding  of 
the  world,  including  the  rain  forest.  Off- 
hand, it  would  seem  that  a  study  of  the 
classification  of  insects  or  the  study  of  the 
feeding  habits  of  this  or  that  frog  have  little 
relationship  to  the  problems  of  men.  But 
the  history  of  science  is  characterized  by 
the  sudden  emergence  into  usefulness  of 
information  discovered  long  before  anyone 
had  any  ideas  about  its  application.  In  fact, 
the  scientists  gathering  the  information  most 
likely  had  no  concern  at  all  with  the  appli- 
cation of  this  knowledge.  And,  because 
they  pursued  knowledge  for  knowledge's 
sake,  they  were  probably  called  "impracti- 
cal," or  referred  to  as  "dreamers." 

PRACTICAL   USE   FOLLOWS 

In  the  long  run,  though,  they  turn  out  to 
be  very  practical  men.  For  one  of  them 
studied  the  food  habits  of  a  little  beetle  that 
later  was  used  to  save  California's  citrus 
groves  from  destruction  by  the  cottony 
cushion  scale  insect.  Hundreds  of  biologists, 
the  Museum's  staff  among  them,  have  built 
up  a  framework  of  animal  classification 
without  which  there  could  be  no  effective 
control  of  malaria,  or  plague,  or  any  other 
animal-borne  disease. 

Exactly  how  the  notes  and  collection  of 
snakes,  lizards,  frogs,  and  fishes  of  the 
Borneo  Zoological  Expedition,  1956,  will 
eventually  fit  into  our  understanding  of  the 
rain  forest  is  impossible  to  say  now.  But 
the  Museum,  like  all  institutions  of  basic 
research,  is  confident  that  to  know  is  better 
than  not  to  know,  and  that,  in  the  world  of 
science,  what  seems  the  longest  way  around 
is  often  the  shortest  road  home. 


April,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


A  'HALL  OF  FAME' 
FOR  FOSSIL  MAN 

By  GEORGE  I.  QUIMBY 

CURATOR  OF  NORTH  AMERICAN    ARCHAEOLOGY 
AND  ETHNOLOGY 

FOSSIL  MAN'S  Hall  of  Fame  is  a  new 
exhibit  in  Hall  C  (Stone  Age  of  the  Old 
World)  showing  four  famous  human  fossils: 
Java  man  (Pithecanthropus  erectus);  Peking 
man  (Sinanthropus  pekinensis);  Neanderthal 
man  {Homo  neanderthalensis);  and  Cro- 
Magnon  man  (Homo  sapiens).  The  fossil 
human  types  illustrated  in  the  new  exhibit 
were  selected  as  far  as  possible  in  terms  of 
the  ideal  criteria  advocated  by  Professor 
S.  L.  Washburn  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 
He  says  in  the  American  Anthropologist 
(Vol.  56,  No.  3,  1954,  p.  438):  "Ideally,  there 
should  be  three  or  four  individuals,  both 
skulls  and  the  rest  of  the  skeleton,  together 
with  artifacts  in  a  datable  geological  layer." 
Except  for  Java  man  who  was  not  found 
directly  associated  with  artifacts  (tools  and 
weapons)  the  four  famous  fossils  more  than 
meet  the  criteria  of  selection. 

JAVA  MAN  ONE  OF  OLDEST 

Java  man  (Pithecanthropus  erectus),  one 
of  the  oldest  known  fossil  human  types  is 
represented  by  at  least  three  adult  skulls 
in  fair  shape  and  parts  of  the  upper  and 
lower  jaws  with  a  number  of  teeth.  These 
remains  were  found  in  water-laid  deposits 
in  north  central  Java.  Animal  remains  in 
this  geological  deposit  are  at  present  be- 
lieved to  be  of  Middle  Pleistocene  age  or 
slightly  earlier.  This  would  suggest  that 
Pithecanthropus  lived  about  150,000  or 
300,000  years  ago,  according  to  geological 
estimates. 

An  important  physical  characteristic  of 
Pithecanthropus  was  the  small  brain  esti- 
mated to  have  been  from  about  775  to 
a  little  over  900  cubic  centimeters  in 
volume. 

Although  no  stone  tools  were  found  with 
the  remains  of  Pithecanthropus,  recognizable 
implements  of  an  early  style  have  come  from 
other  geological  deposits  considered  to  be  of 
equal  antiquity  in  Java. 

FOUND   IN   CAVE   DEPOSITS 

Peking  man  (Sinanthropus  pekinensis), 
also  one  of  the  oldest  fossil  human  types, 
is  represented  by  the  fragmentary  remains 
of  about  forty  individuals  including  fifteen 
individual  skulls  and  skull  fragments.  These 
remains  were  found  in  cave  deposits  near 
Peking,  China,  along  with  remains  of  animals 
that  are  believed  to  have  been  of  middle 
Pleistocene  age,  perhaps  150,000  or  300,000 
years  ago,  according  to  geological  estimates. 

An  important  physical  characteristic  of 
Sinanthropus  pekinensis  was  the  small  brain 
estimated  to  have  been  from  about  915  to 
1,225  cubic  centimeters  in  volume. 

Evidence  from  the  cave  deposits  suggests 
that  Sinanthropus  used  fire,  made  squarish 


chopping  tools  and  a  variety  of  scrapers  of 
flaked  stone,  and  hunted  such  animals  as 
deer,  sheep,  buffalo,  bison,  rhinoceros, 
horse,  camel,  elephant,  and  even  the 
ostrich. 

Neanderthal  man  (Homo  neanderthalensis) 
is  represented  by  remains  ranging  from 
nearly  complete  skeletons  through  skulls  to 
jaw  fragments  and  teeth.  These  skeletal 
remains  have  been  found  in  about  20  burial 
sites  in  Europe  or  near  Europe. 

Primarily  upon  the  basis  of  associated 
animal  remains,  the  European  Neanderthal 
people  are  believed  to  have  lived  during 
and  after  the  last  major  glacial  advance 
in  the  late  Pleistocene  age,  perhaps  30,000 
or  50,000  years  ago,  according  to  geological 
estimates. 

An  important  physical  charactistic  of 
European  Neanderthals  was  the  large  brain, 
about  1,200  to  1,600  cubic  centimeters  in 
volume.  Neanderthal  man  in  Europe  is 
associated  with  the  assemblage  of  stone 
tools  and  weapons  that  have  been  generally 
called  "Mousterian."  He  lived  in  caves, 
used  fire,  buried  his  dead,  and  hunted  big 
game  animals  now  extinct. 

LARGE   BRAIN 

Cro-Magnon  man  (Homo  sapiens)  is  well 
represented  by  a  number  of  skeletal  remains 
found  in  cave  dwellings  and  burial  sites  in 
western  Europe.  The  Cro-Magnon  remains 
have  been  found  in  geological  associations 
10,000  to  20,000  years  old,  according  to 
recent  geological  estimates.  An  important 
physical  characteristic  of  Cro-Magnon  man 
was  the  large  brain,  estimated  to  have 
averaged  1,660  cubic  centimeters  in  volume. 

The  remains  of  Cro-Magnon  or  of  similar 
people  have  been  found  with  stone  tools 
and  weapons  typical  of  the  Aurignacian, 
Solutrean,  and  Magdalenian  industries  and 
periods  of  the  upper  Paleolithic  age  in 
Europe. 

MANY  DOUBTS  REMAIN 

"In  the  study  of  human  evolution,"  says 
Professor  Washburn  in  the  article  already 
cited,  "there  will  always  be  room  for  many 
differences  of  opinion  and  for  doubt."  At 
present  there  are  so  many  differences  of 
opinion  and  so  many  doubts  that  it  seems 
almost  impossible  to  make  an  unchallenged 
statement  about  the  evolution  of  man. 
Even  more  difficult  is  human  evolution,  the 
development  of  man  after  he  achieved 
human  form. 

The  fossil  record,  as  illustrated  by  the 
Museum's  selection  of  human  types  for  its 
fossil  hall  of  fame  exhibit,  clearly  demon- 
strates an  increase  in  brain  size  over  a  rela- 
tively short  span  of  time,  less  than  300,000 
years,  possibly  less  than  150,000  years. 
And  it  is  most  probable  that  human  evolu- 
tion is  primarily  if  not  solely  the  evolution 
of  the  brain  which  can  be  perceived  in 
quantitative  if  not  qualitative  terms. 


SATURDAY  PROGRAMS 

FOR  CHILDREN 

Children  are  invited  to  three  free  programs 
of  motion  pictures  and  a  puppet  show  at  the 
Museum  on  the  mornings  of  the  four 
Saturdays  in  April.  Explorers  who  made 
the  films  to  be  shown  will  be  present  to  tell 
their  stories  on  two  of  the  programs.  These 
shows  are  presented  by  the  James  Nelson 
and  Anna  Louise  Raymond  Foundation,  and 
all  will  begin  at  10:30  a.m.,  in  the  James 
Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum.  Children 
may  attend  in  groups  from  schools,  clubs, 
and  other  centers,  or  they  may  come  in- 
dividually, with  or  without  parents  or  other 
adults.  No  tickets  are  needed.  Following 
are  the  titles  and  dates: 

April  7 — In  the  Circus  Arena 

A  close-up  view  of  the  circus  with  all  its 
exciting  acts  and  animals 

April  14 — The  Little  House  by  the  Creek 

Living  close  to  Mother  Nature's  children 
Story  told  by  Earl  L.  Hilfiker 

April  21 — Wild  Animals  in  India 

Story  told  by  John  Moyer 

April  28 — The  Amazing  Voyage  of  Nicky 
Noodle 

Puppet  stage  -production  by  Coleman  Pup- 
pets, Maywood,  Illinois 


STAFF  NOTES 


George  I.  Ouimby,  Curator  of  North 
American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology, 
spent  a  week  in  March  at  the  Museum  of 
Anthropology  of  the  University  of  Michigan 
in  Ann  Arbor,  in  consultations  with  anthro- 
pologists and  geologists  on  problems  of 
culture  and  ecology  of  the  Great  Lakes  Area 
in  early  Pleistocene  and  post-Pleistocene 
times  ....  Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator 
Emeritus  of  Zoology,  attended  the  recent 
meeting  of  the  Committee  on  Systematic 
Biology  of  the  National  Science  Foundation 
in  Washington,  D.C.  He  and  Dr.  Rainer 
Zangerl,  Curator  of  Fossil  Amphibians  and 
Reptiles,  were  recent  lecturers  at  the  Mu- 
seum of  Comparative  Zoology,  Harvard 
University  .  .  .  .  D.  Dwight  Davis,  Curator 
of  Vertebrate  Anatomy,  gave  a  graduate 
seminar  lecture  on  "The  Historical  Back- 
ground of  the  Human  Tarsus"  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois  College  of  Medicine  .... 
Dr.  Theodor  Just,  Chief  Curator  of 
Botany,  spoke  before  the  taxonomy  and 
morphology  seminar  of  Iowa  State  College 
at  Ames  on  "Biology  and  Society."  He 
also  gave  a  public  lecture  on  "Natural 
History,  Past  and  Future"  ....  Dr.  Julian 
A.  Steyermark,  Curator  of  the  Phanero- 
gamic Herbarium,  spoke  before  a  seminar 
at  Kansas  State  Teachers  College,  Pittsburg, 
on  taxonomy  and  plant  exploration. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


April,  1956 


FIGS  OF  SUBTROPICS 
GROW  IN  CHICAGO 

By  JOHN  W.  THTERET 

CURATOR  OF  ECONOMIC  BOTANY 

FEW  CHICAGOANS  realize  that  figs- 
one  of  the  best-knovn  of  the  subtropical 
fruits — can  be  grown  in  the  Windy  City, 
hardly  famed  for  its  clement  weather.  They 
not  only  can  be  but  indeed  they  are  grown 
by  those  who  feel  that  a  bland  reward  is 
sufficient  payment  for  the  performance  of  a 
not-too-easy  task.  These  people  and  their 
friends  enjoy  the  often  prolific  crop. 

Despite  this,  it  is  unlikely  that  Chicago 
will  ever  become  a  fig-growing  center.    The 


GROWS  FIGS  IN  CHICAGO 
Charles  Cardella  lowering  one  of  his  subtropical 
fruit  trees  into  a  trench  in  his  garden  at  6319  West 
Patterson  Avenue.  Covered  with  old  rugs  and  soil, 
the  tree  is  protected  from  winter  cold.  In  spring  it 
is  dug  up  and  replanted. 

difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  fig  tree 
must  be  given  adequate  protection  from  cold 
during  the  winter.  There  are  two  general 
ways  in  which  this  may  be  accomplished:  the 
first  is  to  grow  the  tree  in  a  large  pot  that  can 
be  moved  indoors  into  a  cool  place  with  the 


PAYS  OFF  IN  SUMMER 
A  fruiting  branch  of  one  of  the  dark-skinned  varie- 
ties of  the  common  type  of  fig  grown  in  Chicago  by 
Mr.  Cardella. 

beginning  of  cold  weather;  the  second  in- 
volves growing  the  tree  in  a  sheltered  posi- 
tion and  giving  it  various  sorts  of  winter 
protection. 

The  second  is  the  more  challenging  one 


and  the  one  used  by  a  local  fig-grower  whose 
garden  I  visited.  He  had  tried  for  many 
years  to  grow  figs  but  always  lost  them  by 
freezing  during  the  winter.  Finally  the  idea 
— not  a  new  one — occurred  to  him  to  try 
burying  the  entire  tree  in  November,  after 
its  leaves  had  been  shed,  and  digging  it  up 
again  the  following  spring!  This  task  is 
accomplished  by  undercutting  and  freeing 
the  roots  on  one  side,  digging  a  trench  a  foot 
or  two  deep  running  out  from  the  base  of  the 
trunk,  and  gently  bending  the  tree  over  into 
the  trench.  The  branches  are  wrapped  with 
cloth,  covered  with  old  rugs  and  the  like,  and 
then  heaped  over  with  soil.  One  of  the  trees 
protected  by  this  method  developed  a  trunk 
over  five  inches  in  diameter  and  finally 
became  too  big  to  handle  during  the  burying 
period. 

The  amount  of  cold  that  a  dormant  fig 
tree  will  withstand  is  determined  by  a  num- 
ber of  factors,  including  variety,  degree  of 
dormancy,  and  condition  of  the  plant.  For 
example,  certain  fig  trees  in  Texas  were 
uninjured  by  a  low  of  11°F.  Other  varieties, 
in  California,  showed  fruit-bud  injury  after 
a  drop  to  15°-18°F.  At  10°-12°F  some 
healthy  mature  plants  were  but  slightly 
injured,  whereas  injury  was  severe  to  old 
and  young  bearing  trees.  In  contrast,  some 
varieties  can  withstand  temperatures  as  low 
as  3°F  without  damage. 

The  growing  of  figs  in  the  northern  states 
has  been  known  for  many  years.  In  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  other  cities  many 
fig  trees  are  said  to  grow  out-of-doors, 
receiving  winter  protection  of  some  sort. 
This  practice  is  just  another  illustration  of 
man's  apparently  insatiable  desire  to  grow 
plants  in  areas  not  ideally  suited  to  their 
growth.  Other  examples  are  to  be  seen  in 
greenhouses  and  in  the  vast  smudge-pot  and 
citrus  industry  of  Florida. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of   Anthropology: 

From:  Cornelia  Conger,  Chicago — 3  arti- 
facts from  Northern  Plains  Indians,  Idaho 

Department   of   Botany: 

From:  American  Spice  Trade  Association, 
New  York — 16  photographic  prints  of  spice 
plants;  W.  W.  Hodge,  Kennett  Square,  Pa. 
— photograph  (Myristica  fragrans  fruits) 

Department   of  Geology: 

From:  Rosiclare  Lead  &  Fluorspar  Mining 
Co.,  Rosiclare,  111. — a  specimen  of  fluorite; 
Miss  Lillian  Ross,  Chicago — holotype  of 
insect,  Illinois 

Department   of   Zoology: 

From:  Ismael  Ceballos  Bendezu,  Cuzco, 
Peru — 15  small  rodents;  H.  R.  Bullis,  Pasca- 
goula,  Miss. — marine  shell,  Gulf  of  Mexico; 
Harry  Hoogstraal,  Cairo,  Egypt — 86  frogs, 
191  lizards,  9  snakes;  William  E.  Old,  Jr., 
Norfolk,  Va. — collection  of  land  snails; 
Fraser  Walsh,  Formosa — birdskin 


FIFTH  'MUSEUM  JOURNEY' 
STUDIES  BIBLE  PLANTS 

Plants  of  the  Bible  is  the  subject  of  the 
fifth  Museum  Travelers'  Journey  for  boys 
and  girls  now  in  progress  at  the  Museum. 
Presented  by  the  Raymond  Foundation,  the 
journey  is  available  through  April  to 
youngsters  who  wish  to  become  Museum 
Travelers — which  means  that  they  must 
successfully  complete  four  "journeys"  after 
which  they  will  receive  special  awards  from 
Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director. 

During  their  "travels"  the  youngsters, 
armed  with  instructions  and  questions  con- 
cerning the  exhibits,  are  transported  to  the 
shores  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  the  mountains 
of  Lebanon,  the  Nile  River,  and  to  Jerusa- 
lem. In  the  botany  halls  they  learn  of  some 
of  the  food  plants  and  other  plants  that 
were  of  great  importance  to  the  people  of 
the  Holy  Land  in  biblical  times. 

A  colorful  Bible  plant  exhibit  in  Stanley 
Field  hall  introduces  the  journey  to  its 
young  travelers  and  prepares  them  for  their 
further  travels  in  the  museum.  A  journey 
to  toys  of  ancient  and  modern  times  was 
offered  in  December  and  January. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(February  14  to  March  14) 

Associate   Members 

Miss  Grace  Bittrich,  Robert  C.  Cross,  Paul 
C.  Fulton,  David  Bruce  Glade,  Bernhart 
Haugen,  Henry  Kenny,  F.  Chaloner  McNair 

Sustaining  Member 

R.  S.  Solinsky 

Annual  Members 

•  Roy  T.» Anderson,  Dr.  Hugo  C.  Baum, 
Marshall  L.  Billings,  Frank  L.  Bixby,  E. 
Henry  Blume,  Hymen  H«  Bregar,  Mrs. 
Robert  F.  Carr,  Hayden  F.  Conway,  George 
J.  Cooper,  James  H.  Cunningham,  Herbert 
Daniels,  Miss  Phyllis  Dockendorf,  Mrs. 
Vivian  Dockendorf,  Robert  J.  Doucette, 
J.  O.  Epeneter,  Francis  A.  Even,  Miss 
Judith  Fagan,  Mitchel  E.  Farris,  Edward  J. 
Fey,  Philip  A.  Fleischman,  Dr.  Aristotle  T. 
Flessor,  G.  K.  Franklin,  Alfred  E.  Gallo, 
Arthur  John  Geng,  Mrs.  William  Glassen- 
berg,  A.  L.  Goddard,  Francis  H.  Gurney, 
Carl  Gustafson,  Edward  W.  Hill,  A.  C. 
Hoffman,  L.  C.  Holloman,  Jr.,  Richard  H. 
Jay,  Harry  F.  Keator,  Jr.,  Russell  W. 
Keegan,  John  Laidlaw,  Willard  C.  Lighter, 
Donald  E.  Longwill,  M.  G.  Luken,  Jr., 
Richard  W.  Massey,  W.  R.  Maxwell,  Dr. 
William  L.  Maxwell,  David  N.  McCarl, 
Samuel  E.  McTier,  Dr.  W.  Harrison  Mehn, 
R.  H.  Olson,  Glenn  R.  Ostrander,  Mrs. 
Fentress  Ott,  W.  H.  Pfarrer,  Mrs.  Mary  S. 
Pfiffner,  Robert  E.  Pflaumer,  Mrs.  R. 
Joseph  Rich,  A.  W.  Richart,  Herbert  J. 
Richmond,  William  E.  Roberts,  John  M. 
Rolfe,  Joseph  K.  Salomon,  B.  J.  Schlicht, 
John  G.  Sevcik,  William  B.  Smeeth,  Herbert 
S.  Sorock,  Adolph  F.  Spiehler,  Cheston  F. 
Stafford,  Richard  W.  Stafford,  Mrs.  F.  H. 
Steinmann,  Donald  R.  Stewart,  John  Svatik, 
Charles  B.  Tansley,  Charles  D.  Turgrimson, 
Master  David  Vasalle,  Pasquale  Venetucci, 
Percy  H.  Waller,  William  F.  Wrightson 

PRINTED   BY  CHICAGO   NATURAL   HISTORY   MUSEUM   PRESS 


*J 


RULLETIN 

U  Vol.27,No.5-May- 1956 

Chicago  Natural 
H is tory  Mus  e  um 


■*.„ 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


May,  1 956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform   the   Museum 
promptly   of  changes  of  address. 


EMILY  MARSH  WILCOXSON 

(1864-1956) 

The  Museum's  former  Librarian,  Mrs. 
Emily  M.  Wilcoxson,  died  on  April  11. 
During  her  many  years  of  service,  Mrs. 
Wilcoxson  was  known  and  loved  by  the 
entire  staff  of  the  institution,  and  the  news 
of  her  passing  was 
received  by  her 
many  friends  with 
heartfelt  sorrow. 

Mrs.  Wilcoxson 
faithfully  served 
the  Museum  for 
almost  forty-five 
years — forty-one 
years  as  Assistant 
Librarian  and  Li- 
brarian until  her 
official  retirement 
in  1946,  and  four 
additional  years  as 

Librarian  Emerita  until  her  "second  retire- 
ment" in  1950.  She  was  91  years  of  age 
at  the  time  of  her  death. 

Mrs.  Wilcoxson  was  tern  December  24, 
1864,  at  Hadley,  Massachusetts. 

At  a  memorial  service  held  April  22, 
John  R.  Millar,  Deputy  Director  of  the 
Museum,  paid  the  following  tribute  to 
Mrs.  Wilcoxson: 

"We  are  here  to  honor  the  memory  of 


Mrs.  Emily  M.  Wilcoxson 


a  gentlewoman  whose  strength  and  sweet- 
ness of  character  will  long  be  remembered 
by  those  who  were  privileged  to  know  her. 
I  am  here,  not  only  on  my  own  behalf  as  one 
of  those  who  knew  her  in  her  work  as  Li- 
brarian of  Chicago  Natural  History  Mu- 
seum, but  also  as  a  representative  of  Dr. 
Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director  of  the  Museum, 
and  of  all  our  fellow  employees. 

"In  speaking  of  the  Museum  we  tend  to 
personify  it  as  some  kind  of  super-being 
with  body,  soul,  and  immortality.  But  as 
we  all  know,  the  soul  and  spirit  of  any 
organization  is  contributed  by  its  employees 
and  those  who  supervise  its  various  func- 
tions. 

"It  is  in  this  light  that  we  recognize  the 
great  contribution  that  Mrs.  Wilcoxson 
made  to  the  life  and  personality  of  the 
Museum,  first  as  Assistant  Librarian  for 
twenty-five  years  beginning  in  1905,  and 
then  as  Librarian  for  sixteen  years  until 
1946.  As  Librarian  Emerita  she  continued 
in  daily  attendance  on  her  work  until  it 
became  obvious  to  all  that  her  physical 
strength  could  not  match  the  strength  of 
her  will  to  continue.  .  .  . 

"We  cannot  mourn  the  passing  of  anyone 
who  has  lived  more  than  a  score  of  years 
beyond  the  usually  allotted  three  score  and 
ten.  But  we  do  regret  that  our  own  little 
world  has  lost  a  large  contributor  to  its 
dignity  and  worth.  Hardworking  and  de- 
voted to  her  task,  with  a  day  not  measured 
by  the  clock,  Mrs.  Wilcoxson  always  was 
willing  to  help  those  who  needed  her  services. 
No  illness  or  personal  problem  ever  altered 
her  smiling  graciousness.  .  .  . 

"For  her  contribution  to  the  growth  of 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  into 
a  great  institution  of  its  kind,  and  for  the 
brightness  and  cheer  that  she  brought  into 
the  lives  of  many,  we  who  knew  her  are 
deeply  grateful,  and  wish  to  express  our 
sympathy  to  her  family." 


WHERE  YOUTHFUL  FANCY 
TURNS  IN  SPRING 

We  may  be  accused  of  a  slight  exagger- 
ation, but  outwardly,  spring  at  Chicago 
Natural  History  Museum  seems  to  belong 
exclusively  to  children. 

In  past  seasons,  the  Museum  has  prepared 
for  an  onrush  of  school  children  beginning 
in  April.  But  last  year  the  hordes  of 
youngsters  began  pouring  in  in  March  and 
this  year  they  began  in  February.  Ample 
proof  for  these  statements  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  total  attendance  of  children  par- 
ticipating in  school  tours  and  special  pro- 
grams at  the  Museum  during  recent  months 
has  broken  all  records.  In  February  last 
year  the  figure  was  2,569,  while  in  February 
of  this  year  it  was  3,447.  In  March  it  was 
the  same  story:  4,899  in  1955,  and  4,967  in 
1956.    Although  April  figures  are  not  avail- 


-THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


Meet  the  17- Year  or  Periodical 
Cicada — definitely  the  Insect  of 
the  Month.  He  is  due  to  appear 
in  the  Chicago  area,  and  nearby 
states,  in  May,  1956  for  the  first 
time  since  1939.  Like  the  "man 
who  came  to  dinner"  he  will  stay 
for  several  weeks,  but  finally  will 
vanish,  not  to  reappear  in  these 
parts  until  1973.  The  cover  pic- 
ture is  a  photograph  of  part  of 
a  small  habitat  group  included  in 
a  comprehensive  special  exhibit 
which  may  be  seen  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall  from  May  1  through 
the  summer.  It  is  enlarged  to 
more  than  twice  the  insect's  ac- 
tual size.  The  special  exhibit 
includes  graphic  material  on  the 
Periodical  Cicada's  distribution, 
life  cycle,  song,  earliest  historical 
records,  and  damage  caused  by  it. 
On  page  3  of  this  Bulletin  is  an 
article  by  Henry  S.  Dybas,  Associ- 
ate Curator  of  Insects,  outlining 
the  principal  facts  about  the 
cicadas  which  are  expected  soon 
to  be  swarming  here. 


able  at  this  writing,  there  is  good  indication 
that  April  will  exceed  last  year's  figure,  and 
May,  always  the  peak  month  of  the  year  for 
children's  activities,  promises  to  do  the 
same. 

Miss  Miriam  Wood,  Chief  of  the  Ray- 
mond Foundation  whose  function  it  is  to 
plan  and  set  up  children's  activities  such  as 
tours,  exhibits,  movies,  and  special  pro- 
grams, attributes  the  record  attendance  and 
participation  in  children's  activities  in  great 
part  to  an  increasing  awareness  by  schools 
and  communities  of  the  advantages  of 
availing  themselves  of  the  resources  of 
large  cities.  And  distance  is  no  barrier. 
School  buses  are  transporting  children  to 
the  Museum  with  ever-increasing  regularity 
from  our  neighboring  states  of  Michigan, 
Indiana,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa.  Trains  and 
buses  also  bring  children  from  more  far- 
flung  points,  including  our  neighboring 
country,  Canada. 

Another  significant  trend  noted  by  Miss 
Wood  is  the  increasing  tendency  to  cor- 
relate classroom  curricula  with  visits  to  the 
Museum.  Since  April  2,  thousands  of  fifth, 
sixth,  and  seventh  graders  have  attended 
special  programs  geared  to  their  classroom 
studies  on  prehistoric  man,  prehistoric  ani- 
mals, ancient  Egypt,  and  the  natural  wonders 
of  North  America.  In  May  and  June  school 
groups  will  be  participating  in  programs  on 
the  coming  of  spring  to  the  Chicago  region, 
birds  of  the  Chicago  area,  and  a  rock  and 
mineral  workshop.       ,     * 


May,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  3 


MILLIONS  OF  SEVENTEEN- YEAR  CICADAS  DUE  HERE  IN  MAY 


By  HENRY  S.  DYBAS 

ASSOCIATE  CURATOR  OF  INSECTS 

THIS  IS  THE  YEAR  of  the  17-year 
cicada. 
The  Chicago  area  is  in  the  heart  of  the 
region  where  these  insects,  commonly  but 
improperly  called  "17-year  locusts,"  may  be 
expected  to  swarm  most  densely  during  the 
last  weeks  of  May  and  in  early  June. 


long  one  for  any  animal.  In  the  southern 
United  States  there  is  a  13-year  race  of  the 
Periodical  Cicada  that  otherwise  has  the 
same  appearance  and  habits  as  the  17-year 
race.  Because  of  this  13-year  race,  the 
name  17- Year  Cicada  is  not  as  appropriate 
as  the  name  Periodical  Cicada  which  has 
been  used  by  most  writers  for  about  a  cen- 
tury.    Even  less  appropriate  is  the  name 


Phoco  courtesy  of  Lee  Jenkins 


'ATTACK'  FROM  UNDERGROUND 

Periodical  cicadas  emerging  from  the  soil  in  large  numbers. 


The  sudden  and  noisy  appearance  peri- 
odically of  enormous  populations  of  cicadas, 
after  years  of  apparent  absence,  has  aroused 
wonder  and  occasionally  alarm  in  this 
country  since  early  colonial  times.  Seven- 
teen years  ago,  "on  schedule,"  these  cicadas 
last  appeared  in  northern  Illinois  and  in 
adjacent  regions.  They  emerged  by  the 
millions  in  late  May  and  June  of  1939  in 
Cook  County  Forest  Preserves  and  in  other 
woodlands  around  Chicago  and  filled  the 
air  with  their  shrill  song.  A  few  weeks  later 
they  were  gone. 

The  offspring  of  these  1939  cicadas  have 
been  developing  slowly  underground  during 
the  intervening  years  and  are  expected  to 
emerge  this  year  ....  in  fact,  in  a  very  few 
weeks.  This  year's  high  school  graduates 
were  only  a  year  old  when  these  insects  last 
appeared  in  our  region.  They  and  many 
other  persons  who  have  never  seen  the 
Periodical  Cicada  will  have  their  first  chance 
now  to  observe  this  remarkable  natural 
phenomenon. 

The  seventeen-year  cycle  of  the  Periodical 
Cicada  has  been  known  for  a  long  time.  In 
1758  Linnaeus  named  the  insect  Cicada 
septendecim  in  reference  to  the  length  of  its 
cycle.  This  cycle  is  still  the  longest  known 
for  any  insect  and,  indeed,  is  a  remarkably 


17- Year  Locust,  because  the  term  locust  is 
properly  applied  only  to  grasshoppers.  The 
confusion  between  cicadas  and  locusts  ap- 
pears to  have  occurred  in  early  times. 
Perhaps  the  sudden  appearence  of  great 
numbers  of  Periodical  Cicadas  suggested  to 
our  ancestors  the  swarms  of  Migratory 
Locusts  of  the  Old  World  which  are  referred 
to  in  the  Bible.  The  cicada  itself  belongs  to 
the  order  Homoptera,  a  group  that  includes 
a  number  of  familiar,  though  much  smaller, 
insects  such  as  plant  lice  and  scale  insects. 

LIFE   CYCLE 

The  life  cycle  of  the  Periodical  Cicada  is 
as  follows:  The  eggs  are  laid  in  slits  cut  into 
twigs.  They  hatch  in  a  few  weeks  and  the 
young  nymphs  drop  to  the  ground,  where 
they  burrow  down  into  the  soil  and  each 
nymph  forms  a  little  cell  associated  with 
a  rootlet  upon  whose  juices  it  feeds.  Here 
each  nymph  remains  in  complete  darkness 
in  its  solitary  cell  and  grows  slowly  through 
the  seasons — for  seventeen  years  in  the 
northern  race  and  thirteen  years  in  the 
southern.  At  the  end  of  this  period,  in 
the  early  spring,  the  cicada  returns  to  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  sometimes  construct- 
ing a  little  turret.  It  may  not  emerge  for 
several  weeks.     Then  suddenly  on  a  warm 


evening,  usually  in  late  May  in  our  area, 
the  mass  exodus  begins.  As  if  on  signal, 
great  numbers  of  cicada  nymphs  crawl  out 
of  the  ground  and  climb  up  on  plants  and 
trees.  Each  nymph  rests  for  a  while;  then 
the  skin  splits  down  the  back  and  the  soft 
creamy-white  adult  emerges.  The  small 
wing  pads  expand,  the  insect  hardens  and 
darkens  and  in  a  few  hours  it  is  ready  to 
begin  the  final  phase  of  its  life.  In  the  next 
few  weeks,  the  chorus  of  the  males  is  heard 
while  courtship,  mating,  and  egg-laying  take 
place.  Gradually  after  a  few  weeks  or  so 
the  cicadas  disappear,  prey  to  enemies  or  to 
old  age  and  the  long  cycle  is  complete. 

BROODS   NOT   SIMULTANEOUS 

The  17-year  race  of  the  Periodical  Cicada 
does  not  emerge  simultaneously  over  its 
entire  range  in  North  America.  Different 
broods  appear  in  different  years  in  various 
parts  of  the  range,  although  each  brood 
requires  seventeen  years  to  complete  its 
development.  Each  of  the  broods  has  been 
designated  by  a  number  for  purposes  of 
record  and  reference.  The  brood  that  is 
expected  to  emerge  this  year  in  northern 
Illinois  and  adjacent  areas,  is  Brood  XIII. 
Records  of  its  emergence,  at  seventeen-year 
intervals,  go  back  to  the  middle  of  the  19th 
century.     Other  broods  in  eastern   North 


WHERE   1956  SWARMS  ARE   EXPECTED 

The    approximate    range    of    Brood    XIII    of    the 

Periodical  Cicada,  due  to  emerge  this  month. 


America  have  been  traced  back  even  further. 
Where  two  or  more  of  these  broods  overlap, 
the  cicadas  appear  at  less  than  seventeen- 
year  intervals.  The  13-year  race,  likewise, 
has  a  number  of  broods  that  emerge  at 
different  times  over  its  range.  To  further 
complicate  the  situation,  there  is  a  broad 
zone  in  which  broods  of  the  northern  17-year 
race  and  broods  of  the  southern  13-year 
race  overlap  and  produce  a  complicated, 
seemingly  irregular,  pattern  of  emergence. 
Unraveling  these  complexities  has  not  been 


Page  i 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


May,  1956 


easy  for  entomologists  and  many  problems 
remain  unsolved. 

How  the  emergence  years  of  the  different 
broods  got  staggered  with  relation  to  each 
other  is  not  known.  It  is  known,  however, 
that  a  few  individuals  may  appear  a  year 
before  or  a  year  after  the  emergence  of  the 


Photo  courtesy  of  Lee  Jenkins 

FINAL  METAMORPHOSIS 
The  cicada  emerging  from  its  skin. 

main  brood  because  their  development  has 
been  accelerated  or  delayed.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  the  different  broods  could 
have  originated  from  small  groups  of  such 
individuals  that  had  gotten  out  of  schedule 
with  their  own  brood. 

SONG   BY   VAST   CHORUSES 

One  of  the  striking  impressions  of  a  mass 
cicada  emergence  is  the  sound  produced  by 
great  numbers  of  cicadas.  The  buzzing  of 
countless  males  results  in  a  characteristic 
sound  that  can  scarcely  be  described.  They 
sing  only  during  the  day  and  the  sound  is 
loudest  in  hot,  dry,  and  clear  weather.  The 
sound  organs  are  on  the  first  segment  of  the 
abdomen  and  consist  of  a  pair  of  ribbed, 
crisp,  convex  membranes  that  are  rapidly 
snapped  in  and  out  by  powerful  muscles  to 
produce  the  sound.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  this  way  of  making  sound  is  like 
pressing  the  bottom  of  a  tin  pan  up  and 
down.  Associated  with  the  sound  organs 
are  a  large  sound  chamber  and  covering 
plate  on  each  side.  The  cicada  can  modify 
the  sound  it  produces  by  raising  and  lower- 
ing its  abdomen  to  change  the  relative 
position  of  the  covering  plate  over  the  sound 
chamber. 

NUMBERS  AND  DAMAGE 

Under  certain  circumstances  the  numbers 
of  emerging  cicadas  can  be  enormous. 
Several  thousand  emergence  holes  have  been 
counted   under   a   single   tree.     But   there 


seems  to  be  no  evidence  that  either  the 
nymphs  or  the  adults  cause  any  appreciable 
damage  to  the  trees  by  sucking  the  sap,  even 
when  they  are  present  in  such  great  numbers. 
The  damage  that  does  occur  is  caused  by  the 
egg-laying  activities  of  the  female.  The 
female  has  an  ovipositer  with  which  she  cuts 
longitudinal  slits  in  the  twigs  of  trees  in 
which  to  lay  her  eggs.  The  leaves  on  the 
twigs  often  die  as  a  result  of  these  slits  and 
the  twigs  may  be  weakened  so  that  they 
break  in  the  wind.  A  large  brood  can  pro- 
duce a  conspicuous  discoloration  in  a  wood- 
land by  damaging  leaves  and  twigs,  but  the 
damage  is  usually  only  temporary.  Oc- 
casionally, fruit  trees  and  nursery  stock  may 
be  more  severely  damaged,  especially  when 
they  are  surrounded  by  or  are  adjacent  to 
woodlands.  Individual  shrubs  and  small 
trees  in  such  situations  may  be  protected 
with  cheese-cloth  or  other  netting.  Periodi- 
cal Cicadas  do  not  stray  far  from  where  they 


Some  Obfervations  of  fwnns  of  flrange.  InfeStf, 
and  the  Mifcbiefs  done  by  them. 

A  great  Obfervcr,  whd  hath  lived  long  in  N«  E»j(W, 
did  upon  occaf?on,relate  to  a  Friend  of  his  in  Louden,  where 
he  lately  was,  That  fomefew  Years  fince  there  was  fucha 
fwarmofa  certain  fort  of  Infects  in  that  Effglif*  Colony, 
that  for  the  fpacc  of  zoo  Miles  they  poyfon"d  and  deftroyed 
all  the  Trees  of  that  Country  ,  there  beirig  found  innume- 
rable little  holes  in  the  ground,  out  of  which  thofe  Infects 
broke  forth  in  the  form  of  Ahggots,  which  turned  into  Fljti 
that  had  a  kind  of  taile  or  ftiog,  which  they  (truck  into  the 
Tree,  and  thereby  envenomed  and  killed  ir. 

REPORTED  IN  17th  CENTURY 
The  earliest  account  of  the  Periodical  Cicada.     It 
was  published  in  1666  in  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions of  the  Royal  Society  of  London. 


emerged  and,  ordinarily,  special  protective 
measures  are  not  necessary  unless  there  are 
many  cicadas  emerging  in  the  immediate 
surroundings. 

OTHER  CICADAS 

Many  other  kinds  of  cicadas  are  known, 
although  no  other  American  species  is  as 
noteworthy  as  the  Periodical  Cicada  either 
in  the  length  of  its  life  cycle  or  in  the  huge 
numbers  in  which  it  emerges.  One  of  the 
best  known  is  the  Dog-day  Harvest-fly, 
whose  shrill  buzz-saw  sound  in  the  treetops 
is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  sounds  of 
our  hot  summer  days. 

A  leaflet  on  the  Periodical  Cicada  is 
available  at  the  Book  Shop  of  the  Museum. 
The  leaflet  was  written  following  the  emer- 
gence, in  1922,  of  the  grandparents  of  the 
cicadas  that  are  due  this  year.  Will  the 
emergence  this  year  equal  or  surpass  that 
of  1939?  Only  time  will  tell  how  many 
cicadas  have  managed  to  survive  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  last  seventeen  years. 


MINERALOGIST  APPOINTED 
TO  MUSEUM  STAFF 

Norman  Henry  Suhr  has  been  appointed 
to  the  staff  of  the  Department  of  Geology 
as  Associate  Curator  of  Mineralogy  and 
Petrology.    He  will  begin  his  duties  in  May. 

A  native  Chicagoan,  Mr.  Suhr  earned  both 
a  B.A.  and  an  M.S.  (Geology)  degree  at  the 
University  of  Chicago.  He  is  at  present 
completing  requirements  for  a  Ph.D.  degree. 

Mr.  Suhr  has  been  an  industrial  geologist, 
having  been  employed  in  mapping  oil  fields 
for  The  Texas  Company,  underground  map- 
ping for  Amco  Exploration  of  Toronto, 
Canada,  and  laboratory  work  in  separation, 
analysis,  and  evaluation  of  heavy  minerals 
for  the  Crane  Company.  For  three  years 
he  was  a  research  and  teaching  assistant 
at  the  University  of  Chicago  and  the 
University  of  Illinois. 


STAFF  NOTES 


Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology,  flew  to  Europe  late  in  March  for 
a  research  project  in  connection  with  a  large 
collection  of  frogs  from  the  Belgian  Congo 
deposited  in  the  Museum  by  the  Institut  des 
Pares  Nationaux  du  Congo  Beige.  Dr. 
Schmidt  will  make  studies  at  museums  in 
Brussels,  Paris,  and  London.  He  will  return 
in  May  ....  George  I.  Quimby,  Curator 
of  North  American  Archaeology  and  Eth- 
nology, spent  a  week  last  month  on  a  study 
trip  to  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  the 
Wisconsin  State  Historical  Society  Museum 
in  Madison,  and  the  Milwaukee  Public 
Museum,  in  pursuance  of  his  research  pro- 
ject on  problems  of  the  Great  Lakes  area. 
He  consulted  with  archaeologists,  botanists, 
and  geologists  ....  Miss  Elaine  Bluhm, 
Assistant  in  Archaeology,  and  Alden  Liss, 
assistant  in  the  Museum's  Pacific  Research 
Laboratory,  attended  the  recent  meetings  of 
the  Illinois  Archaeological  Survey  at  Spring- 
field ....  Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Assistant  Cu- 
rator of  Birds,  recently  made  a  field  trip  to 
the  Florida  Keys  for  a  preliminary  survey 
of  the  biology  of  the  great  white  heron  .... 
Loren  P.  Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  lec- 
tured on  "The  Flora  and  Fauna  of  the 
Galapagos"  before  the  Barrington  Natural 
History  Club  .  .  .  .  D.  Dwight  Davis,  Cu- 
rator of  Vertebrate  Anatomy,  spoke  on 
"Mammalian  Taxonomy"  in  a  symposium 
on  Australopithecines  at  the  Annual  Meeting 
of  the  American  Association  of  Physical 
Anthropologists ....  Dr.  R.  M.  Strong, 
Research  Associate  in  Anatomy,  attended 
the  annual  meetings  of  the  Cajal  Club  and 
of  the  American  Association  of  Anatomists 
in  Milwaukee. 


The  principal  known  facts  about  the 
fascinating  migrations  of  birds  are  presented 
in  an  exhibit  in  Boardman  Conover  Hall. 


The  world's  largest  meteorite  collection  is 
exhibited  in  Hall  35. 


May,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


'IT'S  DONE  WITH  MIRRORS' 
IN  NEW  BIRD  EXHIBIT 

By  EMMET  R.  BLAKE 

CURATOR  OP  BIRDS 

VISITORS  to  the  hall  of  bird  habitat 
groups  (Hall  20)  will  almost  certainly 
notice,  at  the  east  end  of  the  penguin  exhibit, 
a  new  installation  in  which  the  conspicuously 
distinctive  summer  and  winter  plumages  of 
a  willow  ptarmigan  are  shown.  Each  of 
these  seasonal  plumages,  brown  in  summer, 
white  in  winter,  is  displayed  against 
a  diorama  of  identical  views  in  the  Alaska 
mountains,  but  at  different  seasons. 

Those  who  pause  in  front  of  the  exhibit 
even  briefly  to  admire  the  beauty  of  the 
single  bird  on  display  at  any  given  moment 
are  likely  to  question  their  vision,  if  not 
their  sanity.  For  at  intervals  of  a  few 
seconds  the  ptarmigan,  whether  in  the 
mottled  brown  plumage  of  summer  or 
clothed  in  winter's  white,  appears  instan- 
taneously to  assume  the  alternate  livery,  and 
the  habitat  changes  its  seasonal  character. 


PTARMIGAN-SUMMER  PHASE 


PTARMIGAN-WINTER  PHASE 
Pictures  cannot  quite  tell  the  story  the  way  the 
actual  exhibit  does.  At  the  Museum,  by  clever  use 
of  a  mirror  and  alternating  lights,  first  one  and  then 
the  other  of  the  bird's  seasonal  plumages  is  dis- 
played at  intervals  of  a  few  seconds. 

It  is  an  optical  illusion,  accomplished  with 
the  aid  of  a  slanting  two-way  mirror,  con- 
cealed lights,  and  an  automatic  timing 
device.  Under  certain  lighting  conditions 
the  mirror  becomes  transparent,  permitting 
one  to  see  the  immaculate  white  ptarmigan 
in  its  wintry  habitat.  Soon  the  lights 
change,  the  winter  bird  and  its  diorama 
disappear  and  are  replaced  by  the  mirrored 
image  only  of  a  summer  bird  and  diorama 
attached  to  the  ceiling  of  the  case. 

The  Museum's  constant  search  for  new 
and  better  techniques  of  display  are  no- 
where better  exemplified  than  in  this  exhibit 


which  utilizes  a  recent  technological  develop- 
ment to  demonstrate  a  striking  biological 
phenomenon.  Arctic  birds  react  to  the 
approach  of  severe  winter  conditions  in 
various  ways.  Most  birds,  including  all  of 
the  insect-eaters,  migrate  southward  in  the 
fall  and  some  travel  thousands  of  miles  to 
winter  in  South  America.  A  few  hardy 
species  are  able  to  survive  the  northern 
winters,  but  may  undergo  plumage  changes 
that  increase  their  chances  of  survival. 

Ptarmigans,  the  grouse  of  the  Arctic,  are 
typical  of  the  latter  group.  They  live  in  the 
tundra  and  have  outposts  both  in  the  moor- 
lands of  the  British  Isles  and  above  timber- 
line  in  our  western  mountains  where  arctic 
conditions  prevail.  Three  of  the  four  quite 
similar  species  inhabit  North  America  and 
molt  from  brown  to  white  in  winter.  The 
fourth,  the  famed  red  grouse  of  the  British 
Isles,  is  reddish  brown  throughout  the  year. 


Visiting  Hours  Extended 
for  Summer  Season 
j  ^Effective  May  1  and  continuing  through 
September  3  (Labor  Day)  visiting  hours  at 
the  Museum  are  extended  by  one  hour. 
The  Museum  will  be  open  daily,  including 
Sundays  and  holidays,  from  9  a.m.  to  6  p.m. 
At  the  end  of  this  period,  hours  will  revert 
to  9  A.M.-5  P.M. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(March  15  to  April  13) 

Life  Member 

Richard  A.  Waller 

Associate  Members 

Charles  Grosberg,  Gerald  Hollins,  George 
N.  Leighton,  J.  A.  Middleton,  Arthur  Ryan, 
Samuel  J.  Sackett,  E.  Todd  Wheeler 

Sustaining   Members 

Clayton  G.  Ball,  A.  B.  Dick  III,  John  H. 
Johnson 

Annual  Members 

Howard  Adler,  Donald  R.  Bonniwell,  E. 
J.  Braun,  L.  B.  Buchanan,  A.  C.  Buehler, 
Jr.,  Ernest  W.  Christener,  Bernard  J.  Cogan, 
Francis  D.  Edes,  Henry  Fishman,  Frank  M. 
Fucik,  A.  E.  Hibbs,  Frank  Gall,  Gunnar  E. 
Gunderson,  Mrs.  Dustin  Grannis,  William 
P.  Hypes,  Raymond  L.  Icely,  Frank  H. 
Ingram,  Charles  N.  Jensen,  Max  Koenigs- 
berg,  Arthur  M.  Krensky,  Raymond  Kropp, 
Richard  J.  Ley,  C.  H.  Lillienfield,  Albert  S. 
Long,  Jr.,  William  Ludvik,  Nicholas  P. 
Masse,  Mrs.  Douglas  McDonald,  Mrs. 
David  H.  Milne,  Mark  C.  Morgan,  Harold 
J.  Nussbaum,  J.  W.  O'Neill,  William  Oster- 
mann,  Paul  J.  Panuce,  Andrew  L.  Pontius, 
Ralph  G.  Raymond,  G.  L.  Ridenour,  Samuel 
Rome,  Theodore  Rossman,  Byron  C.  Staf- 
feld,  Mrs.  John  Stephens,  J.  H.  Van  Moss, 
Jr.,  S.  L.  Workman 


A  selection  of  typical  albino  birds  and 
mammals  is  on  exhibition  in  an  alcove 
north  of  the  entrance  to  Boardman  Conover 
Hall  (Hall  21). 


YOUTH  SCIENCE  FAIR 
AT  MUSEUM  MAY  12 

HOW  AMERICA'S  YOUTH  is  respond- 
ing to  the  nation's  acute  need  for 
scientists,  engineers,  and  technicians,  will 
be  demonstrated  at  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum  on  Saturday,  May  12,  when  Stan- 
ley Field  Hall,  from  9  a.m  to  5  p.m.  will 
become  the  scene  of  the  Chicago  Area 
Science  Fair. 

Exhibitors  in  the  fair  will  be  Chicago-area 
elementary  school  pupils  from  the  sixth 
grade  up,  and  high  school  students  from 
freshmen  to  seniors.  The  fair  is  sponsored 
by  the  Chicago  Teachers  Science  Associa- 
tion. All  the  exhibits  will  be  the  creations 
of  the  children  and  students  themselves, 
prepared  outside  of  school  hours,  and  with- 
out help  from  parents,  teachers,  or  other 
adults  in  any  of  the  actual  work  of  produc- 
tion. The  scope  of  the  exhibits  includes 
biology,  physics,  chemistry,  electricity, 
electronics,  astronomy,  geology,  mathema- 
tics, and  miscellaneous  scientific  subjects. 

Pupils  of  public,  parochial,  and  private 
schools  thoughout  Chicago  and  its  sur- 
rounding suburbs  will  participate.  About 
125  exhibits  are  expected  to  qualify  for 
"the  big  show"  in  the  Museum — these  will 
include  only  those  that  have  won  top  honors 
in  local  preliminary  science  fairs  to  be  held 
at  each  of  the  individual  schools.  The  boys 
and  girls  who  prepared  each  exhibit  will  be 
present  at  the  Museum  with  their  creations 
to  demonstrate,  and  to  answer  questions. 

A  committee  of  judges  appointed  by  the 
Chicago  Teachers  Science  Association  will 
inspect  each  exhibit,  and  will  also  interview 
the  boy  and  girl  exhibitors  to  determine 
their  knowledge  and  background  in  their 
subject.  The  results  of  these  oral  tests,  as 
well  as  the  skill  and  imagination  revealed  by 
the  exhibits  themselves,  will  be  factors  in 
selecting  winners  of  the  final  awards.  There 
will  be  awards  for  the  best  exhibits  from 
each  school  grade  level. 

In  previous  years,  exhibits  from  north, 
south,  and  west  sections  of  the  Chicago  area 
were  displayed  at  different  institutions,  on 
different  dates,  and  there  were  divisions 
between  grade  and  high  school  projects. 
This  year  for  the  first  time  all  exhibits  from 
the  entire  area  will  be  assembled  at  one 
place  and  at  one  time.  Because  of  the  Mu- 
seum's many  activities  for  school  children, 
high  school  and  college  students,  and 
teachers,  it  was  selected  as  a  logical  location 
for  this  year's  comprehensive  science  fair. 

During  the  morning  of  the  same  day, 
May  12,  beginning  at  9:30,  a  Chicago  Area 
Science  Conference  will  be  held  at  the 
Museum.  This  will  begin  with  a  general 
assemblage,  after  which  the  delegates  will 
split  into  groups  to  discuss  specific  subjects. 
Theme  of  the  conference  is  "Today's  Youth 
— Tomorrow's    Scientists   and    Engineers." 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


May,  1956 


NATURAL  HISTORY   EXHIBITS   INSPIRE   ART  STUDENTS'   CREATIVE  EFFORTS 


By  EDITHE  JANE  CASSADY 

HEAD  OF  THE  JUNIOR  SCHOOL,  ART  INSTITUTE  OF  CHICAGO 

THE   EXHIBITION   of   drawings   and 
paintings  by  students  of  the  School  of 
the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago  is  an  annual 


AN  ALLEGORY  FROM  NATURE 
"Arrangement  of  Animal  Symbols"  is  the  title  of  this  mural  by   Paul  Banks 
of  Chicago,  first-year  adult  school  student  at  the  Art  Institute.   Banks'  thought- 
provoking  work,  executed  in  vivid  pastel  chalks,  is  on  display  along  with  other 
art  students'  productions  inspired  by  natural  history  exhibits. 


May  event  at  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum.  Installed  in  Stanley  Field  Hall, 
it  combines  the  work 
of  the  young  students 
of  the  Junior  School 
and  the  regular  stu- 
dents enrolled  in  the 
Basic  Course  of  the 
Professional  Day 
School.  The  exhibit 
may  be  seen  from  May 
1  to  31  inclusive. 

Sketching  trips  to 
the  Museum  are  regu- 
larly scheduled  by  the 
school  throughout  the 
year.  The  students 
look  forward  with 
great  pleasure  to  their 
'day'  at  the  Museum 
— the  fun  of  the  trip 
over,  the  things  they 
see  en  route,  the  in- 
teresting happenings 
of  the  ever-changing 
scene,  then  the  Mu- 
seum with  its  exciting 
collections.  They  dis- 
cover and  explore  the 
wonders  of  the  exhi- 
bits, then  select  their  "favorites"  and  return 
again  and  again  to  "old  favorites." 


The  work  in  this  exhibition  shows  what 
and  how  these  young  people  draw  and  paint 
— not  to  represent  the  exhibits  as  accurately 
as  possible  but  to  express  themselves,  their 
own  experiences.  They  communicate  these 
experiences  in  their 
work,  which  forms 
a  record  of  their  trip 
to  the  Museum  and 
what  was  most  inspir- 
ing and  interesting  to 
them.  The  drawings 
and  paintings  show 
how  differently  they 
interpret  the  same 
subject,  for  it  is  the 
individual  who  uses  his 
media  and  his  form  of 
expression  according 
to  his  personal  experi- 
ences. Since  these 
experiences  change 
with  the  growth  of  the 
individual,  the  age 
span  of  the  participa- 
ting artists  offers  a 
unique  opportunity  to 
see  the  development 
of  creative  growth  and 
to  enjoy  the  work  pro- 
duced. 

We   in   seeing, 
studying,  and  appre- 
ciating  the   drawings 
and  paintings  of  these  young  people,  see  the 
world  through  the  eyes  of  today's  students, 


artists  on  the  staff  of  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum,  selected  the  work  in  this 
year's  exhibition. 


SOUTHWEST  INDIAN  MASKS 

Staff  Artists  Gustaf  Dalstrom,   left,  and  E.  John  Pfiffner  with   group-project 

mural  by  students  of  Junior  School  of  the  Art  Institute.     Dalstrom  and  Pfiffner 

selected  students'  work  for  special  exhibit  at  this  Museum  during  May. 


who  are  the  artists  of  tomorrow. 

Gustaf  Dalstrom  and  E.  John  Pfiffner, 


SCHOOLS  AND  SCOUTS 
AIDED  BY  MUSEUM 

Special  programs,  ranging  in  interest  from 
prehistoric  man  to  the  coming  of  spring  to 
Chicago,  were  presented  to  thousands  of 
young  Museum  visitors  by  the  Raymond 
Foundation  last  month  as  part  of  the  Mu- 
seum's effort  to  work  in  conjunction  with 
school  and  other  organized  groups  during 
the  busy  spring  season. 

On  display  in  the  south  entrance  to 
Stanley  Field  Hall  is  a  special  exhibit  pre- 
pared by  the  sixth-grade  pupils  of  Arm- 
strong School  in  Chicago  based  on  a  Museum 
program  that  the  children  attended  several 
months  ago.  Exhibited  are  drawings,  charts, 
written  material,  and  a  miniature  diorama 
depicting  the  building  of  the  pyramids. 
Special  programs  on  ancient  Egypt  were 
given  for  Chicago-area  school  children  be- 
ginning in  April  and  extending  through 
May  4. 

A  bird  program  for  Cub  Scouts  of  the 
Chicago  region  was  held  at  the  Museum  on 
April  26.  The  junior  Scouts  (from  ages 
eight  to  eleven)  saw  free  color  motion  pic- 
tures and  were  able  to  utilize  the  Museum's 
bird  halls  to  continue  their  studies  being 
made  in  conjunction  with  the  Cub  Scouts' 
observance  of  April  as  "Bird  Month." 
Other  Museum  activities  given  last  month 
for  school  children  included  programs  on 
prehistoric  man,  prehistoric  animals,  and 
the  natural  wonders  of  North  America. 
This  month  and  in  June  the  Raymond 
Foundation  school-group  schedule  will  in- 
clude programs  on  birds  of  the  Chicago 
region  for  fifth  and  seventh  graders;  Trail- 
side  Adventures  (the  coming  of  spring  to 
Chicago  area)  for  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh 
graders;  and  a  rock  and  mineral  workshop 
available  to  small  groups  of  upper  grade- 
school  students.  Because  of  the  popularity 
of  the  special  programs,  reservations  must 
be  made  more  than  one  week  in  advance 
or  before  quotas  are  filled. 


Daily    Guide   Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  P.M.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 


May,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


A  DEEP-SEA  "BUG" 

By  FRITZ  HAAS 

CURATOR  OF  LOWER  INVERTEBRATES 

THE  FISH  AND  WILDLIFE  SERVICE 
at  Pascagoula,  Mississipi,  recently  sent 
to  the  Museum  a  shipment  containing, 
among  other  things,  a  bottle  of  several  rare 
and  strange  deep-sea  creatures.  They  were 
dredged  up  from  a  depth  of  500  fathoms 
(3,000  feet)  in  the  ocean  north  of  Cuba  in 
the  course  of  fishing  studies. 

These  new  specimens  are  one  of  the  most 
valuable  and  welcome  of  recent  accessions 
to  our  collections.  Not  only  was  the  species 
hitherto  unrepresented  in  our  collections, 
but  it  is  rarely  found  in  any  museum.  The 
individuals  we  received  are  about  3J-2  inches 
long  but  are  only  half-grown.  Despite  this 
relatively  small  size  they  are  giants  among 
their  relatives,  the  best  known  of  which  is 
the  sow-bug. 

Almost  everyone  knows  the  little  bug 
commonly  called  a  sow-bug:  an  animal  %  to 
Yi  inch  in  length,  with  a  body  consisting  of 
a  series  of  rings  and  with  one  pair  of  feet  on 
the  underside  of  each  ring.  It  is  found  com- 
monly in  moist  spots,  under  flat  rocks,  bark, 
boards,  and  even  in  cellars  of  houses.  Kin 
of  this  terrestrial  sow-bug  are  often  found 
in  ditches  and  creeks.  However  the  vast 
majority  of  related  forms  live  in  the  ocean. 

There  is  no  word  in  the  English  language 
that  characterizes  the  entire  group  of  sow- 
bug  relatives,  so  we  have  to  use  their  scien- 
tific name,  "isopods."  They  are  not  insects, 
as  often  believed,  but  are  akin  to  the  cray- 
fish of  our  waters.  The  claws  of  the  first 
pair  of  feet  on  crayfish  are  enlarged  to  form 
the  so-called  pinchers,  whereas  in  the  isopods 
the  feet  are  all  alike,  which  is  just  what  their 
name  means. 

HOW  THEY  LIVE 

While  the  isopods  of  the  land  and  of 
freshwater  are  mostly  small  animals  hardly 
exceeding  %  of  an  inch  in  length,  those  of 
the  ocean  have  developed  into  larger  beings 
often  measuring  1]4  of  an  inch  and  even 
more.  The  great  majority  live  in  shallow 
water  where  they  hide  under  rocks  or  in 
crevices  and  where  they  lead  a  predatory 
life  preying  on  smaller  or  weaker  animals  or 
feeding,  scavenger-like,  on  decomposing 
animal  corpses;  they  even  may  attack  living 
fishes  for  which  there  seems  to  be  a  predi- 
lection which  has  led  to  a  basic  change  of 
life  in  some  of  the  marine  isopods. 

Quite  a  number  have  acquired  a  para- 
sitic way  of  life  by  clinging,  with  the  help 
of  the  sharp  claws  of  the  forefeet,  to  the 
skin  or  the  gills  or  even  to  the  roof  of  the 
mouth  of  living  fishes.  There  they  nourish 
themselves,  in  a  yet  unknown  way,  on 
the  body  juices  of  the  carrier-fish,  apparently 
however  not  killing  it  or  even  damaging  it 
severely.  The  sojourn  on  the  fish  may  be 
temporary  and  the  parasite  can  leave  at 
will,  swimming  around  until  it  infests  a  new 


host,  or  it  may  attach  itself  permanently 
to  one  fish.  In  this  case,  the  body  of  the 
parasitic  isopod,  once  it  has  settled  on  or  in 
a  fish,  may  change  its  shape  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  hardly  can  be  recognized  as 
an  isopod.  It  may  throw  off  the  tentacles 
and   the  legs,   the  rings  of   its   body   may 


DEEP-SEA  ISOPOD 

Specimen  of  a  rare  marine  relative  of  the  common 
terrestrial  sow-bug. 

become  irregular  and  very  thin,  the  eyes 
may  be  lost:  in  short,  all  that  remains  of  the 
organs  is  the  mouth  with  the  adjoining 
intestine  and  the  organs  of  reproduction. 
This,  the  highest  degree  of  adaptation  to 
parasitic  life,  is  found  almost  exclusively  on 
the  isopods  living  as  parasites  in  the  gills 
or  the  mouth  of  fishes. 

A  few  marine  isopods  have  taken  to  the 
habit  of  boring  and  hence  are  among  the 
most  active  destroyers  of  harbor  pilework. 

EYES   CONTRADICT   ENVIRONMENT 

In  contrast  to  the  shore  line  and  the 
surface  layer  of  the  ocean  which  are  so  rich 
in  isopods,  the  deeper  waters  almost  entirely 
lack  them.  Up  to  the  present,  only  one 
kind  of  isopod  has  come  to  our  knowledge, 
and  this  is  a  giant,  attaining  lengths  up  to 
S}4  inches!  It  has  been  found  thus  far  only 
in  the  deep,  lightless  layers  of  water  of 
warm  oceans,  beneath  the  350-fathom  line, 
in  an  environment  that  would  make  the  use 


TECHNICAL  PUBLICATIONS 

The  following  technical  publications  were 
issued  recently  by  the  Museum: 

Fieldiana:  Anthropology,  Vol.  43.  Cultural 
Chronology  and  Change  as  Reflected  in  the 
Ceramics  of  the  Viru  Valley,  Peru.  By 
Donald  Collier.  December  16,  1955. 
226  pages,  72  illustrations.    $6. 

Fieldiana:  Geology,  Vol.  10,  No.  22.  The 
Carboniferous  Gastropod  Genus  Glabri- 
cingulum  Thomas.  By  Robert  E.  Sloan. 
December  20,  1955.  7  pages.  5  illustra- 
tions.   35c. 

Fieldiana:  Geology,  Vol.  10,  No.  23.  The 
Paragould  Meteorite.  By  Sharat  Kumar 
Roy  and  Robert  Kriss  Wyant.  December 
29,  1955.    22  pages,  19  illustrations.    75c. 

Fieldiana:  Zoology,  Vol.  34,  No.  34.  Coral 
Snakes  of  the  Genus  Micrurus  in  Colombia. 
By  Karl  P.  Schmidt.  December  29,  1955. 
23  pages,  5  illustrations.    35c. 

Fieldiana:  Zoology,  Vol.  34,  No.  35.  On 
Some  Small  Collections  of  Inland  Shells 
from  South  America.  By  Fritz  Haas, 
December  29,  1955.  27  pages,  15  illus- 
trations.   $1. 

Fieldiana:  Anthropology,  Vol.  36,  No.  7. 
Late  Mogollon  Pottery  Types  of  the  Reserve 
Area.  By  John  B.  Rinaldo  and  Elaine  A. 
Bluhm.  January  10,  1956.  39  pages, 
34  illustrations.    $1.25 

Fieldiana:  Geology,  Vol.  12,  Pennsylvanian 
Invertebrates  of  the  Mazon  Creek  Area, 
Illinois.  By  Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr. 
January  25,  1956.  76  pages,  41  illustra- 
tions.   $2. 


of  eyes  unnecessary.  Strangely  enough  this 
deepsea  isopod,  whose  scientific  name  is 
Bathynomus  giganteus,  has  very  large  eyes, 
larger  even  relatively  than  those  of  its 
shallow-water  relatives.  The  possession  of 
enlarged  eyes  in  animals  in  general  is 
related  to  the  dim  light  of  their  environ- 
ments. Mammals  and  birds  with  enlarged 
eyes  are  nocturnal;  insects  or  spiders  with 
this  characteristic  live  in  the  twilight  near 
the  entrance  of  caves.  These  enlarged  or- 
gans of  vision  enable  them  to  collect  as 
many  as  possible  of  the  feeble  rays  of  light 
that  penetrate  to  them.  What  does  this 
mean  as  to  the  very  big  eyes  of  our  deepsea 
isopod?  It  can  only  mean  that  it  originated 
in  the  dimly  lit  waters  above  the  abyssal 
zone  and  that  it  has  immigrated  into  these 
lightless  depths  only  comparatively  recently, 
not  long  enough  to  get  rid  of  the  eyes  that 
have  become  useless  in  the  animal's  present 
abodes. 

Nothing  is  known  about  the  life  habits  of 
this  deepsea  giant  which  is  shown,  in 
natural  size,  in  the  accompanying  illustra- 
tion. The  shape  of  the  claws,  however, 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  species  leads 
a  predatory  life  on  the  sea  bottom  without 
having  become  a  parasite. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


May,  1956 


MILKWEED  INSECT  TRAP 

By  JULIAN  A.  STEYERMARK 

CURATOR  OF  THE  PHANEROGAMIC  HERBARIUM 

THE  COMMON  MILKWEED  (Ascle- 
pias  syriaca)  of  the  eastern  half  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada  readily  attracts 
numerous  insects  to  its  masses  of  brownish- 
lilac  flowers.  However,  occasionally  the 
innocent-looking  flowers  of  this  plant  act  as 
traps  for  visiting  insects.  Last  summer 
while  returning  from  a  weekend  trip  to 
northern  Wisconsin,  I  stopped  along  the 
highway  for  a  brief  rest.     Meanwhile  my 


MODEL  OF  MILKWEED  STRUCTURE 
The  milkweed  flower  (center)  is  peculiarly  special' 
ized  for  insect  pollination,  as  shown  in  cutaway 
model  exhibited  in  Hall  29.  The  cutaway  section 
shows  the  translator,  with  pollen  sacks  in  position. 
At  left  is  a  single  stamen  with  hood  and  a  pair  of 
pollen  masses.  At  right  is  a  translator  with  pollen 
masses,  borne  on  the  leg  of  a  bee  serving  as  the 
insect  pollinating  agent. 


wife  looked  around  in  a  nearby  field  and 
noticed  several  otherwise  normal  milkweed 
flower-clusters  from  which  dead  insects  were 
hanging.  Never  having  seen  this  phenom- 
enon before,  I  brought  the  flower-clusters 
back  to  the  Museum  and  had  them  photo- 
graphed. The  following  week  I  stopped  in 
many  fields  and  examined  hundreds  of 
milkweed,  but  did  not  find  any  with  dead 
insects  caught  in  the  flowers.  In  one  in- 
stance a  honeybee  had  caught  one  of  its  legs 
in  a  flower  and  could  not  extricate  itself 
immediately.  Finally,  after  a  few  minutes 
of  desperate  struggle,  it  managed  to  free 
itself  and  fly  away  safely. 

Like  all  other  members  of  the  milkweed 
family,  the  common  milkweed  possesses 
highly  specialized  reproductive  organs.    The 


pistil  (or  female)  portion  of  the  flower  is 
located  in  the  center  of  the  flower.  Sur- 
rounding its  upper  pentagonal  portion 
(stigmatic  disk)  and  connected  with  it  are 
the  five  highly  modified  stamens.  Opposite 
the  stamens  are  hollow  fleshy  organs  that 
secrete  large  amounts  of  nectar  that  attract 
insects.  The  two  pouches  of  the  anthers 
contain  pollen  masses.  Each  pollen  mass 
on  one  side  of  a  given  anther  is  connected 
with  a  pollen  mass  of  adjacent  anther. 
These  two  pollen  masses  (pollinia)  are 
joined  to  a  central  knob  by  slender  arms, 
known  as  translators  or  caudicles,  the  whole 
structure  appearing  like  an  inverted  "V." 
These  pairs  of  pollen  masses  hang  suspended 
from  five  cleft  glands  that  appear  in  the 
angles  of  the  stigmatic  portion. 

As  insects  approach  milkweed  flowers, 
they  attempt  to  get  the  nectar  that  is  lodged 
in  the  hollow  organs  connected  with  the 
anthers.  As  their  claws  enter  the  slit  or 
cleft  leading  to  the  nectar,  they  pick  up  the 
two  pollen  masses  and,  on  withdrawal,  lift 
them  out  of  the  pouches  of  the  anther. 

The  list  of  insects  known  to  visit  the 
common  milkweed  includes  several  kinds  of 
flies,  bees,  wasps,  and  ants.    In  most  cases 


ACCIDENT  CASUALTIES 

Dead    flies    suspended    from   cluster   of   milkweed 

flowers  in  which  they  were  caught.    Normally  this 

plant  is  not  one  of  those  known  as  insect  traps. 

the  insects  visiting  the  flowers  of  the  com- 
mon milkweed  procure  their  nectar  and  fly 
away.  In  rare  instances  such  as  I  had 
occasion  to  observe,  they  are  trapped  for 
no  apparent  reason  and  eventually  die. 


Football   in   Pacific   Islands 

Football  is  a  popular  sport  in  the  Society 
and  Gilbert  Islands  although  the  rules 
aren't  as  complicated  as  those  of  our  own 
American  game.  A  cube  of  matting  stuffed 
with  leaves  serves  as  a  ball,  and  the  object  is 
simply  to  get  the  ball  over  the  enemy's  goal 
line.  Whole  districts  sometimes  engage  in 
this  popular  pastime.  Visit  Hall  F  (Peoples 
of  Polynesia  and  Micronesia). 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department  of  Anthropology: 

From:  L.  E.  Frederick,  Tacoma,  Wash. 
— a  wood  block,  Lhasa,  Tibet;  Mrs.  Corinne 
Hodel,  Chicago — a  lady's  robe,  China;  Oden 
Meeker,  New  York — a  bronze  drum,  Indo- 
china; Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Nuerenberg, 
Santa  Monica,  Calif. — a  set  of  8  small  vases, 
China;  E.  D.  Hester,  Jeff  ersonville,  Ind. — 134 
pieces  from  Hester  collection  of  Philippine 
ceramic  recoveries 

Department  of  Botany: 

From:  Dr.  W.  M.  Banfield,  Amherst, 
Mass. — 5  photographs  of  Ceratocyslis  ulmi; 
Bernice  P.  Bishop  Museum,  Honolulu, 
Hawaii — a  photograph  of  Broussonetia  papy- 
rifera;  Grenada  Co-operative  Nutmeg  As- 
sociation, British  West  Indies — fruits  and 
foliage  of  Myristica  fragrans;  Iowa  State 
College,  Ames,  Iowa — 2  seed  samples  of 
hybrid  Zea  mays;  Missouri  Botanical  Gar- 
den, St.  Louis — a  Veronica  latifolia;  Pioneer 
Hi-Bred  Corn  Co.,  Des  Moines — 19  samples 
of  hybrid  seed  of  Zea  mays;  Dr.  John  W. 
Thieret,  Homewood,  111. — specimens  of  gum 
of  Cycas  circinalis;  Vaughan's  Seed  Store, 
Chicago —  44  seed  samples  of  Zea  mays, 
Phaseolus  and  Vigna;  Institut  National 
pour  l'Etude  Agronomique  du  Congo  Beige, 
Yangambi,  Belgian  Congo — 56  legume  seed 
samples;  Mrs.  Omie  McCarthy  and  Mrs. 
Linda  Kennedy,  Nome,  Alaska — 147  plants; 
State  College  of  Agriculture,  Ithaca,  N.Y. — 
photograph  (Ceratocystis  ulmi  coremia); 
Botanic  Gardens  of  Indonesia,  Java — 
6  photographs;  Mrs.  Julia  Free,  Sedonia, 
Ariz. — a  sample  of  seeds  and  2  samples  of 
wood,  Texas  and  Arizona;  U.  S.  Department 
of  Agriculture,  Beltsville,  Md. — 11  photo- 
graphs of  plants 

Department  of  Zoology: 

From:    Dr.    Joseph    Camin,    Chicago — 

2  paratypes  of  a  mite,  Madagascar;  Dr.  Carl 
Drake,  Ames,  Iowa — 62  beetles,  New  Cale- 
donia and  United  States;  Cameron  Gifford, 
Valparaiso,  Ind. — a  frog;  Harry  Hoogstraal, 
Cairo,     Egypt — 80     fishes,     13     mammals, 

3  paratypes  of  a  tick,  Sudan;  Seymour  H. 
Levy,  Chicago  Heights,  111. — a  bird  skin, 
Texas;  Loren  P.  Woods,  Homewood,  111. 
— 3  cave  fish,  Indiana;  William  J.  Gerhard, 
Chicago — 250  bees,  .  wasps  and  allies, 
Colorado;  Dr.  Carl  Krekeler,  Valparaiso, 
Ind. — 20  cave  beetles,  Indiana  and  Ken- 
tucky; Lt.  Comdr.  D.  C.  Lowrie,  San 
Francisco — 41  reptiles  and  amphibians, 
5  bats,  Riu  Kiu  Islands  and  Ganiko,  Oki- 
nawa; University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor 
— collection  of  fresh  water  mollusks  and 
shells,  Canada;  Jack  Moyer,  Hamilton,  N.Y. 
— -193  bird  skins,  Japan  and  Korea;  Dillwyn 
Paxson,  Fort  Smith,  Ark. — 2  sturgeon  fry, 
Wisconsin;  U.  S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 
Pascagoula,  Miss. — 82  lots  of  fishes,  collec- 
tion of  various  lower  invertebrates 


Diagnostic  characters  considered  by 
physical  anthropologists  in  differentiating 
racial  types  are  illustrated  by  an  exhibit  in 
Chauncey  Keep  Memorial  Hall  (Hall  3). 


PRINTED  BY   CHICAGO   NATURAL   HISTORY   MUSEUM   PRESS 


BULLETIN  ? 


U  Vol.27, No.6 -June -1956 

icago  Natural 
His  tory  Mils  eunz 


Chicago  Natural  |^B 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


June,  1956 


Chicago  Natural   History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 
Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 


THE  BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 

Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly   of  changes   of  address. 


BOOKS  ON  PLANTS 
OF  ILLINOIS 

Reviewed  by  THEODOR  JUST 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  BOTANY 

VASCULAR  PLANTS  OF  ILLINOIS.    By 

George  Neville  Jones  and  George  Damon 
Fuller.  Prepared  with  the  collaboration 
of  Glen  S.  Winterringer,  Harry  E.  Ahles, 
and  Alice  A.  Flynn.  The  University  of 
Illinois  Press,  Urbana,  and  the  Illinois 
State  Museum,  Springfield  (Museum 
Scientific  Series,  Vol.  VI).  xii+593  pages, 
1,375  maps.    Cloth.    $10. 

Students  of  our  local  flora  will  welcome 
this  addition  to  their  libraries  and  use  it 
profitably  in  conjunction  with  the  senior 
author's  Flora  of  Illinois  (second  edition, 
1950).  Vascular  Plants  of  Illinois  contains  a 
wealth  of  information  about  the  nearly  2,500 
native  and  introduced  species  of  ferns  and 
fern  allies  and  seed  plants  definitely  known 
to  occur  in  the  state,  their  distribution  by 
county,  scientific  and  common  names, 
synonyms,  subspecific  entities,  range,  habi- 
tat, and  type  locality.  While  the  families 
and  orders  are  essentially  arranged  according 
to  the  well-known  and  widely  used  Englerian 
system  of  classification,  the  genera  and 
species  follow  alphabetical  sequences  for 
ease  of  reference.  The  symbols  shown  on 
the  distribution  maps  are  backed  up  by 
some  200,000  herbarium  specimens.     The 


general  features  of  the  flora  and  vegetation 
of  Illinois  are  described  (pages  4-7)  and 
illustrated  by  a  vegetation  map  (page  8). 
Three  endemic  species  are  known  from 
Illinois,  namely  the  Kankakee  mallow 
(Iliamna  remota),  the  saprophytic  annual 
Thismia  americana,  probably  the  rarest 
plant  in  the  United  States  because  it  has 
never  been  found  again  after  its  original 
discovery,  and  the  composite  Aster  chasei, 
limited  to  a  small  area  near  Peoria.  An 
annotated  list  of  principal  collectors,  cover- 
ing the  period  from  1795  to  1950,  a  detailed 
bibliography,  a  list  of  new  nomenclatural 
combinations,  addenda,  and  an  excellent 
index  conclude  this  useful  book.  But  the 
authors  are  convinced  that  "the  age  of 
discovery  and  exploration  of  our  flora  is  as 
yet  apparently  far  from  ended." 


FLORA  OF  WINNEBAGO  COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS.  An  Annotated  List  of  the 
Vascular  Plants.  By  Egbert  W.  Fell. 
Collaborators:  George  D.  Fuller  and 
George  B.  Fell.  Published  by  Nature 
Conservancy,  Washington,  D.C.,  in  co- 
operation with  Rockford  Natural  History 
Museum  and  Nature  Study  Society  of 
Rockford.  viii+207  pages.  Illustrated  by 
the  author.    Paperbound.    $2.75. 

Situated  half-way  across  the  state  along 
the  Illinois-Wisconsin  line,  Winnebago 
County  is  24  miles  square,  about  the  average 
size  of  counties  in  Illinois.  Originally 
covered  mostly  by  prairie,  the  county  in- 
cludes other  important  habitats  such  as 
woods,  sand  areas  (the  largest  in  Illinois),  and 
wet  areas.  The  flora  as  presented  in  this 
pocket-size  manual  consists  of  1,013  native 
species  and  97  introduced  ones,  but  it  has 
a  definite  northern-prairie  aspect  because  it 
includes  202  northern  species  and  473 
"more  likely  to  be  found  in  prairie  habitats." 
All  relevant  details  regarding  the  environ- 
ment, pertaining  to  cultural  features,  cli- 
mate, geology  and  physical  features,  types 
of  habitats,  distribution  of  species,  and  plant 
refuges,  are  treated  in  the  introduction.  The 
annotated  list  of  the  plants  is  replete  with 
observations  and  comments  by  the  author, 
attesting  his  intimate  knowledge  of  this  area 
and  its  plant  life.  In  addition,  he  pays 
appropriate  tribute  to  the  distinguished 
botanist  Michael  Schuck  Bebb,  long  a  resi- 
dent of  the  county  and  its  first  ardent  col- 
lector of  plants.  With  a  few  exceptions 
(photographs  of  principal  habitats),  the  34 
illustrations  are  full-page  drawings  of 
selected  species  by  the  author.  This  Flora 
is  eloquent  evidence  of  the  wise  use  made  of 
time  and  enthusiasm  by  the  author,  a  retired 
physician,  whose  aim  is  "to  picture  the 
plant  life  of  our  county  as  it  is  now." 


■THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


Our  cover  shows  a  view  of  an 
egg-gallery  and  many  larval  tun- 
nels made  in  the  outer  wood  of  an 
American  elm  by  elm  bark- 
beetles.  These  insects  spread  the 
fungus  that  causes  the  Dutch  elm 
disease  currently  threatening 
thousands  of  trees  in  the  Chicago 
area  and  already  epidemic  in 
many  parts  of  the  United  States. 
A  model  of  one  of  the  villains — an 
elm  bark-beetle — is  shown  in  the 
photograph  inset  in  the  lower 
left-hand  corner  of  the  cover. 

The  Museum  has  placed  an  ex- 
hibit in  Stanley  Field  Hall  to 
illustrate  the  principal  facts 
about  the  Dutch  elm  disease — 
what  it  is,  how  it  is  spread,  and 
what  is  necessary  to  combat  it. 
The  model  of  an  elm  bark-beetle, 
80  times  life-size,  was  made  for 
the  exhibit  by  Samuel  H.  Grove, 
Jr.,  Artist-Preparator,  and  is 
shown  about  30  times  life-size  in 
our  cover  picture.  An  article  by 
Dr.  John  W.  Thieret,  Curator  of 
Economic  Botany,  about  the 
threat  to  Chicago's  elms  appears 
on  page  3. 


How  color,  shape,  and  pattern  help  to 
camouflage  and  protect  birds  is  illustrated 
in  the  adaptive-coloration  exhibit  in  Board- 
man  Conover  Hall  (Hall  21). 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(April  16  to  May  15) 

Associate   Members 

Miss  Lucile  M.  Beckstrom,  Dr.  Vincent 

A.  Costanzo,  Jr.,  Victor  E.  Gidwitz,  Kenneth 
G.  Hecht,  Thomas  A.  Patterson,  Keith  P. 
Rindfleisch,  Vernon  L.  Wesby,  Russell  M. 
Wicks,  John  S.  Woolman 

Annual  Members 

E.  E.  Ballard,  Dr.  Paul  S.  Barclay,  James 

B.  Blaine,  Dr.  Walter  Briehl,  W.  E.  Cairnes, 
Albert  J.  Carr,  J.  B.  Carroll,  Dr.  John  A. 
Caserta,  Richard  S.  Claire,  James  P.  Cody, 
Charles  B.  Coursen,  Richard  W.  Douglass, 
Tolman  G.  Everett,  Ralph  Falk  II,  Harry 
Fishman,  E.  Montford  Fucik,  Lincoln  O. 
Gatter,  William  N.  Genematas,  Edward  E. 
Grosscup,  R.  Emmett  Hanley,  Arthur  C. 
Harrison,  Emmett  C.  Harvey,  William  O. 
Heath,  M.  E.  Hellman,  Alfred  G.  Hewitt, 
Hoyt  S.  Hill,  William  N.  Hoelzel,  M.  J. 
Holland,  Paul  W.  Holtz,  Robert  B.  Jarchow, 
John  P.  Jurgatis,  John  Laidlaw,  Jr.,  Merwin 
Q.  Lytle,  F.  O.  Marion,  Dr.  Erich  R. 
Maschgan,  A.  K.  Maxwell,  Jr.,  Harold  M. 
Mayer,  Arthur  F.  Mohl,  William  A.  Noonan, 
Jr.,  George  A.  Rink,  Leo  H.  Schoenhofen, 
Richard  H.  Schweers,  Karl  P.  Shuart,  Anton 
E.  Svec,  H.  B.  Tellschow,  R.  E.  Towns, 
Norman  H.  Tracy,  Paul  Weir,  Allen  Wilson, 
Mrs.  William  J.  Wood,  LaGrange  Worth- 
ington,  Dr.  Ernest  B.  Zeisler 


An  exhibit  of  selected  butterflies  and 
moths  occupies  four  cases  in  Albert  W. 
Harris  Hall  (Hall  18). 


June,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  3 


FACTS  ABOUT  DUTCH  ELM  DISEASE  TOLD  IN  NEW  EXHIBIT 


By  JOHN  W.  THIERET 

CURATOR  OF  ECONOMIC  BOTANY 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  ALONE, 
plant  diseases  cause  an  estimated  loss  of 
three  billion  dollars  a  year.  In  spite  of  the 
importance  of  phytopathology  (the  study 
of  plant  ills)  and  the  logic  of  including  this 
science  under  economic  botany  (a  subject  to 
which  four  halls  of  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum  are  dedicated),  the  Museum,  until 
now,  has  never  devoted  an  exhibit  to  any 
phase  of  pathology.  Appropriately  enough, 
our  initial  venture  in  this  field  is  concerned 
with  the  Dutch  elm  disease,  a  malady  much 
in  public  notice  and  for  which  public  educa- 
tion has  been  called  "the  key  to  adequate 
control." 

The  clouds  of  World  War  I  had  scarcely 
lifted  from  western  Europe  when,  almost 
simultaneously  in  the  Netherlands,  Belgium, 
and  France,  a  wilt  disease  began  to  ravage 
elms.  Dr.  Bea  Schwarz,  of  the  plant 
pathology  laboratory  at  Baarn,  Netherlands, 
studied  the  disease  and  concluded  that 
a  fungus  was  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  This 
newly  recognized  organism  she  named 
Graphium  ulmi.  Soon  thereafter,  a  German 
investigator  of  the  disease  claimed  that 
a  certain  bacterium  was  to  blame.  The 
pros  and  cons  of  the  two  viewpoints  occupied 
pathologists  for  some  time,  but  eventually 
Dr.  Schwarz  and  Graphium  ulmi  won  out. 
Now  that  the  complete  life-history  of  the 
causative  fungus  is  understood,  this  organ- 
ism is  referred  to  the  Ascomycete  genus 
Ceratocystis  as  C.  ulmi.  The  threadlike 
filaments  of  this  pathogen  grow  in  the  con- 
ducting cells  of  the  young  sapwood  of  the 
elm  and  damage  the  functional  wood  of 
the  current  season,  interfering  with  the 
movement  of  water. 

The  Dutch  elm  disease  was  so  named,  to 
the    chagrin   of   Dutchmen,   by   a   British 


pathologist  because  Dutch  scientists  were 
the  first  to  study  it  and  also  because  the 
assumption  was  that  it  started  in  the  Nether- 
lands (some  think,  though,  that  it  was 
noticed  first  in  France).  Whatever  the 
country  of  its  origin,  it  eventually  spread 
elsewhere  in  Europe  and  is  now  known  over 
almost  all  the  continent  and  in  Great 
Britain.  Some  twenty  years  ago  certain 
European  scientists  were  asserting  that  the 
disease  spelled  the  doom  of  the  elms  of 
western  and  central  Europe.  While  their 
pessimistic  prophecies  have  not  been  liter- 
ally fulfilled,  myriads  of  trees  have  suc- 
cumbed, and  many  areas,  both  urban  and 
rural,  have  lost  all  or  nearly  all  their  elms. 

DISEASE  ENTERS   UNITED   STATES 

Carpathian-elm  burls  from  France  are 
prized  for  veneers,  and  large  quantities  of 
the  logs  used  to  be  imported  annually  into 
the  United  States.  It  was  in  such  logs  that 
the  Dutch-elm-disease  fungus  was  intro- 
duced into  the  New  World.  The  disease 
was  first  reported  here  in  Ohio  in  1930. 
Three  years  later  a  new  and  abundant  in- 
fection was  found  around  New  York  City. 
Soon  thereafter,  the  source  of  the  infection 
was  traced  to  Carpathian-elm  logs  at  the 
port  of  New  York.  From  these  logs  the 
causative  fungus  was  isolated  and  specimens 
of  two  species  of  beetles  that  spread  the 
fungus  were  obtained.  So  close  was  the 
relationship  between  the  logs  and  the  intro- 
duction of  the  disease  that,  in  1934,  it  was 
possible  to  make  the  following  statement: 
"Every  Dutch-elm-disease  infection  yet 
discovered  in  America  is  related  geographi- 
cally to  entry  piers  where  imported  elm-logs 
were  unloaded  or  to  railroads  which  hauled 
them." 

Now  that  the  horse  had  been  stolen,  the 
barn  door  was  locked:  the  United  States 


Department  of  Agriculture  issued  a  quaran- 
tine directive,  effective  October  21,  1933, 
regulating  importation  of  elm  logs  in  order 
to  prevent  further  introduction  of  the  fun- 
gus. But  the  parasite  had  already  become 
quite  well  established  and  its  spread  by  its 
coleopterous  carriers  was  gaining  momen- 
tum. Twenty-seven  thousand  elms  were 
destroyed  in  the  first  five  years  after  the 
disease  was  introduced  into  the  New  York 
area.  By  1937  it  had  reached  into  Maryland, 
Virginia,  West  Virginia,  and  Indiana.  A 
federal  control-program  made  definite  prog- 
ress against  the  disease  until  1940,  when 
adequate  funds  and  labor  could  no  longer  be 
mustered.  The  elm  killer  was  not  eradi- 
cated, true  enough,  but  intensity  of  infec- 
tion in  several  states  was  substantially  re- 
duced. 

After  1940  the  disease  spread  rapidly 
through  the  northeastern  states  and  beyond. 
Today  it  is  known  to  occur  in  all  states  from 
Tennessee  northward  and  from  Missouri 
and  Illinois  eastward  and  in  the  provinces 
of  Quebec  and  Ontario.  Outlying  infections 
have  occurred  in  Colorado.  In  Illinois  the 
first  case  of  Dutch  elm  disease  was  found  in 
1950  near  Mattoon.  One  case  was  known 
in  that  year.  In  each  succeeding  year  the 
number  of  cases  and  counties  represented 
increased  until,  in  1954,  2,067  new  cases 
were  reported  from  55  counties  and,  in  1955, 
an  estimated  5,000  new  cases  from  75  coun- 
ties. In  Champaign-Urbana  alone  more 
than  2,500  trees  have  been  killed  in  but 
three  years. 

WILTING   AND   DISCOLORATION 

The  first  symptom  that  attracts  notice  in 
Dutch  elm  disease  is  wilting  and  discolor- 
ation of  leaves  of  one  or  more  branches  of 
the  tree.  This  is  called  "flagging"  because 
the  infected  branch  stands  out  like  a  flag 


THE  DISEASE  IS  CAUSED  BY  A  FUNGUS 

THE  .'Hi  *■  UK  FILAMENTS  OF  THi 
FUNGUS -CfcRArOCYSTlS  ULMI-  GROW 
IN  THE  CONDUCTING  CELLS  OF  THE 
YOUMC  SAPWOOD  AND  DAMAGE  THE 
FUNCTIONAL  WOOD  OF  THE  CURRENT 
SEASON,  INTERFERING  WITH  TH 
MOVEM-NT    OF    WAT"  8  . 


DUTCH  ELM  DISEASE 


THE  FIRST  APPEABANCE  OF  DUTCH  CLM  DISEASE  j 
WAS   IN   THE    NETHERLANDS,     BElCrJM   AND  J 
FRANCE  JUST  AFTER  WORLD  WAR  I.        IT  HAS 
SINCE  SPBEAO  OVER  ALMOST  ALL  EUROPE.    tN 
THE  UNITED  STATES   IT  WAS     REST    REPORTED   IN   ( 
I93G.    TOOAY  IT  II  KNOWN  IN  ALL  STATES  FBOM 
TENNESSEE  NORTH  AND  FROM   MISSOURI  AND 
ILLINOIS  EAST,     AND  IN  COLORADO. 
IN  EUROPE  AND  AMERICA  MYRIADS  OF   ELMS 
HAVE  DIED  OF  THE    DISEASE.       MANY  AREAS 
HAVE   LOST  ALL  OB  MOST    OF  THEIR  ELMS. 
DUTCH  ELM  DISEASE  WAS  SO  NAMED  BECAUSE 
DUTCH  SCIENTISTS  WERE  THE    FIRST  TO  STUDY 
IT    INTENSIVELY  AND  BECAUSE  IT  WAS  ASSUMED 
THAT  IT  STARTED  IN  THE    NETHERLANDS 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  TWO  SPECIES  OF  BARK 

BEETLES  CARRY  THE  FUNGUS  FROM    DISEASED 

TO  HEALTHY  TREES 


DUTCH   ELM   DISEASE:   PART  OF   EXHIBIT   EXPLAINING   ITS  CAUSE,    EFFECT,   AND   CONTROL 


Page  k 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


June,  1956 


from  the  rest  of  the  tree  that,  at  this  stage, 
is  a  normal  healthy  green.  Eventually 
many  branches  show  this  wilting  and  dis- 
coloration as  the  disease  spreads.  Infected 
elms  may  die  within  a  few  weeks  or  live  for 
several  years.  Positive  diagnosis  of  Dutch 
elm  disease  can  be  made  only  by  laboratory 
culture  of  the  fungus  from  infected  wood 
because  other  fungus  diseases  cause  symp- 
toms similar  to  those  of  Dutch  elm  disease. 
Specimens  for  culture  should  be  8  to  10 
inches  long  and  at  least  one-half  inch  in 
diameter  and  should  be  taken  from  a  live 
wilting  branch  that  shows  brown  streaking 
or  discoloration  on  the  surface  of  the  wood 
under  the  bark  or  in  the  outermost  ring  of 
wood.  Such  a  symptom  is  typical  of  several 
fungus  diseases  of  elm. 

Specimens  to  be  submitted  for  diagnosis 
of  Dutch  elm  disease  should  be  wrapped  in 
waxed  paper  before  mailing  to  the  labora- 
tory. In  Illinois  send  them  to  the  Natural 
History  Survey  in  Urbana;  in  most  other 
states,  to  the  agricultural  experiment  sta- 
tion. Under  sterile  conditions  in  the  labor- 
atory, chips  of  the  discolored  wood  are 
removed  and  placed  on  a  plate  of  nutrient 
jelly.  If  the  fungus  is  present  in  the  wood 
it  will,  in  five  days  at  room  temperature, 
grow  out  into  the  jelly  and  form  character- 
istic colonies  encircling  the  chips.  Through 
microscopic  examination,  the  fungus  can  be 
positively  identified.  The  sender  of  the 
specimens  will  then,  of  course,  be  notified 
of  the  results  of  the  diagnosis. 

The  Dutch  elm  disease  provides  a  most 
instructive  example  of  the  intimate  re- 
lationship that  can  exist  between  a  plant 
pathogen  and  its  vector,  a  biological  agent 
of  dissemination.  In  the  United  States 
three  organisms  play  the  role  of  villains  in 
the  elm-disease  story:  the  causative  fungus 
(Ceratocystis  ulmi)  and  two  insects,  tiny 
creatures  with  big  names — the  smaller 
European  elm  bark-beetle  (Scolytus  multi- 
striatus)  and  the  native  elm  bark-beetle 
(Hylurgopinus  rufipes).  The  fungus  alone — 
without  the  insects —  would  probably  be  of 
no  consequence  as  a  decimator  of  elms 
because  it  is  dependent  upon  its  vectors  to 
transport  it  from  tree  to  tree.  The  beetles 
alone  may  possibly  hasten  the  death  of 
weakened  or  dying  elms  by  tunneling  be- 
tween the  bark  and  the  wood,  but  these 
insects  were  in  the  United  States  long  before 
the  fungus  was  brought  in  and  they  did  not 
cause  much  concern.  However,  the  com- 
bination of  the  fungus  and  the  beetles  has 
proved  catastrophic  for  our  elms. 

HOW   DISEASE  IS  SPREAD 

The  elm  bark-beetles  (and  here  we  are 
referring  specifically  to  the  smaller  Euro- 
pean elm  bark-beetle,  a  more  efficient  vector 
than  the  native  species  whose  habits,  though 
rather  similar,  differ  in  several  important 
respects)  breed  in  weakened  or  dying  elms 
or  in  freshly  cut  elm  wood  and   feed  on 


healthy  elms.  These  facts  are  the  crux  of 
the  story.  Weakened  or  dying  elms  or 
recently-cut  elm  trunks  and  branches  with 
the  bark  intact  are  sought  out  by  the  beetles 
for  a  breeding  place.  Dutch-elm-diseased 
trees  offer  a  particularly  inviting  site.  The 
female  beetle  penetrates  the  bark  and  lays 
her  eggs  in  a  gallery  that  she  digs  between 
the  bark  and  the  wood.  The  larvae  hatched 
from  the  eggs  excavate  feeding-tunnels  that 
radiate  from  the  egg-gallery. 

In  Dutch-elm-diseased  wood,  the  fungus 
grows  and  fruits  abundantly  in  these  tun- 
nels and  galleries.  The  mature  beetles  cut 
their  way  out  of  the  bark  and  emerge.  If 
they  are  leaving  Dutch-elm-diseased  wood, 
spores  of  the  fungus  are  likely  to  be  clinging 
to  their  bodies.  The  beetles  fly  immediately 
to  healthy  trees,  where  they  feed  on  bark  and 
wood,  principally  in  the  crotches  of  twigs. 
It  is  through  the  feeding  wounds  made  by 
the  beetles  that  Dutch-elm-disease  fungus 
is  introduced  into  the  tree.  While  the 
beetles  feed,  fungus  spores  clinging  to  their 
bodies  may  become  dislodged  and  get  into 
the  sap  stream  of  the  tree.  The  fungus  then 
develops  and  rapidly  spreads,  and  eventual 
death  of  the  tree  results. 

It  is  upon  the  close  relationship  between 
the  bark  beetles  and  the  disease  that  control 
measures  are  based.  At  the  present  time, 
no  treatment  is  known  that  can  cure  a  tree 
once  it  is  diseased  (exception:  sometimes 
immediate  removal  of  a  flagging  branch  will 
eliminate  the  infection),  and  no  method  of 
immunizing  trees  against  the  fungus  has 
proved  effective.  Therefore  control  meas- 
ures are  aimed  at  the  bark  beetles  in  an 
attempt  to  prevent  the  insects  from  carrying 
the  fungus  from  infected  to  healthy  trees. 
In  the  struggle  toward  this  goal,  two  ob- 
jectives are  paramount:  (1)  to  prevent  the 
beetles  from  feeding  on  healthy  trees  and 
(2)  to  reduce  beetle  populations  through 
elimination  of  breeding  sites. 

Bark  beetles  may  be  prevented  from 
feeding  on  trees  by  spraying  the  trees  with 
DDT  in  the  form  of  an  emulsion  before  the 
insects  become  active  in  the  spring.  Actu- 
ally, because  of  the  long  residual  effective- 
ness of  such  DDT  sprays,  the  spraying  can 
be  done  any  time  between  leaf  drop  in  the 
fall  and  the  appearance  of  new  leaves  in 
the  spring.  A  second  spraying  may  be 
given  in  July  to  prevent  feeding  by  the 
second  brood  of  beetles.  These  sprays  must 
be  so  applied  that  all  bark  surfaces  are 
thoroughly  covered  with  the  emulsion.  For 
continuous  protection,  trees  must  be  sprayed 
every  year.  Each  spraying  increases  the 
amount  of  DDT  on  the  bark  and  covers  all 
new  branches. 

'SANITATION'  MEASURES 

The  destruction  of  all  dead  and  dying  elm 
wood  that  can  be  used  by  bark  beetles  as 
breeding  grounds  is  called  "sanitation."  By 
thorough  sanitation,  which  should  extend 


over  as  wide  an  area  as  possible,  bark-beetle 
populations  can  be  considerably  reduced, 
and  thereby  the  chances  of  the  transfer  of 
the  fungus  from  diseased  to  healthy  trees 
become  less.  In  addition,  the  destruction 
of  such  elm  wood  removes  a  possible  source 
of  build-up  of  the  fungus. 

Two  additional  aspects  of  the  Dutch-elm- 
disease  problem  should  be  mentioned:  the 
attempts  to  breed  and  select  elms  that  are 
resistant  to  the  fungus,  and  the  need  for 
public  education  about  the  disease. 

All  members  of  the  genus  Ulmus — the 
elms — appear  to  be  susceptible  to  the 
disease.  Some,  however,  are  considerably 
more  resistant  than  others.  Our  American 
elm  (U.  americana)  is,  unfortunately,  one  of 
the  most  susceptible.  Quite  resistant  species 
are  the  frequently  cultivated  Chinese  elm 
(U.  parvifolia)  and  the  Siberian  elm  (U. 
pumila).  The  attempts  to  breed  and  select 
strains  of  various  elms  that  are  highly  re- 
sistant to  the  disease  (such  attempts  have 
been  made  principally  by  the  Dutch)  have  so 
far  produced  at  least  two  strains  that  are  al- 
most immune,  the  "Christine  Buisman"  and 
"Bea  Schwartz"  elms.  Already  these  trees 
have  been  set  out  in  many  areas  in  Europe 
and  America  to  replace  elms  destroyed  by 
the  disease.  Further  work  can  be  expected 
to  produce  additional  resistant  strains. 

COMPLETE  DESTRUCTION 

The  Dutch  elm  disease  is  capable  of 
almost  complete  destruction  of  our  American 
elms.  This  sobering  fact  should  be  more 
generally  known  than  it  appears  to  be.  The 
disease  is  too  often  regarded  by  Mr.  John 
Q.  Public  as  something  that  "can't  happen 
here"  in  his  community.  But  it  can — and 
perhaps  will — spread  to  wherever  elms  are 
planted  and  wherever  the  insect  vectors  are 
able  to  thrive.  Along  with  the  realization 
of  the  appalling  possibilities  of  the  disease 
should  go  the  assurance  that  adequate  con- 
trol is  possible  and,  indeed,  has  been 
achieved  in  many  areas.  Here,  then,  enters 
the  important  role  of  public  education.  In 
areas  to  which  the  disease  has  not  yet  spread 
and  even  in  those  where  the  disease  is 
present,  one  finds  too  frequently  apathy  or 
resignation  to  loss  of  elms.  Such  apathy 
and  resignation  are  the  result  of  ignorance 
of  the  facts.  How  many  times  I  have  heard 
statements  such  as:  "The  Dutch  elm 
disease?  Oh,  there's  nothing  we  can  do 
against  it,"  and  "Yes,  a  control  program 
would  be  fine,  but  sanitation  and  spraying 
are  too  costly  for  our  community." 

To  the  first  statement  the  reply,  as  in- 
dicated before,  is  that  adequate  control  is 
possible  by  means  of  programs  of  sanitation 
and  spraying.  If  the  responsible  officials 
and  the  other  citizens  of  a  community  are 
aware  of  this,  control  programs  can  be 
organized  and  carried  out.  The  alternative 
to  control  might  well  be  the  task  of  removing 
{Continued  on  page  5,  column  S) 


June,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


SOUTHWEST  EXPEDITION 
BREAKS  NEW  TRAILS 

By  PAUL  S.  MARTIN 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ANTHROPOLOGY 

THIS  SEASON  the  1956  Southwest  Ar- 
chaeological Expedition  will  move  head- 
quarters about  130  miles  westward  from 
Pine  Lawn,  New  Mexico,  into  eastern  Ari- 
zona. The  "new"  area  fits  in  a  triangle 
roughly  bounded  by  the  towns  of  Show  Low, 
St.  Johns,  and  Springerville,  Arizona.  The 
area  is  "new"  in  the  sense  that  it  has  never 
before  been  worked  archaeologically. 

In  a  sense,  we  are  "pursuing"  the  Mo- 
gollon  Indians,  for  our  present  hypothesis 
is  that  when  they  abandoned  the  Pine 
Lawn-Reserve  area  they  moved  first  north- 
westward and  then  northward.  Therefore 
our  project  may  be  considered  in  one  sense 
a  continuation  of  our  old  one,  and  in  another 
sense  a  new  task. 

The  new  area  is  separated  from  the  old  by 
three  mountain  ranges  that  may  have  had 
important  ecological  influences  on  the 
culture  in  its  "new"  home.  It  is  quite 
likely,  also,  that  we  shall  find  some  early 
(pre-A.D.  1000)  or  even  very  early  (pre- 
Christian  era)  evidences  of  occupation;  and 
if  so,  it  will  be  interesting  to  find  what 
happened  when  the  indigenous  inhabitants 
met  the  Mogollon  Indians  from  the  Pine 
Lawn-Reserve  area. 

TRIBES  MAY  HAVE  MERGED 

We  feel  that  the  late  efflorescence  of  the 
Hopi  and  Zuni  cultures  in  A.D.  1300-1400 
may  be  largely  the  result  of  inspirations  and 
innovations  transmitted  to  these  people  by 
the  Mogollon  Indians.  In  fact,  it  is  quite 
probable  that  the  Mogollon  Indians  even- 
tually moved  into  Hopi  and  Zuni  towns  or 
merged  with  them  in  some  manner.  We 
may  have  had  then  the  mingling  of  two 
cultures  and  peoples.  In  fact,  I  am  making 
the  wild  guess  that  the  Zuni  language — 
a  language  that  cannot  as  yet  surely  be 
fitted  into  any  linguistic  grouping  and  thus 
appears  to  stand  alone — may  be  the  Mo- 
gollon language!  This  is  certainly  going  out 
on  a  limb,  and  someone  may  saw  it  off  from 
under  me,  for  it  is  a  guess  merely  based  on 
hunches  and  probabilities. 

Certainly  none  of  these  hypotheses  and 
wild  guesses  will  be  confirmed  or  even 
partly  substantiated  by  our  expedition  this 
summer.  Our  first  task  is  to  ready  our 
camp  for  future  work — the  cataloguing, 
photographing,  and  classification  of  objects 
to  be  dug  up. 

If  we  have  time  and  money  left,  we  shall 
probably  not  dig  during  this  season  but 
instead  devote  our  efforts  to  reconnaissance 
work — that  is,  to  searching  for  and  making 
notes  about  ancient  ruins  in  an  area  em- 
bracing approximately  700  square  miles. 
This  is  no  small  task,  indeed,  and  we  shall 
certainly  not  complete  it  all  this  summer; 


but  we  may  be  helped  in  this  work  by 
a  student  from  the  University  of  Arizona. 
The  scope  of  our  aims  in  the  new  area 
may  be  illustrated  by  listing  some  of  our 
accomplishments  in  twelve  seasons  of  dig- 
ging in  the  Pine  Lawn-Reserve  area: 

1.  We  obtained  and  published  data  on 
population  growth  and  decline,  on  the 
changing  of  a  method  of  subsistence  from 
gathering  wild  foods  to  farming,  on  inter- 
relationships between  settlement  patterns, 
economic  activities,  and  on  certain  aspects 
of  the  social  and  religious  life  in  this  previ- 
ously unstudied  area. 

2.  The  concept  was  gradually  developed 
that  the  major  subcultures  of  the  Southwest 
were  not  separate  isolated  developments 
but  were  all  derived  from  a  primitive  com- 


EXAMPLE  OF  MOGOLLON  POTTERY 
This  bowl,  believed  to  have  been  made  about  A.D. 
1300,  was  brought  to  light  in  the  Foote  Canyon 
Pueblo  dig  in  New  Mexico  by  the  1955  Southwest 
Archaeological  Expedition.  The  1956  expedition 
will  seek  for  both  earlier  and  later  types  of  pre- 
historic pottery. 

mon  Inter-Mountain  culture  that  extended 
from  Oregon  and  Idaho  southward  to  the 
northern  parts  of  Mexico  and  probably 
flourished  as  early  as  11,000  years  ago. 

3.  We  uncovered  about  5,000  years  of 
continuous  history — the  longest  established 
and  best  worked-out  sequence  in  the  South- 
west (this  history  throws  light  on  the 
incipient  stages  in  the  growth  of  civilizations 
and  on  what  causes  a  civilization  to  grow). 

4.  The  earliest  pottery  in  the  Southwest 
was  found. 

5.  We  discovered  an  unusually  primitive 
variety  of  corn  believed  to  be  the  oldest  or 
one  of  the  oldest  yet  discovered  in  the 
Southwest  (this  has  brought  about  revolu- 
tionary changes  in  archaeological  hypo- 
theses and  interpretations). 

6.  We  recovered  the  largest  and  most 
diverse  collection  of  ancient  food  plants 
ever  found  in  North  America. 

Many  other  details  could  be  listed,  but 
enough  has  been  said,  I  think,  to  indicate 
that  the  twelve  seasons  in  Pine  Lawn- 
Reserve  area  (1939-55,  except  the  war 
years)  were  successful.  But  far  beyond 
this  aspect  lies  another  deeper  appeal  and 
satisfaction  in  our  work.  We  have  been 
fascinated   by  the  beauty  and   compelling 


DUTCH  ELM  DISEASE 
EXHIBIT  OPENED 

(Continued  from  page  U) 

and  disposing  of  scores,  hundreds,  or  thou- 
sands of  dead  elms.  And  here  a  reply  to 
the  second  statement  can  be  made  by  re- 
calling the  words  of  a  speaker  at  a  recent 
conference  on  the  disease:  "I  have  heard  the 
statement  'We  should  let  them  [elms]  all  die 
and  be  rid  of  the  problem.'  Let  such 
a  statement  be  challenged  by  the  fact  that 
the  cost  of  removing  one  large  city  elm 
would  take  care  of  that  same  tree  for  the 
lifetime  of  the  individual  that  made  the 
statement,  if  not  more."  And,  remember, 
after  a  community  spends  money  to  protect 
elms  from  the  disease,  the  trees  will  still  be 
there  but  when  a  community  spends  money 
to  remove  dead  trees,  denuded  streets  and 
lowered  property  values  are  the  result.  If 
people  are  made  aware  of  the  facts  con- 
cerning Dutch  elm  disease  and  if  they  act 
on  the  knowledge  that  they  will  then  have, 
the  American  elm  will  not  need  to  go  the 
way  of  the  American  chestnut. 


The  Museum's  Dutch-elm-disease  exhibit, 
now  on  view  in  Stanley  Field  Hall,  was  pro- 
duced by  Dr.  John  W.  Thieret,  Curator  of 
Economic  Botany,  and  Samuel  H.  Grove, 
Jr.,  Artist-Preparator.  Materials  used  in  the 
preparation  of  the  exhibit  were  supplied  by 
Dr.  Richard  J.  Campana,  Section  of  Applied 
Botany  and  Plant  Pathology,  Natural  His- 
tory Survey,  Urbana,  Illinois;  Instituut 
voor  Toegepast  Biologisch  Onderzoek  in  de 
Natuur,  Baarn,  Netherlands;  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture,  Beltsville, 
Maryland;  The  Oliver  Corporation,  Chicago; 
Standard  Oil  Company,  Chicago;  and 
Department  of  Plant  Pathology,  New  York 
State  College  of  Agriculture,  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, Ithaca,  New  York. 


orderliness  of  the  development  of  human 
societies,  and  we  have  been  able  to  pass  this 
on  to  thousands  of  others  by  lectures, 
popular  articles,  and  monographs.  The 
society  we  were  studying  was  just  one  cell 
in  the  Organism  of  Society  and  the  develop- 
ment of  this  cell  that  was  revealed  to  us 
by  our  sweat  and  shovels  was  a  powerful 
confirmation  of  our  belief  that  man, 
unaided,  except  by  his  Creator,  will  attain 
great  heights. 

The  technical  aspects  of  our  1955  season 
now  are  being  written  up  by  my  colleague, 
Dr.  John  B.  Rinaldo;  while  I,  in  between 
visitors,  telephone  calls,  and  other  duties, 
have  been  slowly  writing  a  popular  book 
on  the  history  of  the  Mogollon  Indians. 
Just  what  it  will  be  called  is  not  settled, 
but  this  book  is  intended  for  the  layman 
interested  in  this  subject,  be  he  sixteen  years 
of  age  or  sixty. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


June,  1956 


HOW  FISHES  FLOAT 
WHILE  SUBMERGED 

By  EDWARD  M.  NELSON 

ASSOCIATE,  DIVISION  OF  FISHES 

HOW  OFTEN  have  you  stood  in  front 
of  an  aquarium  and  wondered  how  the 
fishes  could  remain  motionless,  apparently 
freely  suspended  in  the  water?  We  know 
that  the  "higher"  fishes  are  among  the  few 
animals  capable  of  being  so  suspended  in 
the  medium  in  which  they  live.  Flying, 
gliding,  and  jumping  animals  must  return 
immediately  to  the  surface  of  the  earth 
when  their  energy  of  locomotion  is  used  up. 
Most  bottom-living  fishes  and  the  sharks 
likewise  must  rest  upon  the  bottom  when 
they  stop  moving. 

AN   ILLUSTRATIVE   EXAMPLE 

How  is  it  possible  for  certain  fishes  to 
remain  suspended  in  the  open  water?  Let 
us  digress  from  fishes 
and  consider  a  very 
interesting  physical 
experiment,  the  Car- 
tesian Diver. 

This  experiment  can 
be  performed  with 
simple  materials  found 
at  home  (see  figure  1). 
We  need:  (1)  a  tall 
bottle — a  quart  milk- 
bottle  will  do,  (2) 
a  "diver" — any  small 
vial  or  bottle,  (3) 
a  diaphragm,  such  as 
a  flattened  balloon, 
and  (4)  water.  Fill 
the  bottle  to  the  top 
with  water.  Pour 
enough  water  into  the 
"diver"  so  that  it  will 
just  float  when  placed 
open-end  down  in  a  sink  full  of  water,  and 
then  transfer  the  "diver"  to  the  bottle 
(this  is  the  trickiest  part  of  the  entire 
procedure  and  may  require  several  trials 
before  it  is  properly  done).  After  the 
"diver"  has  been  placed  in  the  bottle,  open- 
end  down,  and  is  just  floating  at  the  top,  place 
the  diaphragm  across  the  top  of  the  bottle, 
stretching  it  tightly  and  securing  it  about 
the  neck  of  the  bottle  with  a  rubber  band. 
Now  we  are  ready  to  perform  the  Car- 
tesian-Diver experiment.  Apply  pressure 
to  the  diaphragm  by  pushing  down  on  the 
center  with  your  fingers.  The  "diver"  will 
thereupon  descend  in  the  water,  even  to  the 
bottom.  With  practice  you  can  make 
the  "diver"  stay  at  any  particular  level  you 
desire.  Note  how  the  water-level  within 
the  "diver"  rises  when  pressure  is  applied 
to  the  diaphragm  (the  volume  of  air  con- 
tained inside  the  "diver"  is  reduced). 

The  explanation  of  this  experiment  re- 
quires the  use  of  several  laws  of  physics: 

1.    Water  (a  liquid)  is  for  ordinary  pur- 
poses noncompressible. 


Fig.  1.  The  Cartesian- 
Diver  Experiment. 


2.  Air  (a  mixture  of  gases)  is  compress- 
ible within  the  limits  of  pressure  and  tem- 
perature. 

3.  Charles'  Law — the  volume  of  a  gas 
varies  directly  with  changes  in  temperature. 

4.  Boyle's  Law — the  volume  of  a  gas 
varies  inversely  with  changes  in  pressure 
(the  greater  the  pressure,  the  less  the  gas 
volume). 

5.  Pascal's  Law — pressure  applied  to  an 
enclosed  system  (liquid  and/or  gaseous)  is 
transmitted  equally  in  all  directions. 

6.  Archimedes'  Principle — an  equilibrium 
is  reached  in  water  when  the  weight  of  the 
immersed  body  exactly  equals  the  weight 
of  the  volume  of  water  displaced  (the 
weight-volume  relationships  of  each  are 
equal  to  one  another).  If  the  weight  of  the 
immersed  body  is  less,  the  body  floats 
upwards.  If  the  weight  is  more,  the  body 
sinks. 

Since  our  experiment  is  of  such  a  short 
time-duration,  we  can  dispense  with  the 
effects  of  Charles'  Law  in  our  considerations. 
When  pressure  is  applied  to  the  diaphragm, 
pressure  is  automatically  applied  to  the 
water  filling  the  bottle.  Through  the  action 
of  Pascal's  Law  this  pressure  is  transmitted 
equally  to  all  surfaces  within  the  bottle. 
The  water,  however,  is  noncompressible  and 
will  resist  the  applied  pressure.  The  air 
inside  the  "diver,"  on  the  other  hand,  is 
compressible  and  the  pressure  applied  to  its 
surface  through  the  open  end  of  the  "diver" 
will  cause  the  volume  to  be  reduced  (Boyle's 
Law).  We  arranged  that  the  amount  of  air 
in  the  "diver"  was  just  enough  to  float  it, 
but  now,  with  the  volume  of  air  reduced  by 
added  pressure,  it  is  no  longer  sufficient  to 
float  the  "diver"  and  hence  the  "diver" 
sinks.  We  can  make  the  "diver"  remain 
at  any  particular  level  through  the  action 
of  the  Archimedean  Principle  because  the 
actual  total  pressure  (weight  of  the  column 
of  water  plus  the  applied  pressure)  varies 
with  the  depth  of  the  water. 

BUOYANCY   IN    TELEOST   FISHES 

The  "higher"  fishes,  called  teleost  fishes, 
are  the  most  numerous  fishes  in  our  present 
geological  age  and  hence  most  familiar  to 
us.  These  teleost  fishes  usually  possess 
within  their  bodies  a  gas-filled  sac  known 
as  the  swim  bladder  (see  figure  2).  Most 
bottom-living  and  torrential-stream-living 
members  of  this  group  have  secondarily  lost 


Fig.   2.  Diagram  of  a  fish  showing  swim  bladder. 


their  swim  bladders  as  part  of  their  adapta- 
tion to  their  special  habitats  and  habits. 

The  swim  bladder  of  the  teleost  fishes 
serves  varied  functions,  but  we  are  con- 
cerned here  only  with  its  function  of  buoy- 
ancy, which  has  two  phases:  (1)  balance  and 
(2)  space-position.  As  far  as  balance  is 
concerned,  the  swim  bladder  is  of  such 
a  shape  and  is  so  situated  in  the  body  of  the 
fish  that  the  normal  posture  of  the  fish  is 
horizontal.  An  interesting  special  condition 
is  that  to  be  seen  in  the  sea-horse,  whose 
posture  is  vertical  rather  than  horizontal. 
While  this  fish  is  feeding,  however,  it  fre- 
quently changes  to  a  horizontal  position. 
The  swim  bladder  of  the  sea-horse  is  of  the 
two-chambered  variety,  with  upper  and 
lower  chambers.  When  the  upper  chamber 
is  expanded  with  gas,  the  posture  is  upright. 
When  the  musculature  of  the  upper  chamber 
contracts,  the  gas  is  forced  into  the  lower 
chamber,  thus  altering  the  center  of  gravity 
of  the  sea-horse  to  the  extent  that  its  body 
"falls"  forward  and  the  fish  becomes 
horizontal. 

When  considering  space-position  we  must 
remember  that  for  every  32  vertical  feet  of 
water  an  additional  weight  equivalent  to  one 
atmosphere  of  air  pressure  (at  sea  level, 
14.7  pounds  per  square  inch  of  body  surface) 
is  added  to  the  weight  of  the  column  of 
water.  Thus,  as  one  descends  in  the  aquatic 
environment,  the  pressure  upon  the  surfaces 
of  the  body  increases  rapidly.  It  can  readily 
be  seen  from  this  that  there  is  actually 
a  different  total  pressure  at  every  different 
level  in  the  water. 

FISH  HAS  CONTROL 

The  teleost  fish  with  a  gas-filled  swim 
bladder  is  essentially  an  animated  Car- 
tesian Diver.  One  main  difference,  however, 
is  that,  within  limits,  the  teleost  fish  is 
apparently  capable  of  controlling  the 
volume  of  gas  and  thus  the  activation  of  the 
system  comes  from  within  the  "diver" 
rather  than  as  the  result  of  applied  external 
pressures. 

Exactly  how  this  control  is  brought  about 
in  the  fish's  body  is  not  yet  entirely  under- 
stood and  more  study  is  required  to  com- 
plete our  knowledge  of  this  subject.  In 
some  fishes  the  swim  bladder  is  connected 
with  the  gut  by  an  open  tube.  Here  the 
excess  gas  can  be  readily  eliminated  through 
the  tube  and  gut.  When  at  the  surface  of 
the  water  these  fishes  can,  and  do,  gulp  air 
directly.  How  the  gas  volume  is  increased 
otherwise  is  unknown.  Other  fishes  have 
special  glandular  areas  in  the  swim-bladder 
wall.  Some  of  these  areas  secrete  gases 
while  others  absorb  them,  thereby  in- 
creasing or  decreasing  the  volume  of  the 
gases  in  the  swim  bladder.  Still  another 
possibility  is  the  actual  compression  of  the 
gas  in  the  swim  bladder  by  active  muscular 
contractions,  either  of  the  entire  body-wall 
(Continued  on  page  8,  column  S) 


June,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


COMMUNITY  SINGING 
BY  BIRD  CHOIRS 

By  AUSTIN  L.  RAND 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OP  ZOOLOGY 

THE  OTHER  DAY  a  friend  of  mine  was 
telling  of  the  community  singing  that 
was  popular  before  the  days  of  radio  and 
television.  For  a  time,  years  ago,  he  had 
eked  out  a  meager  salary  with  a  pittance 
earned  by  leading  the  singing  in  a  mid- 
western  village.  For  an  hour  in  the  evening, 
by  exhortation  and  example  in  the  village 
park,  he  had  the  villagers  singing.  I  thought 
as  I  listened,  "Why,  that's  not  too  unlike 
what  some  birds  do." 

The  voice  of  the  greater  shearwater  is 
used  in  a  communal  courtship.  The  sound 
is  "Ma-ma-ma  ..."  or  "Ha-ha-ha  .  .  ." 
It  is  described  by  the  few  who  have  heard  it 
as  having  a  peculiar,  strident,  breathless 
quality  with  an  effect,  when  many  birds 
perform  at  once,  of  "screaming  cacophony." 
Nevertheless,  it  is  music  to  shearwater  ears, 
and  it  is  actually  their  song. 

These  far-ranging  sea  birds,  smaller  rela- 
tives of  the  albatross,  roam  over  the  whole 


Atlantic  from  Cape  Horn  to  South  Africa 
and  north  to  Newfoundland  and  Norway. 
But  when  it  is  time  for  nesting  they  all 
return  to  the  tiny,  lonely  Tristan  da  Cunha 
Islands  in  mid-South  Atlantic,  their  only 
breeding  grounds.  Here  they  go  ashore 
and  form  dense  colonies.  M.  K.  Rowan, 
stationed  on  Tristan,  studied  them  in  detail. 

HUNDREDS   JOIN   IN 

He  found,  in  the  close-packed  colonies, 
when  one  pair  of  birds  started  to  sing,  others 
joined  in  at  once  until  the  voices  of  hun- 
dreds of  birds  were  swelling  the  strident  din. 
Then  just  as  suddenly  they  stopped  and  all 
was  quiet  for  a  time.  It  was,  he  writes, 
especially  impressive  at  night  when  in  the 
darkness  the  "enormous  volume  of  sound 
ebbs  and  flows,"  coming  now  from  one  direc- 
tion, now  from  another. 

The  jackass  penguin  gets  its  name  from 
the  likeness  of  its  melancholy  call  to  the 
bray    of    the    donkey.      On    the    Falkland 


Islands,  near  the  southern  tip  of  South 
America,  A.  F.  Cobb  writes  that  when  one 
of  these  penguins  starts  its  doleful  bray 
others  answer  until  the  whole  district  is 
moaning  in  chorus.  Sometimes  the  birds 
call  on  land,  sometimes  when  they  are  at  sea. 
Possibly,  Cobb  suggests,  the  reported  wails 
of  ghosts  of  drowned  sailors  were  in  reality 
the  woebegone  "hullooow's"  of  jackass 
penguins. 

A  concert  of  bird  voices  can  travel  far, 
like  a  wave  through  the  West  African  forests, 
as  Harry  A.  Beatty  found  in  Liberia  when 
he  was  collecting  birds  for  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum.  Especially  is  this  true 
of  the  plantain  eater,  a  large  greenish  rela- 
tive of  the  cuckoos,  which  lives  there. 
Beatty  writes  me  that  when  an  impulsive 
bird  strikes  the  first  clarion  note,  at  once 
others  take  it  up.  The  chorus  swells.  The 
first  birds  soon  stop  but  others,  farther  off, 
are  taking  it  up,  and  long  after  the  first 
birds  are  quiet  you  can  hear  birds  in  the  far 
distance.  Possibly  the  notes  are  relayed 
a  long  distance. 

It  is  not  always  the  call  of  one  of  their 
own  kind  that  sets  off  a  bird  chorus,  as  E.  A. 
Preble  found  when  he  was  traveling  on  the 
barrens  east  of  Hudson  Bay.  The  arctic 
loon  was  noisy  there.  It  is  noted  for  its 
peculiar  loud,  weird,  and  prolonged  shrill 
scream.  A  lone  bird,  it  is  said,  may  howl 
like  a  fiend  for  up  to  a  half-hour  at  a  time, 
and  a  howl  of  a  timber  wolf  or  some  other 
sound  may  set  off  a  chorus  of  the  wild  cries. 


STAFF  NOTES 


George  I.  Quimby,  Curator  of  North 
American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  at- 
tended a  field  meeting  of  the  Friends  of  the 
Pleistocene  in  northern  Michigan  last 
month.  The  organization  is  composed  of 
glacial  geologists,  soil  scientists,  archae- 
ologists, foresters,  botanists,  and  zoologists. 
On  this  trip  the  group  examined  glacial  and 
late  glacial  phenomena  between  Traverse 
City  and  the  Straits  of  Mackinac .... 
George  Langford,  Curator  of  Fossil  Plants, 
and  Orville  L.  Gilpin,  Chief  Preparator  of 
Fossils,  collected  specimens  of  fossil  plants 
during  a  recent  field  trip  to  Alabama,  Ten- 
nessee, and  Kentucky.  Dr.  Rainer  Zan- 
gerl,  Curator  of  Fossil  Reptiles,  Dr.  Eugene 
S.  Richardson,  Jr.,  Curator  of  Fossil  In- 
vertebrates, Dr.  Robert  H.  Denison,  Cu- 
rator of  Fossil  Fishes,  and  Preparator  Gilpin 
were  interviewed  about  dinosaurs  on  tele- 
vision   over   WTTW Henry    S.    Dy- 

bas,  Associate  Curator  of  Insects,  recently 
lectured  on  the  seventeen-year  cicada  before 
the  Chicago  Entomological  Society  and  the 
Barrington  Natural  History  Society.  He 
lectured  on  other  subjects  for  the  Depart- 
ment of  Zoology  of  the  University  of 
Chicago. 


LAPIDARIES  DISPLAY  ART 
AT  MUSEUM  IN  JUNE 

AN  ART  practiced  by  a  comparatively 
_l\.  small  number  of  people  the  world  over 
and  by  few  amateurs  will  be  the  subject 
of  a  special  exhibit  during  June  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall  at  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum.  This  is  the  lapidary's  art — the 
cutting  and  polishing  of  gems  and  the 
creation  of  jewelry. 

The  Chicago  Lapidary  Club  is  the  nucleus 
in  the  Chicago  area  of  a  small  but  devoted 
band  of  "rockhounds,"  as  they  call  them- 
selves, who  range  abroad  in  the  field  to 
collect  gem  material  for  their  creative  work. 
For  the  sixth  successive  year,  the  lapidary 
club  will  hold  its  Annual  Amateur  Hand- 
crafted Gem  and  Jewelry  Competitive  Ex- 
hibition at  the  Museum.  Formal  presenta- 
tions of  awards  were  made  at  the  Hamilton 
Park  Field  House  during  a  three-day  pre- 
view in  May. 

All  those  participating  in  the  contest  live 
in  Chicago  and  suburbs  within  a  50-mile 
radius  of  the  city.  Included  are  not  only 
members  of  the  Chicago  Lapidary  Club  but 
also  other  amateur  lapidary  and  jewelry 
craftsmen  of  the  area.  Many  of  the  con- 
testants have  received  instruction  through 
facilities  offered  by  the  Chicago  Park  Dis- 
trict in  the  field  houses  maintained  in  small 
parks  in  many  parts  of  the  city  and  have 
done  much  of  their  work  there.  Those 
entrants  in  the  contest  who  offer  jewelry 
creations  not  only  must  cut  their  gems  but 
also  must  prepare  the  gold  and  silver 
mountings  and  carry  out  the  design-work. 

Those  who  competed  and  whose  creations 
were  judged  worthy  of  exhibition  are  divided 
into  two  classifications — novices  and  ad- 
vanced workers.  In  each  classification  the 
exhibits  are  divided  into  ten  specialized  craft 
divisions:  cabochon-cut  individual  gems, 
faceted  individual  gems,  collections  of 
specific  gems,  general  gem  collections,  in- 
dividual jewelry,  jewelry  sets,  special 
pieces,  collections  of  polished  specimens  or 
slabs,  enameled  jewelry,  and  enameled 
special  pieces.  Trophy  cups,  medals,  and 
ribbons  have  been  awarded  in  each  division. 
In  addition  to  the  individual  awards, 
there  are  three  special  trophies  for  top 
winners.  One  is  the  Dalzell  Trophy, 
awarded  to  the  best  of  show.  Another  is 
the  Presidents'  Trophy,  which  goes  to  the 
outstanding  first-prize  winner  among  lapi- 
dary exhibits.  Third  is  the  Councilmen's 
Trophy,  awarded  to  the  outstanding  jewelry. 


Daily  Guide-Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  P.M.  on  Saturday. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


June,  1956 


CERTIFICATES   AWARDED  TO   'MUSEUM   TRAVELERS' 


Thirteen  children  who  successfully  com- 
pleted four  Museum  "journeys"  each  and 
demonstrated  the  knowledge  they  gained  by 
correctly  answering  questionnaires  about 
each  trip  were  awarded  official  "Museum 
Traveler"  certificates  last  month.  Eight 
of  the  children  are  shown  in  the  photograph 
with  Miss  Miriam  Wood,  Chief  of  the  James 
Nelson  and  Anna  Louise  Raymond  Founda- 
tion, who  has  charge  of  this  and  the  Mu- 
seum's many  other  programs  for  children, 
and  with  John  R.  Millar,  Deputy  Director 


of  the  Museum,  who  presented  the  certifi- 
cates. Marie  Mangold  (front  row,  second 
from  left)  and  Konrad  Banasak  (not  in 
photograph)  successfully  completed  five 
journeys  each,  more  than  meeting  the  re- 
quirements. Others  in  the  photograph  are: 
(front  row,  left  to  right)  Jeanne-Marie 
Hansen,  Alan  Chill,  and  Sarah  Strandjord; 
(back  row)  John  Robinson,  Lucinda  Woods, 
Bill  Heilig,  and  David  Strandjord.  Also 
awarded  certificates  were  Boyce  and  Carol 
Brunson  and  James  and  Ronald  Molnar. 


Artist  Appointed  in  Zoology 
Miss  Marion  Pahl,  of  Berwyn,  Illinois, 
has  been  appointed  Artist  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Zoology.  Miss  Pahl  studied  at  the 
School  of  the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago, 
where  she  earned  degrees  of  Bachelor  of 
Fine  Arts  and  Bachelor  of  Art  Education. 
She  has  taught  art  in  the  St.  Francis  School 
of  Art,  Lafayette,  Indiana,  and  in  the 
Berwyn  public  schools.  Before  coming  to 
the  Museum  she  was  employed  at  the  Art 
Institute  in  the  Burnham  Library  of  Archi- 
tecture and  in  the  Slide  and  Photograph 
Department. 


Reptiles  and  Amphibians  until  1941  and  as 
Chief  Curator  of  Zoology  from  that  year 
until  1955.  He  has  gained  world  renown 
for  his  achievements  in  his  special  field  of 
herpetological  research,  and  he  is  continu- 
ing his  investigations  at  the  Museum  since 
his  retirement  last  year. 

Dr.  Schmidt  recently  returned  from 
Europe,  where  he  was  engaged  in  a  research 
project  at  museums  in  Brussels,  Paris,  and 
London. 


Karl  P.  Schmidt  Elected 
to  National  Academy 

Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology,  has  been  elected  to  membership 
in  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences,  Wash- 
inton,  D.C.  This  is  one  of  the  outstanding 
honors  attainable  by  a  scientist.  Dr. 
Schmidt's  election  was  in  recognition  of  his 
long  career  as  a  zoologist,  during  thirty- 
three  years  of  which  he  was  a  member  of 
the  staff  of  this   Museum,  as   Curator  of 


Gifts  to  the  Museum 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month. 

Department   of  Anthropology: 

From:  Col.  Richard  B.  Stith,  Lacon.Tni. 
— Japanese  documents  relating  to  the  Point 
Barrow  expedition,  Japan 

Department   of  Geology: 

From:  Gemological  Institute  of  America, 
New  York — natural  pearl  and  cultured 
pearl 

Department   of   Zoology: 

From:  Bernard  Benesh,  Burrville,  Tenn. 
— 456  beetles;  D.  G.  Constantine,  Atlanta, 
Ga. — 21  bats,  California 


Museum  Members  to  Receive 
Director's  Annual  Report 

The  Annual  Report  of  the  Director  to  the 
Museum's  Board  of  Trustees,  a  book  of 
151  pages  with  24  illustrations,  was  pub- 
lished in  May,  and  copies  will  soon  be  sent 
to  every  Member  of  the  Museum.  In  the 
book,  printed  by  the  Museum's  own  press, 
Director  Clifford  C.  Gregg  presents  details 
of  the  work  of  13  expeditions  and  numerous 
smaller  field  trips  that  added  to  the  exhibi- 
tion and  research  collections.  The  areas 
explored  range  from  Africa  to  "the  lost 
world"  of  Venezuela.  The  report  covers 
additions  to  the  exhibits,  educational 
activities  of  the  N.  W.  Harris  Public  School 
Extension,  the  James  Nelson  and  Anna 
Louise  Raymond  Foundation,  and  the 
Edward  E.  Ayer  Lecture  Foundation.  Also 
outlined  are  progress  in  research,  the  growth 
and  operation  of  the  Library,  and  the  work 
of  all  divisions  of  the  Museum,  as  well  as  the 
institution's  financial  condition. 


HOW  FISHES  FLOAT- 

(Continued  from  page  6) 

or  of  special  muscles  associated  with  the 
wall  of  the  swim  bladder. 

Whatever  the  method,  it  seems  certain 
that  the  teleost  fish  does  control  the  gas 
volume  in  the  swim  bladder  because:  (1) 
the  fish  does  move  about  from  one  pres- 
sure level  to  another,  apparently  freely, 
and  (2)  it  does  not,  while  alive,  react 
passively,  like  the  Cartesian  Diver,  but 
resists  actively  changes  in  pressure  when 
applied  under  experimental  conditions. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  teleost  fish,  which 
possesses  a  swim  bladder,  is  capable  of 
adjusting  its  weight-volume  relationships  so 
as  to  come  into  an  equilibrium  with  the 
water  at  any  desired  depth  and  remain 
there  motionless. 

OTHER   BUOYANT   FORMS 

Like  the  teleost  fishes,  some  man-made 
objects  function  as  animated  Cartesian 
Divers.  These  objects  are  the  submarine 
and  the  lighter-than-air  craft.  Here  the 
weight-volume  relationships  are  adjusted  by 
controls  within  the  object  in  order  to  effect 
rising,  sinking,  or  remaining  at  any  desired 
level. 

The  submarine  is  a  large-scale  Cartesian 
Diver.  The  volume  of  air  in  the  ship  is 
increased  by  "blowing  out"  the  water  ballast 
and  is  decreased  by  taking  on  additional 
water.  For  lighter-than-air  craft  (balloons, 
blimps,  dirigibles,  etc.)  the  weight- volume 
relationship  is  altered  by  throwing  off  the 
sand  ballast  or  by  allowing  some  of  the  gases 
to  escape.  The  great  difference  in  the 
relative  weights  of  the  water  and  air  (770:1) 
necessitates  much  more  delicate  manipu- 
lation to  control  the  lighter-than-air  craft 
than  the  submarine. 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


n  atu  RkJjulletin 

HISTORY    vduntez?       jVo.  7 
MUSEUM    g«ty 


_                   ^^                         ^^  -  hL  g 

^-    'I   ~\     ■ 

•         ■  * .      • 

f     *       I 

'J0I' 

F%- 

-'  :*%*£ 


*£ 


i£s^s. 


— h  iill 


x?/ 


K^s^ 


I 


r£ 


"«i*; 


-*»##•,     "*2* 


^v 


■33fl 


s^l 


'/• 


■m 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


July,  1956 


Chicago   Natural   History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wii.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Thbodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMijoj Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly   of  changes   of  address. 


LEON  L.    WALTERS 

1888-1956 

Leon  L.  Walters,  Taxidermist  at  Chicago 
Natural  History  Museum  for  43  years,  died 
suddenly  on  June  7,  1956,  of  a  coronary 
thrombosis.  He  was  born  on  May  1,  1888, 
in  Portland,  Jay  County,  Indiana.  Mr. 
Walters   was   the  in- 

^ ventor  of  the  '  'Walters 

M^  Process"    for  making 

_»^_v  plastic  models  of  am- 

phibians and  reptiles, 
a  process  that  has  ap- 
^H  plications  also  in  the 

taxidermy  of  birds 
and  mammals.  This 
introduced  a  wholly 
new  lifelike  quality  in 
the  Museum  represen- 


I 


Leon   L.   Walters 


tation  of  animals 
wherever  surface  de- 
tail and  translucence 
are  required.  He  began  work  in  1911  at  the 
then  Field  Museum  in  the  old  building  in 
Jackson  Park  and  retired  in  1954,  con- 
tinuing to  work  and  experiment  with  plastics 
at  his  home. 

Mr.  Walters  grew  up  on  his  father's  farm 
near  Salamonia.  A  born  naturalist,  with 
an  Indiana  farm-boy's  interest  in  squirrel 
hunting,  he  was  directed  to  museum  col- 
lecting and  to  mounting  birds  and  mammals 
by  a  farm  neighbor,  Nicholas  J.   Money, 


who  encouraged  him  to  apprentice  himself 
to  John  Dell  Allen,  at  Mandan,  South 
Dakota,  a  taxidermist  with  a  national 
reputation.  Three  years  with  Allen  con- 
firmed Mr.  Walter's  interest  in  museum 
work,  with  thoughtful  attention  to  the 
defects  of  existing  processes  in  taxidermy. 

When  the  young  Leon  Walters  came  to 
the  Museum  in  1911,  he  served  first  as 
assistant  to  Dr.  Wilfred  H.  Osgood,  Curator 
of  Mammals  (later  Chief  Curator  of 
Zoology),  but  when  opportunity  came,  he 
transferred  to  the  newly  founded  school- 
service  department,  the  N.  W.  Harris 
Public  School  Extension.  There  he  had 
scope  for  his  interest  in  museum  techniques 
and  there  also  was  demand  for  the  collecting 
of  local  material.  Collecting  associated  him 
with  H.  L.  Stoddard,  the  bird  taxidermist 
of  the  same  department,  and  the  two  formed 
one  of  those  deeply  congenial  friendships 
of  men.  Every  weekend  was  spent  in  the 
field  with  shotgun  in  hand,  especially  in  the 
marshland  that  surrounded  Chicago  before 
the  city  came,  of  which  some  fine  remnants 
persisted  up  to  World  War  I.  The  wealth 
of  bird  life  in  these  marshes  is  notable  even 
to  the  present  day.  I  have  heard  Mr. 
Walters  say  that  it  was  the  draining  of  the 
Worth  marshes  that  led  him  to  leave  the 
Museum  and  Chicago  to  homestead  land 
in  eastern  Montana. 

Mr.  Walter's  stay  in  Montana  was 
fortunately  not  a  long  one.  On  his  return, 
in  the  great  expansion  of  the  whole  Museum 
program  preceding  and  after  the  move  to 
the  new  building  in  Grant  Park,  he  found 
adequate  scope  and  opportunity  for  his 
talents  as  artist,  technician,  and  inventor, 
as  well  as  for  travel  and  collecting.  Within 
the  Department  of  Zoology  a  Museum 
romance  presently  developed  between  the 
young  assistant  in  mammalogy  and  the 
departmental  secretary,  Miss  Ethel  Dow, 
who  as  Mrs.  Walters  continued  to  work  in 
the  Museum  for  many  years,  serving  as  an 
all  but  indispensable  administrative  assis- 
tant in  the  Director's  office. 

Little  needs  to  be  added  to  the  account 
of  Mr.  Walters'  work  that  appeared  in  the 
Museum  Bulletin  of  April,  1954,  written 
on  the  occasion  of  his  retirement.  His 
monuments  are  notable  exhibits  in  the  halls 
of  the  Museum — the  crocodile  and  sea- 
turtle  groups  and  many  fine  individual 
reptile-models  in  the  Hall  of  Reptiles  and 
the  white  rhinoceros,  the  hippopotamus, 
and  the  great  gorilla,  Bushman,  in  the  Hall 
of  African  Mammals. 

Mr.  Walters  is  survived  by  his  widow  and 
two  sons,  Allen  Dow,  born  in  1927,  and 
David  William,  born  in  1926.  The  Walters 
home  was  a  center  of  interesting  activities, 
for  Mr.  Walters  carried  on  much  of  his 
experimental  work  there.  There  one  might 
see  a  plastic  boat  in  process  of  construction, 
the  famous  horse's  head  with  the  hair  trans- 
ferred   to    a    celluloid    skin,    and    various 


-THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


"It's  all  in  the  day's  work"  at 
the  Museum  as  one  man  faces  the 
task  of  unpacking,  sorting,  classi- 
fying, and  studying  20,600  birds  of 
Asia  that  have  just  arrived.  But 
the  days  at  this  task  will  run  into 
many  months  or  several  years  for 
Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Jr.,  Assistant 
Curator  of  Birds,  who  nevertheless 
is  seen  enthusiastically  seeking 
out  treasured  specimens  of  rare 
kinds.  The  story  of  this  large 
and  important  new  acquisition  is 
told  on  page  3. 


experiments  with  artificial  arms  and  hands. 
After  his  retirement  there  were  also  the 
remarkable  plastic  models  of  the  several 
grades  of  eggs,  used  by  egg-inspectors  as 
their  standards  for  grading. 

Leon  L.  Walters  lived  a  remarkably  full 
and  happy  life,  for  he  was  exactly  fitted  for 
the  unique  environment  afforded  by  a 
natural  history  museum. 

Karl  P.  Schmidt 
Curator  Emeritus  of  Zoology 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(May  16  to  June  15) 

Contributor 

Miss  La  Verne  Hand 

Associate  Members 

Dr.  David  G.  Berens,  Mrs.  Clarence  W. 
Bowen,  J.  Lester  Cunningham,  Harold  Eng- 
lish, R.  Rea  Esgar,  Robert  F.  Grohe,  Rol- 
wood  R.  Hill,  Howard  Knight,  Mrs. 
Lawrence  E.  Norem,  Calvin  P.  Sawyier, 
William  A.  Singer,  Mrs.  Jack  A.  Williamson 

Annual   Members 

John  W.  Batey,  Jr.,  Edward  C.  Becker, 
Clinton  C.  Bennett,  A.  R.  Boe,  John  A. 
Brandenburg,  Robert  Buchbinder,  B.  H. 
Bunn,  C.  M.  Bunn,  Harry  Burg,  Clyde  B. 
Colweil,  Jr.,  G.  R.  Cox,  W.  E.  DeCamp,  Ed- 
ward W.  Dobek,  Francis  M.  Doan,  James  V. 
Donoghue,  Joseph  E.  Eschbach,  Harold  R. 
Fagerson,  Mrs.  C.  B.  Falk,  M.  S.  Firth, 
Kenyon  S.  Fletcher,  V.  J.  Fletcher,  D.  G. 
Ford,  Harry  E.  Gurvey,  Cornelius  J.  Hauck, 
Hugh  J.  Helmer,  George  R.  Hornkohl, 
William  B.  Hummer,  G.  Allan  Julin,  Jr., 
Ernest  W.  Kilgore,  Willard  K.  Lasher, 
Philip  A.  Lieber,  Endieott  R.  Lovell,  Wil- 
liam H.  Lowe,  Donald  MacArthur,  Dr. 
Paul  J.  Patchen,  Waldo  Mauritz,  Thomas 
E.  McDowell,  James  D.  McElroy,  Aldo  L. 
Moroni,  Miss  Emmy  Lou  Packard,  William 
J.  Quinn,  Milton  D.  Robinson,  Justin  A. 
Rollman,  John  B.  Simpson,  Alexander  Sklar, 
Joseph  J.  Stefan,  Albert  P.  Strietmann, 
John  R.  Waterfield,  Warren  J.  Weber, 
Kenneth  V.  Zwiener 


The  Hall  of  Whales  (Hall  N-l)  contains 
an  exhibit  illustrating  the  anatomy  of  these 
giant  creatures,  the  largest  of  all  mammals. 


July,  1 956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


PageS 


TWENTY   THOUSAND    BIRDS    OF    SOUTHERN    ASIA    RECEIVED 


By  MELVIN  A.  TRAYLOR,  Jr. 

ASSISTANT  CURATOR  OF  BIRDS 

SOME  20,600  birds  of  Asia  arrived  at  the 
Museum  last  month.  This  huge  assem- 
blage of  specimens,  known  to  ornithologists 
as  the  Koelz  Collection,  is  probably  the  last 
of  the  great  private  collections  of  birds,  and 
the  Museum  was  indeed  fortunate  in  having 


THRILLS  FOR  ORNITHOLOGISTS 
Discovery  of  a  new  snow  partridge  from  Afghanistan 
in  newly  arrived  collection  of  birds  from  Asia  brings 
elation  to  Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Jr.,  Assistant  Curator 
of  Birds  (left),  and  Emmet  R.  Blake,  Curator  of 
Birds.  The  partridge  is  one  of  68  type  specimens 
found  in  the  shipment  of  more  than  20,000  birds. 


the  opportunity  to  purchase  it.  This  large 
collection  was  gathered  over  the  years  on 
expeditions  to  Iran,  Afghanistan,  India, 
Nepal,  and  Assam  by  Dr.  Walter  N.  Koelz, 
of  Waterloo,  Michigan.  With  the  acquisi- 
tion of  this  collection  a  new  and  most  im- 
portant area  for  research  has  been  opened  for 
the  Division  of  Birds.  Gaps  in  our  collec- 
tions of  birds  of  Asia  will  be  filled,  and  the 
study  of  many  forms  peculiar  to  this  region 
will  now  be  possible. 

The  high  mountains  of  the  Himalayas, 
rising  abruptly  from  the  plains  of  India, 
form,  with  adjacent  ranges,  a  massive 
barrier  across  southern  Asia  from  Afghanis- 
tan east  to  Szechwan  and  Indochina.  The 
southern  slopes  of  the  mountains  are  the 
meeting-ground  of  the  palearctic  fauna  from 
the  north  and  the  tropical  Indo-Malayan 
fauna  from  the  south,  and  here  is  found  the 
Himalayan  fauna,  which  is  particularly  rich 
and  varied.  The  Museum  had  several 
excellent  collections  from  Indochina,  Szech- 
wan, Nepal,  and  Kashmir,  but  their  useful- 
ness was  hampered  by  gaps  that  existed 
between  them  (see  accompanying  map). 
Now  that  these  gaps  have  been  closed,  it 
will  be  possible  to  study  the  variation  and 
relationships  of  Himalayan  birds  through- 
out their  whole  range  and  to   clarify  the 


problems  that  arose  when  they  were  studied 
piecemeal. 

In  a  collection  of  more  than  20,000  birds 
from  the  Himalayas  there  is  naturally  an 
abundance  of  forms  to  illustrate  this  varied 
and  complex  fauna.  Mingled  with  the 
ravens,  crows,  chickadees,  nuthatches, 
creepers,  and  wrens  that  would  not  appear 
out  of  place  in  Europe  and  North  America 
are  the  brilliantly  colored  parakeets,  sun- 
birds,  bee-eaters,  and  flower-peckers  associ- 
ated with  the  tropics.  Along  with  these  are 
the  numerous  groups  found  only  in  this 
montane  fauna — brightly  colored  tree-pies, 
rose  finches,  and  pheasants  and  the  con- 
trastingly more  somber  laughing  thrushes 
and  scimitar  babblers. 

COMPARISONS   NOW   POSSIBLE 

Of  greater  importance  than  the  variety 
are  the  long  series  available  of  each  form. 
Dr.  Koelz  took  particular  care  to  collect 
a  series  of  each  form  wherever  time  per- 
mitted. There  are  many  groups,  such  as 
the  warblers,  where  there  are  numerous 
species  that  are  closely  similar.  Without 
adequate  series  of  all  forms  available  for 


our  now  adequate  material  have  to  do  with 
species  exhibiting  color  phases  and  seasonal 
changes  in  plumage.  With  only  single 
specimens  from  scattered  localities  showing 
different  plumages,  it  is  difficult  to  know 
whether  one  or  more  species  are  involved. 
However,  long  series  representing  different 
regions  and  all  seasons  permit  these  prob- 
lems to  be  settled.  Fortunately  Dr.  Koelz 
made  a  special  effort  to  get  thorough  repre- 
sentation of  the  larger  birds  such  as  hawks 
and  owls,  and  the  collection  is  particularly 
rich  in  these  often-neglected  families. 

Much  of  the  material  in  the  collection  is 
unworked.  Some  of  the  palearctic  families 
have  been  studied,  and  Koelz  himself  has 
described  many  new  forms.  Sixty-eight 
type  specimens,  the  individual  birds  from 
which  the  new  forms  were  described,  are 
included  with  the  collection  and  add  much 
to  its  usefulness.  Completing  the  identifica- 
tion of  the  collection  is  an  opportunity  for 
many  fruitful  years  of  study. 

'SPARE   TIME'   TASK 

Among  the  noteworthy  aspects  of  this 
collection,    assemblage    of    which    is    only 


-3p^ 


CHINA 


OLD    COLLECTION 
XvX'X  NE"   COLLECTION 


NEW  REGIONS  REPRESENTED  IN  BIRD  COLLECTION 
Map  of  southern  Asia  shows  how  the  new  Koelz  Collection  (dotted)  fills  the  gaps  between  the  areas  repre- 
sented in  other  Museum  collections  (stippled)  along  the  mountain  massif  of  the  Himalayas  and  adjacent  ranges. 


direct  comparison  to  determine  the  key 
characters  of  each  species,  it  has  sometimes 
been  impossible  to  identify  single  specimens 
properly.  Now,  however,  with  this  wealth 
of  new  material,  these  problems  will  be 
minimized. 

Other  problems  that  can  be  resolved  with 


a  part  of  Koelz's  accomplishment,  probably 
none  is  more  remarkable  than  the  career  of 
the  collector  himself.  It  is  hard  to  conceive 
of  a  man  who  could  collect  such  numbers  of 
birds  in  twenty-five  years  of  travel  in  Asia  as 
anything  but  a  most  energetic  bird-collector. 
Yet  Dr.  Koelz,  who  accomplished  this,  was 


Page  b 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


July,  1956 


primarily  a  plant  explorer  and  botanical 
collector  and  accumulated  the  bird  collec- 
tions in  his  "spare  time." 

The  story  of  Dr.  Koelz*s  amazing  career 
can  best  be  told  in  his  own  words,  although 
they  give  but  a  small  hint  of  the  tremendous 
energy  involved  in  his  accomplishments: 

"As  for  my  personal  history,  I  was 
trained  as  a  linguist  but  on  graduating  from 
college  was  offered  an  assistantship  with 
Professor  Redford  in  Ann  Arbor,  who 
couldn't  find  a  zoology  graduate  to  help 
with  a  course  in  field  zoology.  The  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Fisheries  wanted  someone  to 
study  the  scales  of  the  Great  Lakes  white- 
fishes  and  I  undertook  it  for  a  doctor's 
thesis.  It  turned  into  a  long  job  of  deter- 
mining the  systematic  status  of  the  numer- 
ous forms  and  of  recording  life-history  data 
on  them.  The  work  was  interrupted  by  the 
illness  of  a  friend  that  took  me  to  New 
Mexico  for  a  year  or  so  and  ended  my 
connection  with  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Fisheries. 
On  returning  to  Ann  Arbor  I  continued  with 
fish  for  the  University  and  then  for  the 
State  of  Michigan.  I  had  gone  one  summer 
with  Byrd  and  MacMillan  on  the  first 
attempt  to  fly  to  the  North  Pole  and  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  botanists  by  the 
plant  collection  made  then,  so  that  when 
[Dr.  Elmer  D.|  Merrill,  then  of  the  New  York 
Botanical  Garden,  was  looking  for  a  field 
botanist  for  work  in  the  Himalayas  I  was 
given  the  job.  It  was  a  temporary  affair 
but  who  would  turn  down  a  chance  to  see 
the  Himalayas?  I  made  a  collection  of 
plants  and  birds  there;  the  former  went  to 
New  York  Botanical  Garden  and  Kew  and 
the  birds,  some  3,000,  were  mostly  moth- 
eaten  or  are  in  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History.  A  collection  of  seeds  sent 
to  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture 
turned  out  to  have  some  interesting  items 
and  a  collection  of  Tibetan  and  Indian 
paintings  brought  back  got  me  a  Freer 
fellowship  in  Asiatic  art  that  sent  me  back 
to  India.  The  university  got,  in  addition 
to  one  of  the  finest  collections  of  Tibetan 
paintings  and  Kashmir  shawls,  a  large 
amount  of  herbarium  material  and  8,000 
birds.  The  university  had  no  other  job  for 
me  so  I  took  an  offer  from  the  U.  S.  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  to  get  seeds  for  them  in 
India,  and  since  then  I  have  had  only  an 
honorary  connection  with  the  University  of 
Michigan.  The  U.  S.  Department  of  Agri- 
culture assignments  ended  around  1950  and 
I  moved  then  to  Assam  to  round  out  the 
Indian  bird-collection. 

"As  for  the  motives  of  my  activity,  one 
has  to  do  something  and  I  find  there  is 
usually  time  for  anything  one  wants  to  do. 
Moreover,  I  did  a  better  job  of  seed  col- 
lection when  I  had  the  additional  incentive 
to  collect  herbarium  and  zoological  speci- 
mens. The  main  difficulty  is  caring  for 
what  you  get.  But  there  I  had  the  Thakur 
RupChand   and   his   Tibetan   friends,   who 


were  always  with  me.  (RupChand  is  now 
here  in  Waterloo  with  me.)  What  such 
help  was  you  can  see  from  one  of  the 
Tibetan's  remarks.  He  said  other  workers 
wait  for  the  sun  to  go  down  but  we  hope  it 
won't  so  we  can  finish  our  work.  And  we 
often  needed  an  overtime  sun  when  after 
a  15-mile  march  we  had  30  birds  to  make 
up." 

The  last  sentence  alone  suggests  the  labors 
involved,  year  after  year,  in  accumulating 
his  vast  collections.  As  MacMillan  truly 
said  on  his  return  from  the  Arctic,  "Dr. 
Koelz  is  the  most  energetic  naturalist  I  have 
ever  known."  His  most  recent  honor  was 
the  award  of  the  Frank  N.  Meyer  medal 
from  the  American  Genetic  Association, 
a  medal  bestowed  on  only  four  other 
Americans.  Dr.  Koelz  is  now  living  in  his 
boyhood  home  in  Waterloo,  Michigan,  and 
we  trust  he  is  enjoying  his  well-earned 
vacation. 

The  Division  of  Birds  is  indeed  fortunate 
in  securing  this  collection.  Not  only  is  its 
value  as  research  material  unsurpassed,  but 
it  is  a  collection  impossible  to  duplicate 
under  present  political  conditions  in  Asia. 


GEM  AND  JEWELRY  SHOW 
WINNERS  LISTED 

Gold  and  silver  trophy  cups,  medals,  and 
medallions  as  well  as  many  blue,  red,  and 
gold  ribbons  were  awarded  by  the  Chicago 
Lapidary  Club  to  prize-winners  in  the  club's 
annual  show  held  at  the  Museum  last  month. 
This  year's  event  was  the  Sixth  Annual 
Amateur  Handcrafted  Gem  and  Jewelry 
Competitive  Exhibition. 

The  Dalzell  Trophy,  gold  cup  for  the  best 
exhibit  in  the  show,  was  awarded  to  J. 
Lester    Cunningham.      He    also    won    the 


PRESS  CONFERENCE 
Newspaper  photographer  poses  models  in  Museum. 

Councilmen's  Trophy,  third  of  the  grand 
prizes,  and  three  divisional  cups  in  various 
sections  of  the  show.  The  second  grand 
prize,  the  President's  Cup,  and  a  divisional 
first-prize  were  awarded  to  Lucille  Statkus. 
Winners  of  other  divisional  first-prizes  were: 


WILDLIFE  PAINTINGS 
BY  CHICAGO  ARTIST 

A  one-man  show  of  forty-five  wildlife 
paintings  by  Tom  Dolan,  Chicago  free- 
lance artist,  will  be  held  in  Stanley  Field 
Hall  of  the  Museum  from  July  1  through 
July  31.  Birds,  fishes,  mammals,  and  in- 
sects in  the  Museum  collections  were 
studied  and  used  as  models  by  Dolan,  and 
some  of  the  specimens  will  be  displayed  with 
the  paintings. 

Also  to  be  shown  are  published  illustra- 
tions made  from  Dolan's  paintings  that 
have  been  used  in  books  and  magazines 
(among  them  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  and 
Chicago  Tribune  Sunday  Magazine),  on 
calendars,  and  in  advertising.  The  com- 
bination in  the  display  of  the  original  ma- 
terials, the  artist's  creations,  and  the  pub- 
lished reproductions  will  make  this  special 
exhibit  notably  different  from  the  usual  art 
exhibit — ordinarily  no  one  but  the  artist 
sees  all  three  phases.  In  addition,  the 
exhibit  is  an  example  of  a  little-known 
Museum  service:  that  of  making  material 
available  for  a  variety  of  practical  uses  other 
than  research  and  education. 

Dolan  during  the  past  two  years  has  been 
working  for  several  months  at  a  time  as 
a  volunteer  in  the  Museum's  Department 
of  Zoology  in  co-operation  with  Dr.  Karl 
P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus  of  Zoology, 
Loren  P.  Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  Rupert 
L.  Wenzel,  Curator  of  Insects,  Dr.  Robert 
F.  Inger,  Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Rep- 
tiles, and  Philip  Hershkovitz,  Curator  of 
Mammals.  In  his  paintings  Dolan  has 
developed  an  individual  style  that  combines 
a  use  of  colors  in  various  media  on  an 
engraved  scratchboard  surface  to  produce 
sharply  detailed  and  naturalistic  results. 
Preparation  of  the  scratchboard  by  special 
coating  was  required  for  certain  of  the 
paintings.  In  addition  to  the  paintings, 
Dolan's  exhibit  will  include  drawings  made 
for  scientific  publications  of  various  divisions 
of  the  Department  of  Zoology. 


Marjorie  Oliver,  Frank  Swisher,  Margaret 
F.  Cunningham,  Louis  and  Lucille  Statkus 
(jointly),  Beatrice  Raymond,  Alvin  Ericson, 
J.  O.  Bourdeaux,  Tom  Priest,  Earl  Chris- 
tensen,  Paul  Novak,  Mrs.  N.  H.  Maas, 
J.  Keslin,  and  Marion  Meers. 

Contributors  to  the  success  of  the  show 
were  the  young  ladies  shown  in  the  accom- 
panying photograph — Miss  Joan  Atchley 
(left)  and  Miss  Lonnie  Johnson  (right), 
models  assigned  through  the  courtesy  of 
Patricia  Stevens,  Inc.,  to  pose  with  selected 
exhibits  for  photographers  from  the  news- 
papers. 


Sponges,  sea  urchins,  sea  stars,  corals,  and 
other  marine  invertebrates  are  displayed  in 
Hall  M. 


July,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


EXPEDITION  TO  BORNEO 
REPORTS  PROGRESS 

THE  FIRST  REPORT  from  the  Mu- 
seum's 1956  Borneo  Zoological  Expedi- 
tion was  a  letter  from  its  leader,  Dr.  Robert 
F.  Inger,  Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Rep- 
tiles, written  May  7,  at  a  camp  four  days' 
travel  by  launch  up  the  Kinabatagan  River 
in  North  Borneo.  Thanks  to  United  Tim- 
bers, Ltd.,  his  headquarters  are  in  a  new 
lumber  camp  on  a  40-foot  bank  above  the 
river.  At  least  it  was  a  40-foot  bank  on 
April  22,  when  he  arrived,  but  floods  had 
raised  the  water  20  feet,  although  this  is  the 
dry  season,  when  the  river  may  rise  or  fall 
five  to  eight  feet  in  a  night.  In  the  wet 
season,  they  tell  Inger,  the  river  can  rise 
40  feet  in  one  night's  flood. 

This  is  forest  country,  which  is  why  the 
lumber  company  is  starting  operations  here, 
and  the  great  trees  tower  so  high  that  their 
lowest  branches  are  hidden  from  view  from 
the  ground  by  second-story  trees  and  sap- 
lings. On  the  low  hills,  clear  sparkling 
streams  tumble  over  mossy  rocks  from  pool 
to  pool,  while  in  the  low  flat  swamp-forests 
the  streams  are  muddy  and  sluggish.  From 
one  clear  stream,  only  five  feet  wide  and  three 
feet  deep  at  most,  Inger  got  twenty-seven 
species  of  fishes  and  ten  species  of  frogs. 
As  of  the  time  of  writing  he  also  had  a  fine 
torrent  tadpole  completely  unknown  to  him 
and  not  belonging  to  any  species  of  frog  he 
had  collected.  He  was  still  hoping  to  find 
the  adult  frog.  The  muddy  streams  hold 
different  fishes  and  most  of  the  frogs  are 
different,  too.  It  is  almost  like  collecting 
on  quite  different  islands,  instead  of  on 
different  streams  from  the  same  camp. 

Inger  writes  that  the  most  exciting  catch 
so  far  has  been  a  big  green-and-yellow  tree- 
frog  with  tremendous  hands  and  feet  that 
are  completely  webbed.  The  story  goes 
that  it  can  fly.  Curator  Inger  thinks  that 
possibly  it  can  glide,  like  "flying"  squirrels 
and  "flying"  lizards.  At  least,  when  he 
tossed  one  into  the  air,  it  spread  its  webbed 
fingers  and  toes  wide,  which  probably 
doubled  the  surface  area  of  the  frog  as  it 
came  down. 

Snakes,  Inger  has  found,  are  almost  un- 
obtainable. He  knew  that  daytime  hunting 
was  unproductive,  from  his  previous  Borneo 
expedition  in  1950,  but  he  had  hopes  of 
night  hunting.  But  it  produced  nothing. 
So  far,  Inger  reports,  he's  seen  only  three 
snakes.  Inger  and  the  members  of  his  party 
go  out  every  day.  They  have  turned  over 
literally  hundreds  of  logs,  looking  for  bur- 
rowing snakes  and  so  far  have  found  just 
one  specimen. 

In  addition  to  P.  K.  Chin  of  the  North 
Borneo  Department  of  Agriculture,  who  is 
spending  a  month  with  Inger,  his  party 
includes  a  Dyak  hunter  who  was  with  him 
on  an  earlier  expedition,  a  Dusun  cook,  and 
a    couple    of    "Orang    Sungei"     (literally, 


people  of  the  river).  The  North  Borneo 
Forestry  Department  was  interested  in 
obtaining  botanical  specimens  from  this 
area  and  attached  three  collectors  to  Inger's 
party.  They  work  independently  but 
helped  build  the  field  laboratory,  a  structure 
made  of  poles  from  the  forest  and  of  palm 
thatch. 

Dr.  Inger  hopes  next  to  go  to  an  area  on 
the  North  Borneo-Indonesian  Borneo  bor- 
der and  then  on  to  Sarawak. 


Books 


HOW  TO  COLLECT  SHELLS.  A  sym- 
posium. A  publication  of  the  American 
Malacological  Union,  Buffalo  Museum  of 
Science,  Buffalo,  N.Y.,  75  pages.    $1. 

Almost  every  visitor  to  an  ocean  beach 
becomes  a  beachcomber  despite  any  initial 
resistance,  because  the  strangely  shaped  and 
brilliantly  colored  shells  he  finds  there  are 
too  attractive  and  too  fascinating  to  be 
overlooked.  However,  after  the  first  en- 
thusiasm over  this  newly  discovered  field  of 
activity  subsides,  the  collector  becomes 
aware  of  the  fact  that  the  beach  is  just  a 
vast  mortuary  where  few  shells  containing 
living  creatures  can  be  found.  Where  does 
he  have  to  look  for  inhabited  shells?  A  great 
deal  of  trying  in  unprofitable  localities  and 
the  expenditure  of  much  time  are  required 
before  the  novice  shell-collector  learns  where 
to  seek,  unless  he  has  an  experienced  person 
to  guide  him  or  a  good  book  to  advise  him. 
Such  a  book,  and  a  very  inexpensive  one, 
too,  is  the  one  named  above.  Its  various 
chapters,  all  of  them  written  by  persons 
known  for  their  expertness  in  the  field  of 
shell  collecting,  introduce  the  would-be 
malacologist  to  the  many  different  environ- 
ments in  which  mollusks,  the  animals  which 
produce  the  shells,  live,  such  as  sandy  or 
muddy  areas,  lagoons,  inlets,  rocky  shores, 
etc.  The  various  implements  needed  for 
collecting  in  each  individual  environment 
are  described  and  hints  for  very  unusual, 
special  cases  are  offered.  One  chapter  deals 
with  the  cleaning  of  the  collected  animals 
and  how  to  prepare  them  for  the  shell  col- 
lection. A  list  of  outstanding  books  on 
shells  is  given,  and  so  is  a  list  of  the  national 
and  local  shell  clubs  the  collector  may  join 
in  order  to  meet  people  who  share  his  in- 
terests. For  its  wealth  of  manifold  infor- 
mation in  this  field,  as  well  as  for  its  inexpen- 
siveness,  this  book  is  recommended. 

Fritz  Haas 
Curator  of  Lower  Invertebrates 


PHONOGRAPH  RECORDS 
OF  NATURE'S  MUSIC 

(Phonograph  records  reviewed  in  the  Bul- 
letin are  available  in  The  Book  Shop  of  the 
Museum.  Mail  orders  accompanied  by  re- 
mittance including  postage  are  promptly  filled.) 

AMERICAN  BIRD  SONGS.  Vol.  I, 
second  issue,  33  Vs  r.p.m.  Recorded  by 
P.  P.  Kellogg  and  A.  A.  Allen.  Cornell 
University  Records,  Ithaca,  New  York. 

$7.75. 

This  is  a  revised  and  re-edited  long-play- 
ing edition  of  the  earlier  Volume  I  and  con- 
tains most  of  the  species  heard  in  the  Volume 
I  (78  r.p.m.)  album.  The  continued  de- 
mand for  these  records  is  evidence  of  the 
multitude  of  bird-lovers  whose  interest  has 
been  aroused  and  is  maintained  by  material 
such  as  this. 

The  continuity  remains  loosely  ecological: 
birds  of  the  north  woods,  of  northern  and 
of  southern  gardens  and  shade  trees,  of  fields 
and  prairies,  and  American  game-birds,  with 
about  60  voices  featured  and  28  background 
voices. 

One  of  the  innovations  in  this  recording 
is  to  have  a  bird  start  singing  before  it  is 
announced.  This  I  found  a  bit  disconcert- 
ing at  first,  not  realizing  that  the  preceding 
bird  had  ceased  to  sing  and  was  not  trying 
to  imitate  something  else.  But  I  soon  found 
myself  waiting  for  the  next  song  so  I  could 
identify  the  new  song  before  it  was  an- 
nounced. 

My  ear  is  not  too  good  on  bird  songs,  but 
I  found  that  I  had  to  keep  changing  the 
volume  control  to  make  the  recorded  songs 
sound  like  I  remembered  them.  Probably 
this  is  because  the  songs  have  been  recorded 
as  close  to  the  birds  as  possible,  while  in  the 
field  the  songs  ordinarily  are  heard  from 
various  distances.  This  should  be  remem- 
bered in  learning  the  songs  from  records 
and  then  listening  outdoors. 

Basically,  this  is  a  series  of  songs  with  the 
identifications,  "This  is  the  song  of  ...  " 
I  wonder  if  it  isn't  time  to  use  widely  other 
such  varied  approaches  as  have  been  started 
by  J.  H.  Fassett,  for  one.  Breaking  a  song 
down,  for  instance,  building  it  up  again, 
modifying  speed,  pitch,  and  volume,  and 
then  comparing  this  song  with  the  songs  of 
other  birds,  near  relatives  and  distant  ones. 
Or  recording  the  vocabulary  of  a  single 
species,  from  the  nestling  peep  to  the  varied 
repertory  of  the  adults — in  courtship,  fight- 
ing, and  fleeing,  alone  and  in  company. 
Austin  L.  Rand 
Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 


The  Stone  Age  type  of  culture  still  preva- 
lent among  native  tribes  of  Australia  may 
be  studied  in  the  exhibits  in  Hall  A-l. 


How  Big? 

Queries  are  frequently  made  about  the 
area  occupied  by  Museum  exhibits.  The 
48  exhibition  halls  provide  530,172  square 
feet  of  floor  space,  or  the  equivalent  of 
12.17  acres. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


July,  1956 


'SUN  DRUMS'  OF  ASIA 

By  M.  KENNETH  STARR 

CURATOR  OF  ASIATIC  ARCHAEOLOGY  AND  ETHNOLOGY 

AN  EXCELLENT  EXAMPLE  of 
a  bronze  drum  belonging  to  a  general 
type  known  in  parts  of  eastern  and  south- 
eastern Asia  during  the  past  2,000  years  was 
recently  received  by  the  Museum  as  a  gift. 
The  donor  is  Oden  Meeker,  author,  traveler, 
and  now  Mission  Chief  for  the  CARE 
organization  in  Laos,  Indochina.  This 
drum,  highly  valued  as  an  addition  to  the 
collections  of  the  Department  of  Anthro- 
pology, is  notable  for  its  skillfully  executed 
decorative  and  symbolic  designs  in  high  and 
low  relief  from  which  it  derives  anthro- 
pological, artistic,  and  technical  interest. 

The  drum  comes  form  Namtha,  capital 
of  an  isolated  province  in  mountainous 
northwest  Laos.  Namtha,  which  lies  in  the 
uppermost  reaches  of  the  Mekong  River,  is 
in  the  heart  of  the  anthropologically  complex 
region  where  China,  Indochina,  Thailand 
(Siam),  and  Burma  meet. 

The  drum  is  of  lightly  patinated  cast 
bronze.  Its  general  shape  is  that  of  a  hollow 
cylinder  with  open  bottom  and  closed  top, 
about  one  and  one-half  feet  high.  The 
circular  drumhead  is  nearly  two  feet  in 
diameter,  and  its  surface  bears  strongly 
executed  decorative  and  symbolic  designs. 
The  center  is  marked  by  a  circle  that  holds 
a  stylized  twelve-rayed  sun  figure  cast  in 
low  relief.  Outward  from  this  are  twenty- 
one  concentric  zones  marked  off  by  fine 
ridges  in  low  relief.  With  the  exception  of 
the  outermost  one,  these  zones  bear  geo- 
metric and  zoomorphic  designs  in  the  nega- 
tive. The  geometric  designs  include  circles, 
lozenges,  and  squares.  The  zoomorphic 
designs  include  representations  of  two  kinds 
of  birds.  Astride  the  two  outermost  zones 
and  spaced  equally  around  the  periphery  of 
the  drumhead  in  high  relief  stand  four 
highly  though  deftly  stylized  frog  figures. 
The  body  of  the  drum  bears  geometric 
designs.  The  Meeker  drum  has  a  striking 
resemblance  to  a  Thai  bronze  drum  that 
was  presented  to  Queen  Victoria  and  that, 
from  its  placement  in  Windsor  Castle,  is 
known  as  the  Windsor  Drum. 

RECORDS  ARE  MEAGER 

Despite  the  twenty  centuries  during 
which  this  general  type  of  bronze  drum  has 
existed,  the  wide  range  over  which  it  has 
been  found,  and  the  not  inconsiderable 
number  of  specimens  that  have  been  col- 
lected, there  is  relatively  little  known  about 
time  and  place  of  origin,  people  respon- 
sible, manner  of  diffusion,  evolution  in 
various  areas,  and  symbolism  and  functions. 
This  paucity  of  information  results  from 
a  series  of  historical  circumstances:  (1)  many 
of  the  peoples  who  made  and  used  these 
drums  have  lived  in  remote  areas  of  Asia 
not  studied  scientifically  until  recent  dec- 
ades; (2)  even  Chinese  scholars  until  very 


recently  paid  scant  attention  to  the  drums, 
partly  because  of  lack  of  inscriptions  and 
partly  because  the  drums  traditionally  have 
been  associated  with  the  peoples  of  northern 
Indochina  and  with  the  non-Chinese  peoples 
of  south  and  southwest  China  whose  cultures 
long  were  considered  unworthy  of  attention; 
and  (3)  the  majority  of  the  peoples  who 
used  these  drums  maintained  no  written 
record. 

The  earliest  known  examples  of  these 
drums  have  been  uncovered  in  presumably 
non-Chinese  burials  in  Tonkin,  the  portion 


'SUN  DRUM'  FROM  LAOS 

Made  of  bronze,  it  is  typical  of  drums  known  for 

the  past  2,000  years  in  many  parts  of  east  Asia.   It  is 

a  gift  to  the  Museum  from  Oden  Meeker. 

of  northeastern  Indochina  contiguous  to 
China.  Although  the  precise  dates  of  the 
Dongson  culture  represented  by  these  burials 
is  not  yet  fixed,  it  would  seem  that  these 
early  bronze  drums,  to  judge  from  Chinese 
influence  evident  in  various  of  the  grave 
materials,  are  from  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era  or  perhaps  slightly  earlier. 
At  that  time  peoples  of  non-Chinese  culture 
were  dominant  not  only  in  northern  Indo- 
china but  seem  also  to  have  been  an  im- 
portant if  not  dominant  element  in  the 
southern  half  of  what  is  now  "China  proper." 
Since  then  the  drums  in  variant  forms  have 
been  manufactured  and  used  continuously 
to  the  present  day. 

To  judge  from  such  factors  as  (1)  the  past 
and  present  geographic  distribution  of  the 
drums,  (2)  their  water-oriented  symbolism 
(boats,  frogs,  fish,  and  water  birds),  and 
(3)  the  tendency  of  the  Chinese  to  associate 
the  drums  with  the  southern  non-Chinese 
peoples,  the  drums  might  be  assigned  to 
a  more  southerly  origin,  as  for  example  the 
region  encompassing  littoral  northern  Indo- 
china and  extreme  southern  China,  and  to 
peoples  of  non-Chinese  culture.  The  distri- 
bution in  central,  south,  and  southwest 
China  of  place-names  having  the  characters 
t'ung-ku  (bronze  drum)  as  a  component  is  of 
possible  historic  significance.  Locations 
including  the  words  t'ung-ku  occur  in  Hupei 
province     (T'ungku-shan,    T'ungku-pao), 


in  Kiangsi  province  (T'ungku-hsien),  in 
Kuangtung  province  (T'ungku-shan,  T'ung- 
ku-hsti,  T'ungku-wan),  in  Kuangsi  province 
(T'ungku-t'an),  in  Kueichou  province  (T'- 
ungku-yai,  T'ungku-wei),  and  in  Ssuch'uan 
province  (T'ungku-shan).  A  majority  of 
these  locations  lie  in  the  three  extreme 
southern  provinces  of  Kuangtung  (including 
one  location  on  Hainan  Island),  Kuangsi, 
and  Kueichou.  The  history  of  a  number  of 
these  locations  includes  references  to  the 
non-Chinese  aborigines  and  to  legends 
associated  with  the  bronze  drums. 

A   WIDE  RANGE 

These  bronze  drums  in  various  forms 
have  been  reported  from  such  widely  sepa- 
rated proveniences  as  Inner  Mongolia  and 
the  Indonesian  islands  of  Java  and  Borneo. 
Seeming  not  to  occur  in  this  form  in  India, 
the  drums  are  particularly  well  represented 
in  the  large  region  comprised  of  south  and 
southwest  China,  northern  Indochina,  north- 
ern Thailand,  and  west-central  Burma. 
The  Museum  collections  include  examples 
from  south  and  southwest  China,  two  of 
which  are  tentatively  dated  as  being  Later 
Han  (a.d.  25-206),  and  from  northern 
Thailand.  The  bronze  drums  are  assumed 
to  have  had  as  their  prototype  wooden 
drums  with  heads  of  rawhide.  Such  an 
assumption  in  part  is  based  upon  the 
presence  of  such  skeuomorphic  vestiges  as 
(1)  handles  ribbed  in  imitation  of  rope,  (2) 
studs  on  the  shoulder  in  possible  imitation 
of  nails,  and  (3)  braidlike  edging  on  the 
periphery  of  the  drumhead  and  at  the  points 
of  handle  attachment.  The  drums  vary  in 
size,  shape,  and  type  of  decoration,  all  of 
which  bear  relation  to  date  and  provenience. 
Despite  the  variations,  however,  these  drums 
are  unmistakably  members  of  a  single 
general  group.  Characterized  as  they  com- 
monly are  by  a  central  sun  figure,  they 
might  be  well  called  "sun  drums." 

The  meaning  of  the  symbolism  in  the 
wide  variety  of  geometric,  zoomorphic,  and 
other  designs  on  the  head  and  body  of  the 
drums  is  difficult  and,  in  some  instances, 
impossible  to  ascertain.  Attempts  have 
been  made  to  explain  it  in  terms  of  magic 
and  myth,  and  relationships  with  similar 
symbolisms  from  various  times  and  areas 
have  been  suggested.  Whatever  its  mean- 
ings, the  symbolism  would  seem  to  bear 
a  relation  to  a  function  of  the  drums,  but 
the  function  is  also  open  to  question  and 
a  number  of  explanations  have  been  put 
forward. 

One  group  of  Chinese  legends  associates 
the  drums  with  Ma  Yuan,  a  Chinese  general 
of  the  Han  period  who  carried  out  military 
expeditions  against  the  non-Chinese  peoples 
of  the  south.  It  is  recorded  in  the  history 
of  the  Later  Han  that  Ma  brought  bronze 
drums  back  from  northern  Indochina  in 
a.d.  44,  and  it  is  noted  that  the  drums  were 
cast  in  the  form  of  a  horse.  One  fanciful 
tale  relates  that  the  drums  were  placed  under 


July,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


mountain  waterfalls  so  that  the  thunder  of 
the  water  falling  on  them  would  deceive  the 
rebellious  natives  into  believing  that  the 
Chinese  armies  were  near.  Another  re- 
counts that  the  innovation  of  the  drums 
was  occasioned  by  the  rotting  of  the  tra- 
ditional hide-drumheads  under  moist  cli- 
matic conditions  in  south  China.  One 
legend  is  tied  to  another  famous  Chinese 
general  and  statesman,  Chu-Ko  Liang 
(a.d.  181-234),  who  also  carried  out  ex- 
peditions against  the  southerners  and  whose 
name  the  Chinese  sometimes  give  to  the 
type  of  drum,  the  "Chu-Ko  drum." 

USED   IN  RAIN   RITUALS 

Miscellaneous  explanations,  of  varying 
proportions  of  fact  and  fancy,  cover  a  wide 
range.  One,  the  most  plausible  and  certainly 
the  most  common,  ascribes  to  these  drums 
the  function  of  bringing  rain.  By  the 
mechanism  of  sympathetic  magic  the  drum, 
with  its  thunderlike  sound  and  its  water- 
oriented  symbolism,  especially  the  frogs, 
functioned  to  call  down  rain.  Drums, 
though  not  specifically  of  bronze,  were  used 
in  ancient  Han  China  for  such  a  purpose. 
Descriptions  in  the  history  of  the  Later 
Han  of  traditional  rain-ceremonies  refer  to 
beating  drums  and  placing  five  frogs  in 
a  carefully  prescribed  artificial  pond. 
Bronze  drums  also  have  been  used  in  Chinese 
rain-ceremonials  during  more  recent  cen- 
turies, and,  according  to  U  Lu  Pe  Win, 
Director  of  the  Archaeological  Survey  of 
Burma,  the  Karenni,  or  Red  Karen,  of  east 
central  Burma  still  carry  out  annual  rain 
ceremonies  with  such  drums.  Each  tribe 
possesses  such  a  "frog  drum,"  some  dating 
back  to  the  12  th  century,  and  when  not  in 
ceremonial  use  the  drums  are  stored  away 
in  a  sacred  place. 

Various  other  functions  have  been  at- 
tributed to  these  bronze  drums,  as  for 
example,  that  they  were  presented  to  non- 
Chinese  chiefs  as  symbols  of  investiture 
and  that  they  were  used  to  summon  the 
people  in  time  of  war  or  emergency.  The 
drums  have  also  been  considered  as  em- 
blems of  wealth  and  power,  stemming  back 
to  a  time  when  bronze  was  a  metal  of  great 
value,  available  only  to  the  privileged. 
Finally,  the  drums  are  reported  as  having 
served  a  wide  variety  of  commonplace 
functions:  as  temple  drums,  as  drums  to 
make  known  deaths,  and  as  drums  to  herald 
the  coming  of  night. 

In  dealing  with  both  symbolism  and  func- 
tion, not  only  must  fact  be  distinguished 
from  fancy  but  also  the  original  symbolisms 
and  functions  from  the  more  recent.  Cau- 
tion is  particularly  necessary  with  respect 
to  function,  for  some  of  the  functions  at- 
tributed to  the  drums  are  purely  imaginary. 
Furthermore,  it  is  highly  possible  that  in 
more  recent  times  the  drums  have  become 
diverse  in  function,  having  one  function  in 


one    area    and    other    possibly    unrelated 
functions  elsewhere. 

The  Museum  is  grateful  to  Mr.  Meeker 
for  his  gift  of  the  drum.  In  the  natural  and 
physical  sciences,  the  social  sciences,  and  the 
humanities,  research  is  dependent  upon  the 
accumulation,  over  years  and  centuries,  of 
data  and  of  the  materials  that  provide  data. 
It  is  in  such  a  context,  as  well  as  in  its  more 
obvious  aesthetic  sense,  that  this  Laotian 
drum  should  be  thought  of,  for  when  the 
drum  is  so  considered,  its  value  is  enhanced 
manyfold. 


JUNIOR  'ROCKHOUNDS' 


Busily  identifying  specimens  during  a  re- 
cent rock  and  mineral  workshop  for  children 
at  the  Museum  are  (left  to  right):  Eileen 
Marszalik,  Gary  Gilbert,  Diane  Kelly, 
Steven  Nestor,  John  Kozlowski,  and  Dennis 
Szymanski,  all  seventh  graders  from  the 
Hurley  School  in  Chicago.  Twenty-four 
groups  of  upper-grade  school  students 
attended  the  sessions,  which  were  held 
during  May  and  June  by  the  Museum's 
Raymond  Foundation. 


'Postage-Stamp  Safari' 
for  Boys  and  Girls 

Museum  Journey  No.  6,  open  to  boys  and 
girls  during  visiting  hours  any  day  in  July 
and  August,  is  the  "Postage-Stamp  Safari." 
Children  participating  will  receive  travel 
instructions  at  the  Museum  entrances  to 
aid  them  in  hunting  out  the  animals  pic- 
tured on  the  postage  stamps  of  many 
countries  all  over  the  world.  Children  who 
have  completed  this  and  three  other 
journeys  successfully  will  be  given  the  title 
Museum  Traveler  and  presented  with  an 
award  by  the  Director  of  the  Museum. 
After  eight  journeys  the  Travelers  become 
Museum  Adventurers  and  a  special  seal 
is  attached  to  their  original  award.  The 
five  previous  journeys  were  "Africa," 
"China,"  "Animals  Around  the  World," 
"Toys,"  and  "Bible  Plants."  Other  jour- 
neys will  be  announced  later,  and  boys  and 
girls  may  start  their  series  with  any  one 
of  them. 


PROGRAMS  FOR  CHILDREN 
IN  JULY  AND  AUGUST 

Motion  pictures  and  a  puppet  show  on 
the  stage  of  the  Museum's  James  Simpson 
Theatre  will  be  given  free  for  children  on 
Thursday  mornings  in  July  and  August  by 
the  James  Nelson  and  Anna  Louise  Ray- 
mond Foundation.  The  first  of  the  six 
programs  will  be  presented  on  July  5. 
There  will  be  two  performances  of  each 
show,  one  at  10  a.m.  and  one  at  11  a.m. 
(because  of  an  extra-long  film  on  August  9, 
the  second  show  on  that  date  will  begin  about 
11:30  a.m.).  No  tickets  are  required. 
Children  may  come  alone,  accompanied  by 
parents  or  other  adults,  or  in  organized 
groups.    Following  are  the  dates  and  titles: 

July  5 — Animal  Pets 
Also  a  cartoon 

July  12 — Two  Favorite  Animal  Pictures 
Also  a  cartoon 

July  19— The  Three  Bears 

(Puppet   production   on  stage,  by  Apple 
Tree  Workshop  of  Chicago  Heights) 

July  26 — Folktales 
(Also  a  cartoon) 

August  2 — Nature's  Children   (repeated 
by  request) 
Also  a  cartoon 

August  9 — Elephant    Boy     (repeated    by 
request) 
Based  on  Rudyard  Kipling's  Jungle  Book 
story  of  "Toomai  of  the  Elephants"  in 
India 


'Buffalo  Hunts'  at  Museum 
for  YMCA  Children 

A  new  summer  program,  "A  Buffalo 
Hunt,"  especially  for  groups  of  boys  and 
girls  from  YMCA's,  will  be  given  at  the 
Museum  during  the  summer.  The  program 
includes  two  motion-pictures  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  direction  sheets  for  the  children 
to  use  in  exploring  Indian  halls  with  ex- 
hibits pertaining  to  buffalo  hunting.  YMCA 
group  leaders  may  arrange  to  participate 
by  telephoning  the  Raymond  Foundation 
at  the  Museum  (WAbash  2-9410)  at  least 
one  week  in  advance  and  making  reserva- 
tions for  a  definite  date  and  hour. 


Afro-Asian  Link 

The  natives  of  Madagascar  are  of  mixed 
Asiatic  and  African  origin,  and  their  culture 
forms  a  link  between  cultures  of  Africa  and 
those  of  Polynesia  and  Malaya.  The  Mu- 
seum possesses  in  Hall  E  the  only  important 
Madagascar  collection  in  the  United  States, 
and  it  is  believed  to  be  one  of  the  most 
complete  in  existence. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


July,  1956 


SUMMER  LECTURE-TOURS 
GIVEN  TWICE  DAILY 

During  July  and  August,  guide-lecture 
tours  of  Museum  exhibits  will  be  offered  in 
both  the  mornings  and  the  afternoons  of 
weekdays,  Mondays  through  Fridays  in- 
clusive. There  will  be  no  tours  on  Saturdays 
and  Sundays  or  on  July  4,  but  the  Museum 
will  be  open  during  regular  visiting  hours, 
9  a.m.  to  6  p.m.  on  those  days. 

Except  on  Thursdays,  the  morning  tours 
will  be  devoted  to  the  exhibits  in  one 
department  of  the  Museum.  All  afternoon 
tours  (and  also  the  tour  on  Thursday 
morning)  will  be  comprehensive  in  scope, 
including  outstanding  exhibits  in  all  de- 
partments. Tours  are  conducted  by  lec- 
turers of  the  Raymond  Foundation  staff. 
Below  is  the  schedule  that  will  be  followed 
weekly  in  July  and  August: 

Mondays:  11  a.m. — Records  from  the  Rocks 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Tuesdays:   11   a.m. — Animals  Around  the 
World 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Wednesdays:  11  a.m. — People  and  Places 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Thursdays:  11  a.m.  and  2  p.m. — Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits 

Fridays:  11  A.M.— The  World  of  Plants 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 


STAFF  NOTES 


The  film  "Yellowstone,"  prepared  by 
John  Moyer,  head  of  the  Museum's  Di- 
vision of  Motion  Pictures,  received  a 
certificate  of  merit  at  the  recent  Fourth 
Annual  Columbus  Film  Festival  ....  Bryan 
Patterson,  Curator  of  Vertebrate  Fossils 
until  he  recently  left  the  Museum  to  join 
the  faculty  of  Harvard  University,  has 
accepted  an  honorary  appointment  as 
Research  Associate  in  Fossil  Vertebrates,  to 
which  he  was  elected  by  the  Museum's 
Board  of  Trustees  ....  Mrs.  Maryl  Andre, 
formerly  of  the  Museum  Library  staff,  has 
been  transferred  to  the  lecture  staff  of  the 
Raymond  Foundation  ....  Dr.  Theodor 
Just,  Chief  Curator  of  Botany,  has  been 
appointed  a  member  of  the  Subcommittee 
of  Paleobotany,  Ninth  International  Botani- 
cal Congress,  to  be  held  in  Montreal  in 
1959  ....  Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark, 
Curator  of  the  Phanerogamic  Herbarium, 
attended  the  meeting  of  the  Central  States 
Section  of  the  Botanical  Society  of  America 
in  June.  He  also  made  field  trips  in  south- 
western Wisconsin  and  northeastern  Iowa, 
where  he  collected  material  for  the  Her- 
barium ....  Dr.  Robert  H.  Denison,  Cu- 
rator of  Fossil  Fishes,  is  in  northern  Michi- 


gan collecting  material  for  his  division  .... 
Dr.  Sharat  K.  Roy,  Chief  Curator  of 
Geology,  and  Norman  H.  Suhr,  Associate 
Curator  of  Mineralogy  and  Petrology, 
attended  a  recent  X-ray  diffraction  lecture- 
course  ....  Philip  Hershkovitz,  Curator 
of  Mammals,  attended  the  annual  meetings 
of  the  American  Society  of  Mammalogists 
at  Higgins  Lake,  Roscommon,  Michigan, 
as  did  Mrs.  Sophie  Kalinowski,  Osteolo- 
gist, and  Luis  de  la  Torre,  Associate,  Mam- 
mals ....  Loren  P.  Woods,  Curator  of 
Fishes,  spoke  on  Lake  Michigan  conserva- 
tion problems  before  the  Isaac  Walton 
League,  Chapter  No.  1,  Chicago.  He  and 
Miss  Laura  Brodie,  Assistant  in  Zoology, 
were  delegates  to  the  annual  meetings  of  the 
American  Society  of  Ichthyologists  and 
Herpetologists  at  Higgins  Lake  in  Michigan 
....  Miss  Marilyn  Jaskiewicz,  a  graduate 
of  the  secretarial  school  of  De  Paul  Uni- 
versity, has  been  appointed  Secretary  for 
the  Department  of  Botany.  She  replaces 
Miss  M.  Dianne  Maurer  who  has  left  to 
resume  studies  at  the  University  of  Illinois. 


Zoo  Directors  Visit  Museum 


1  ijpl 


WaSW 


Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology  (far  right),  holds  up  a  portion  of 
elephant  hide  as  he  explains  taxidermic 
processes  to  delegates  to  the  annual  con- 
vention of  the  International  Union  of 
Directors  of  Zoological  Gardens  held  in 
Chicago  from  June  3  to  June  8.  Dr.  Rainer 
Zangerl  (far  left),  Curator  of  Fossil  Reptiles, 
listens  along  with  delegates  and  their  wives 
who  visited  the  Museum  during  the  con- 
vention. Left  to  right  are  Mrs.  Ernest  Lang 
and  Dr.  Lang,  Director  of  Zoological 
Garden  at  Basel,  Switzerland;  Dr.  H.  Hedi- 
ger,  Director  of  Zurich  Zoological  Garden; 
and  Mrs.  Walter  Van  den  Bergh,  wife  of 
the  Director  of  Societe  Royale  de  Zoolog- 
ique  at  Antwerp,  Belgium. 

Hosts  to  the  convention  were  Robert 
Bean,  Director  of  Brookfield  Zoo,  and  R. 
Marlin  Perkins,  Director  of  Lincoln  Park 
Zoo. 


AMERICANIZATION  GROUP 
CEREMONY  AT  MUSEUM 

Graduating  exercises  for  men  and  women 
who  have  arrived  in  this  country  as  im- 
migrants from  many  lands  during  the  past 
few  years  were  held  in  the  James  Simpson 
Theatre  of  the  Museum  on  June  14  by  the 
Division  of  Americanization  of  the  Chicago 
Public  Schools. 

This  ceremony,  for  many  years  an  annual 
event  in  the  Museum  and  always  a  moving 
one  because  of  the  gratitude  expressed  by 
these  newcomers,  sent  forth  about  1,200 
adults  (out  of  a  class  totaling  some  3,000) 
better  prepared  to  take  their  place  in  the 
American  social  and  economic  structure. 
Many  of  them  were  people  who  had  escaped 
from  the  dangers  of  iron-curtain  regimes. 

The  main  address  was  given  by  Richard 
J.  Daley,  Mayor  of  Chicago,  after  Dr. 
Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director  of  the  Museum, 
had  welcomed  them  to  the  Theatre. 
Helen  G.  Lynch,  Supervisor  of  the  Di- 
vision of  Americanization,  was  chairman. 
Present  were  nin€ty-seven  teachers  and  also 
representatives  of  the  U.  S.  Immigration 
and  Naturalization  Service,  Illinois  Society 
of  Colonial  Dames  and  Board  of  Education 
of  Chicago.  Diplomas  and  certificates  were 
presented  to  those  who  had  finished  courses, 
and  awards  were  made  to  winners  of  an 
essay  contest  conducted  for  the  class  by 
the  Illinois  Society  of  Colonial  Dames. 


Latin-American  Visitors 

A  group  of  twenty  distinguished  edu- 
cators, both  men  and  women,  from  Peru, 
Paraguay,  Panama,  and  Nicaragua,  touring 
this  country  under  the  auspices  of  the  State 
Department,  were  visitors  at  the  Museum 
on  June  17.  John  R.  Millar,  Deputy 
Director,  conducted  them  on  a  survey  of 
the  Museum's  outstanding  exhibits.  Their 
Chicago  hostess  was  Mrs.  Howard  R. 
Peterson,  a  Member  of  the  Museum. 


Gifts  to  the  Museum 
Department   of   Zoology: 

Dr.  C.  J.  Drake,  Ames,  Iowa — wingless 
aradid  bug,  Puerto  Rico;  Cameron  E. 
Gifford,  Valparaiso,  Ind. — snake;  Richard 
T.  Gregg,  Baton  Rouge,  La. — 4  lots  of  fishes, 
Mexico;  Grove  Avenue  School,  Barrington, 
111. — barn  owl;  Harry  Hoogstraal,  Cairo, 
Egypt — 34  mammals,  4  frogs,  12  lizards, 
6  snakes,  Egypt  and  Uganda;  Mrs.  Harry 
C.  Pearson,  Indianola,  Iowa — African  ele- 
phant hide;  Dr.  Charles  A.  Reed,  Chicago 
— mammal  skull,  Washington;  Simon  Segal, 
Chesterton,  Ind. — mammal,  Illinois;  Dr. 
Richard  B.  Selander,  Urbana,  111.— 350 
Mordellid  beetles,  western  United  States; 
Dr.  Katsuyki  Yokoyama,  Chicago — 5  sala- 
manders; Jack  Moyer,  Hamilton,  N.Y. — 
82  birdskins,  Japan  and  Korea;  Dr.  J.  S. 
Schwengel,  Scarsdale,  N.Y. — collection  of 
27  species  of  marine  shells,  worldwide; 
Roland  von  Hentig,  Chicago — lizard,  snake, 
Indonesian  Borneo 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


HISTORY     Vc/.27    Jb.8 
MUSEUM     <j4u#uU     *95^ 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


August,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wu.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly  of  changes   of  address. 


ANTIOCH  COLLEGE 
HONORS  MUSEUM 

Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  has 
received  a  citation  from  Antioch  College, 
of  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio,  for  outstanding 
service  to  students  during  the  past  eleven 
years.  The  citation  was  received  on  behalf 
of  the  Museum  at  the  college's  commence- 
ment excercises,  held  June  23,  by  Dr. 
Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director.  Samuel  B. 
Gould,  President  of  Antioch,  made  the  pre- 
sentation, which  was  in  recognition  of  the 
Museum's  collaboration  in  the  Antioch  Col- 
lege Co-operative  Work  Plan.  Under  this 
plan  the  Museum  has  given,  to  date,  employ- 
ment to  107  students  as  part-time  assistants 
in  its  scientific  departments.  The  citation 
reads  as  follows: 

"In  1946,  the  Director  of  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum  affiliated  the  Museum  with 
the  Antioch  educational  program  by  em- 
ploying students  as  assistants  to  its  curators. 
Since  that  time  more  than  a  hundred 
Antioch  students  have  known  personally  the 
devotion  and  patience  of  the  naturalist  and 
scientist.  These  students  have  learned  to 
appreciate  the  necessity  for  accuracy  of 
observation,  the  value  of  objectivity  in 
analysis.  They  have  cleaned  skulls,  split 
shale,  prepared  fish  skeletons,  made  card 
catalogues,  mounted  plants,  sorted  pieces  of 
pottery,  pinned  insects,  catalogued  geologic 


maps,  prepared  albums  of  pictures,  recon- 
structed fossils,  and  done  many  of  the  chores 
required  for  the  maintenance  of  a  large 
museum  whose  primary  purpose  is  educa- 
tion. After  observing  and  participating  in 
this  activity,  they  have  learned  the  appro- 
priateness of  consulting  a  library  to  find  out 
whether  the  information  printed  in  a  book 
is  accurate. 

"Antioch  College  is  proud  of  its  associa- 
tion with  Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 
and  is  happy  to  acknowledge  its  debt  of 
gratitude  to  the  Museum's  superb  staff 
through  this  citation." 

Citations  were  received  also  by  the  Toledo 
Blade,  represented  by  Paul  A.  Schrader, 
Director  of  News,  and  the  YMCA  Voca- 
tional Center,  New  York,  represented  by 
J.  Lawrence  Broderick,  Executive  Director. 


CURATOR  APPOINTED 
TO  OCEANIC  POST 

Roland  W.  Force,  formerly  of  Palo  Alto, 
California,  has  been  appointed  to  the  staff 
of  the  Department  of  Anthropology  as  Cu- 
rator of  Oceanic  Archaeology  and  Eth- 
nology. Mr.  Force  recently  returned  to  the 
United  States  after  eighteen  months  of  field 
work  in  Micronesia  where  with  Mrs.  (Mary- 
anne)  Force,  he  conducted  studies  among  the 
people  of  the  Palau  Islands  (Western  Caro- 
lines, in  the  Trust  Territory  of  the  United 
Nations).  The  project  was  for  the  Tri- 
Institutional  Pacific  Program  jointly  spon- 
sored by  Yale  University,  the  University  of 
Hawaii,  and  the  Bishop  Museum  in  Hono- 
lulu. Mr.  Force  was  an  associate  in  eth- 
nology on  the  staff  of  the  Bishop  Museum. 
Prior  to  that  he  taught  in  the  department  of 
sociology  and  anthropology  of  Stanford 
University,  of  which  he  is  a  graduate  and 
where  he  earned  his  master  of  arts  degree. 
He  is  currently  completing  the  require- 
ments for  a  doctorate  at  Stanford. 

The  Museum  position  to  which  Mr.  Force 
has  been  appointed  has  been  vacant  since 
the  end  of  1952  when  Dr.  Alexander  Spoehr, 
the  former  curator,  resigned  to  accept  an 
appointment  as  Director  of  the  Bishop  Mu- 
seum in  Honolulu. 


Show  of  Dolan  Paintings 
Extended  to  August  26 

The  one-man  show  of  forty-five  wildlife 
paintings  by  Tom  Dolan  of  Berwyn,  Illinois, 
originally  scheduled  only  for  the  month  of 
July,  has  been  extended  through  August  26 
because  of  the  unusual  interest  evinced  by 
the  public.  This  special  exhibit  is  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall.  It  includes  original  paintings 
together  with  published  reproductions  of 
many  of  them  and  the  actual  Museum 
specimens  of  birds  and  other  mammals  used 
as  models. 


■THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


The  strange  and  little-known 
giant  bromeliad  Puya  raimondii 
of  the  Bolivian  and  Peruvian 
Andes  is  the  subject  of  our  cover. 
Called  "a  sort  of  dinosaur  among 
plants"  by  Dr.  Lyman  B.  Smith 
of  the  U.  S.  National  Museum  (in 
his  article  on  page  5),  because  it 
seems  on  the  verge  of  extinction, 
the  plant  is  found  at  high  alti- 
tudes, and  grows  as  tall  as  30  feet. 
The  illustration  shows  a  section 
of  a  new  mural  in  Hall  29  by  E. 
John  Pflffner,  Museum  Staff 
Artist. 


Death  of  Margaret  M.  Cornell, 
Former  Museum  Lecturer 

Word  has  been  received  of  the  death,  on 
June  26,  of  Miss  Margaret  M.  Cornell, 
former  Chief  of  the  James  Nelson  and  Anna 
Louise  Raymond  Foundation  for  Public 
School  and  Children's  Lectures.  Miss  Cor- 
nell joined  the  staff  of  the  Museum  as 
a  guide-lecturer  in  1926  and  became  head 
of  the  division  in  1929.  She  retired  on 
pension  in  1939.  Before  coming  to  the  Mu- 
seum she  had  been  a  schoolteacher  in  Ohio, 
Kentucky,  and  Illinois.  She  was  an  alumna 
of  Kent  Teachers  College,  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  Northwestern  University. 
Since  her  retirement  she  had  lived  with 
relatives  in  Mountain  Lakes,  New  Jersey. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(June  18  to  July  13) 

Life   Member 

Mrs.  Carl  A.  Birdsall 

Associate  Members 

Mrs.  Dorothy  Mylrea  Ebin,  Mrs.  L. 
Martin  Hardy,  F.  L.  Majka,  William  O. 
Petersen,  Bert  R.  Prall,  Kenneth  Alan 
Rubinson,  C.  Radford  Van  Ness 

Annual   Members 

Richard  A.  Aishton,  William  J.  Burns, 
Mrs.  C.  N.  Cahill,  Clayton  G.  Cassidy, 
Mrs.  Thomas  R.  Cravens,  Wallace  L.  Craw- 
ford, James  L.  Curry,  James  G.  Dern, 
Herman  C.  Edwards,  Ralph  Edmund  Ernst, 
William  E.  Ferguson,  Harry  P.  Gaughan, 
Howard  D.  Geter,  Sr.,  Arthur  Gettleman, 
Gregory  J.  Gyann,  William  G.  Hart,  Emil 
Holzwart,  Eugene  X.  Humphrey,  Theodore 
E.  Jelm,  George  T.  Jengel,  Horace  W. 
Jordon,  Harry  C.  Kinne,  Sr.,  Lester  B. 
Knight,  Michael  H.  Lyons,  Edward  E. 
Mack,  Jr.,  Miss  Mary  F.  Maier,  James  J. 
Mertz,  Harry  E.  Moroni,  Jr.,  James  D. 
Stearns,  H.  W.  Tenney,  Master  David  R. 
Trace,  Master  Edward  R.  Trace,  Master 
Peter  A.  Trace,  George  P.  Treadwell,  Dr. 
John  T.  Wegrzyn,  Joseph  Wegrzyn,  Harry 
J.  Williams 


August,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  S 


MUSEUM  MEN  TAKE  CICADA   CENSUS,   TAPE-RECORD   SONGS 


By  HENRY  S.  DYBAS 

ASSOCIATE  CURATOR  OF  INSECTS 

IN  THE  BULLETIN  (May  issue)  we 
called  attention  to  the  scheduled  appear- 
ance this  year  in  northern  Illinois  and  adja- 
cent areas  of  Brood  XIII  of  the  Seventeen- 
year  Cicadas  and  briefly  reviewed  some  of 
the  facts  about  the  life  of  this  most  unusual 
insect.  Since  then  the  cicadas  have  made 
their  "dramatic  and  noisy  debut"  and 
vanished  for  another  seventeen  years.  But 
they  have  left  conspicuous  evidence  of  their 
short  visit  in  the  browned  twigs  killed  by 


phenomenon  in  our  region.  We  had  an 
unusual  number  of  calls  at  the  Museum 
about  these  insects.  A  certain  number  of 
calls,  as  could  be  expected,  concerned  pos- 
sible damage  to  fruit  trees  and  ornamental 
trees  and  shrubs.  In  this  connection,  it  was 
apparent  that  the  name  "locust,"  often 
applied  incorrectly  to  these  insects,  was  in 
itself  a  source  of  confusion.  We  had  to 
assure  a  number  of  people  that  cicadas  do 
not  devour  flowers  and  crops  as  do  the  true 
locusts  although  they  do  damage  twigs  with 
their   egg-laying   activities.      Some    people 


•   *  'if    '       '-.i 


W    .'    '' T-t* 


N 


Pho 


CICADA  NYMPHS,   LIFE-SIZE 
graph   in  actual   size   of  a  small   section  of  forest   floor,   only-  a   few   inches   across,   shows   individual 
emergence  holes  of  the  cicada  nymphs.     Two  of  the  nymphs  are  crawling  on  the  surface. 


their  egg  slits.  A  drive  through  the  suburbs 
and  forest  preserves  around  Chicago  gives 
one  a  good  idea  of  the  abundance  of  these 
insects  a  few  weeks  ago.  Many  trees  have 
lost  an  appreciable  number  of  their  terminal 
twigs  and  some  large  groves  appear  ex- 
tensively scorched.  The  large  trees  soon 
will  recover  from  this  extensive  "pruning," 
judging  by  past  experience,  but  some  small 
trees — especially  newly  planted  ones — may 
be  severely  injured. 

At  the  peak  of  their  activity,  the  cicadas 
aroused  a  great  deal  of  interest — more  than 
I  can  remember  for  any  other  natural-history 


found  the  song  of  the  cicada  annoying  and 
even  oppressive  after  a  time;  others  enjoyed 
the  chorus  of  sound.  I  had  a  phone  call 
from  a  woman  who  wanted  to  know  the 
exact  distribution  of  the  cicadas  so  that  she 
could  plan  her  vacation  trip  to  avoid  areas 
where  they  occurred. 

On  the  other  hand ,  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
genuine  interest  in  the  cicadas  themselves — 
in  their  appearance  and  behavior  and  in  the 
odd  facts  of  their  unusual  life.  Still  another 
area  of  interest  was  in  the  field  of  nature 
photography.  Photographers  looking  for 
unusual  subjects  found  the  Periodical  Ci- 


cadas remarkably  photogenic  and  "co- 
operative," with  many  interesting  activities 
and  postures.  We  have  already  seen  some 
unusually  fine  still  and  motion  pictures  at 
the  Museum  that  were  taken  by  amateur 
as  well  as  professional  photographers  during 
the  recent  cicada  emergence. 

MANY  PATHS  IN  RESEARCH 

In  addition  to  their  exceptional  popular 
interest,  Periodical  Cicadas  have  interested 
entomologists  and  biologists  in  general  for 
a  long  time.  Hundreds  of  technical  papers 
have  been  written  on  various  aspects  of  their 
life,  yet  many  intriguing  questions  remain 
unanswered.  Why,  for  example,  the  extra- 
ordinary length  of  the  life  cycle?  Why  does 
each  brood  emerge  in  one  great  swarm 
instead  of  being  spread  out  more  evenly  over 
several  years?  What  goes  on  underground 
in  the  long  years  between  each  emergence? 
The  number  of  such  questions  could  be 
multiplied  indefinitely. 

This  region  has  only  one  brood  of  Periodi- 
cal Cicadas  and  thus  there  is  only  one  short 
period  of  a  few  weeks  in  every  seventeen 
years  when  we  have  the  chance  to  study 
these  fascinating  insects  in  the  field. 
Clearly,  these  are  not  the  most  favorable 
conditions  for  field  investigations.  Yet 
there  were  several  problems  dealing  with 
cicada  biology  that  we  wished  to  investigate 
and  the  1956  cicada  emergence  gave  us  one 
of  our  infrequent  opportunities  to  do  so. 
We  could  only  try  to  fit  our  studies  into  the 
rapid  tempo  of  the  cicada  drama  and  hope 
to  obtain  some  useful  data  before  the  cur- 
tain went  down  for  another  seventeen  years. 

One  area  of  our  studies,  which  we  can 
only  mention  briefly  here,  was  the  song  of 
the  cicadas.  It  appears  that  there  are  two 
different  forms  of  the  Periodical  Cicada,  one 
large  and  the  other  dwarf,  which  differ  in 
song  as  well  as  in  some  other  respects.  The 
chorus  of  the  large  form  is  a  low  pleasing 
trill,  like  that  of  toads  in  the  distance,  while 
that  of  the  dwarf  form  is  loud  and  shrill. 
When  large  numbers  of  the  dwarf  form  are 
singing  together,  the  sound  can  be  over- 
whelming. Why  there  are  two  forms  of 
cicadas  living  side  by  side  and  what  their 
relation  is  to  each  other  is  a  puzzling 
problem.  But  the  two  different  songs 
clearly  merited  investigation  and  we  spent 
some  interesting  days  in  the  field  making 
sound  recordings  of  individual  and  group 
songs  for  a  later  detailed  analysis  in  the 
laboratory. 

Another  problem  that  we  were  most  in- 
terested in  studying  was  that  of  numbers. 
Enormous  numbers  of  individuals  are 
a  characteristic  feature  of  the  appearance 
of  Periodical  Cicadas  in  an  area,  but  there 
is  no  really  good  information  on  their  num- 
bers. D.  D wight  Davis,  Curator  of  Verte- 
brate Anatomy  at  the  Museum,  and  I  felt 


Page  k 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


August,  1956 


that  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  cicada 
numbers  under  different  conditions  would 
permit  us  to  refine  our  knowledge  of  these 


RECORDING  CICADA  SONGS 

Henry  S.  Dybas  (right)  is  holding  the  microphone  near  a  singing  male  cicada 

while  D.  Dwight  Davis,  Curator  of  Vertebrate  Anatomy  (with  earphones),  is 

monitoring  and  regulating  the  controls. 


insects  in  many  significant  aspects.  We 
hoped  also  that  a  study  of  this  kind  would 
have  some  broader  applications  and  im- 
plications as  well.  Techniques  for  arriving 
at  reliable  estimates  of  numbers  of  particu- 
lar animals  are  a  basic  tool  for  studying 
many  theoretical  aspects  of  biology  as  well 
as  many  practical  problems  in  fields  such  as 
economic  entomology  and  game  manage- 
ment. 

A  CENSUS  OP  CICADAS 

Periodical  Cicadas  lend  themselves  to 
census  procedures.  The  nymph  is  a  large 
insect  that  makes  a  conspicuous  and  dis- 
tinctive emergence  hole  in  the  ground.  The 
walls  of  the  hole  are  so  solidly  compacted  by 
these  little  masons  that  they  remain  intact 
through  rains  and  other  vicissitudes  long 
after  the  insect  has  left  the  burrow.  More- 
over, the  holes  occur  in  sufficient  numbers 
in  woodlands  with  moderate  cicada  densities 
to  make  a  count  practical.  Finally,  emer- 
gence burrows  are  prepared  long  before  the 
insects  emerge  and  can  be  uncovered  just 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  soil.  This  is 
important  because  it  permits  a  valid  count 
to  be  made  over  an  extended  period  of 
time.  All  of  these  features  make  it  in- 
evitable that  any  census  of  Periodical  Ci- 
cadas should  use  the  number  of  nymph 
burrows  as  an  index  to  the  number  of  adults 
rather  than  of  some  other  stage. 


We  were  able  to  test  the  assumption  that 
the  number  of  burrows  corresponds  to  the 
number  of  cicadas  by  setting  a  screened 
cage  on  the  ground 
to  capture  emerging 
cicadas  in  the  forest 
where  we  conducted 
our  studies.  Our  cage 
covered  a  half  of 
a  square  yard  of  forest 
floor.  In  this  area  we 
located  66  burrows. 
We  found  that  from 
these  66  holes  a  total 
of  62  cicada  adults 
had  emerged  success- 
fully and  another  had 
emerged  partly  but 
died  in  its  nymphal 
skin.  Two  nymphs 
failed  to  emerge  at  all 
and  were  still  in  the 
tops  of  their  burrows, 
covered  with  a  white 
fungus.  Thus  we  were 
able  to  account  for  65 
out  of  66  holes,  a  cor- 
respondence so  close 
that  it  more  than 
satisfied  us  with  the 
reliability  of  the  index. 
The  final  step  was 
to  decide  on  the  sam- 
pling procedure  to  use 
in  the  woodland  plot 
that  we  selected  for 
our  study  area.  Davis  and  I  discussed  this 
problem  with  members  of  our  staff  and  the 
Department  of  Zoology  at  the  University  of 
Chicago  and  arrived 
at  a  sampling  method 
that  was  designed  to 
eliminate  conscious  or 
unconscious  bias  in 
the  selection  of  the 
squares  to  be  counted. 
The  designated 
squares  were  selected 
on  a  map  by  a  mathe- 
matical random-num- 
ber technique  and  the 
corresponding  square 
yards  were  then  lo- 
cated in  the  woods. 

All  of  this  is  a  plain 
straightforward  meth- 
od— on  paper.  In- 
evitably a  field  investi- 
gation runs  into  things 
that  are  of  little  or 
no  theoretical  inter- 
est but  may  be  highly 
pertinent  to  the  in- 
vestigator— factors 
such  as  mosquitoes, 

nettles,  rain,  brambles,  and  poison  ivy. 
Moreover,  picking  a  square  on  a  map  in  an 
office  is  one  thing,  but  transferring  this 
point  to  one  in  a  dense  woods  is  something 


quite  different.  We  were  fortunate  in  get- 
ting much  volunteer  help  from  the  Depart- 
ment of  Geology  at  the  Museum  on  the 
essential  steps  of  mapping  the  area  and 
locating  the  random  squares  in  the  woods. 

Our  study  area  was  a  representative 
woodland  about  58  acres  in  extent,  south 
of  Chicago.  It  contains  an  intermittent 
creek  that  flows  through  a  low  flat  woods 
subject  to  annual  flooding.  We  decided  that 
the  upland  forest  and  the  low  floodplain 
forest  should  be  sampled  separately  be- 
cause of  the  obvious  difference  in  these  two 
areas.  Our  early  assumption  was  that  con- 
ditions in  the  annually  flooded  area  would 
be  less  favorable  to  soil-inhabiting  insects 
like  cicada  nymphs.  We  began  to  find  out 
very  soon  that  this  was  far  from  being  the 
case.  Cicada  nymphs  not  only  survived  the 
annual  flooding  somehow,  but  they  did  so 
in  spectacular  numbers. 

MILLION  AND  A  HALF  TO  AN  ACRE 

When  we  finished  our  counts  of  both  the 
upland  area  and  the  low  area,  we  had  some 
most  interesting  figures.  The  counts  of 
burrows  in  the  random  samples  in  the 
upland  forest  ranged  from  a  low  of  2  per 
square  yard  to  a  high  of  92  and  averaged 
about  27  per  square  yard.  This  is  equiva- 
lent to  about  130,000  cicadas  per  acre.  The 
low  floodplain  forest  samples,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  very  conspicuously  different. 
The  counts  ranged  from  a  low  of  106  to 
a  high  of  698  per  square  yard  and  averaged 
about  297  per  square  yard — more  than  ten 
times  the  density  of  the  upland  area,  or 
nearly  a  million  and  a  half  cicadas  per  acre! 
At  this  rate,  an  average  city  block  in  Chicago 


SPOT  CENSUS 

A  square  yard  of  forest  floor  marked  off  and  partly  cleared  for  counting  the 

emergence  holes  of  the  cicadas  to  estimate  the  population. 


would  contain  more  than  4,000,000  cicadas! 
Impressive  as  these  numbers  are,  we  did 
not  fully  appreciate  the  biological  produc- 
(Continued  on  page  7,  column  2) 


August,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


'DINOSAUR  OF  PLANTS' 
SHOWN  IN  MURAL 

By  LYMAN  B.  SMITH* 

THE  LATEST  MURAL  prepared  for 
Martin  A.  and  Carrie  Ryerson  Hall 
(Hall  29— Plant  Life),  by  Museum  Staff 
Artist  E.  John  Pfiffner,  shows  the  giant 
bromeliad  Puya  raimondii  in  its  home  high 
in  the  Bolivian  Andes.  This  member  of  the 
pineapple  family  bears  slight  resemblance 
to  a  pineapple  plant  beyond  its  coarse  spiny 
leaves,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  believe  that 
it  is  also  related  to  the  Spanish  moss. 

However,  Puya  raimondii  is  a  sort  of 
dinosaur  among  plants,  its  thirty-foot 
members  fighting  a  losing  battle  against 
extinction  while  more  adaptable  bromeliads 
are  conquering  new  territory.  Its  three 
remaining  areas,  two  in  Peru  and  one  in 
Bolivia,  are  now  widely  separated  but  in- 
dicate a  once  continuous  range  of  a  thousand 
miles.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  this 
highly  conspicuous  species  was  unknown 
except  to  a  few  Indians  until  the  Peruvian 
botanist,  Raimondi,  discovered  it  in  1867. 
Only  a  handful  of  people  have  seen  it  since 
then,  and  the  first  color-photographs  of  it 
were  taken  as  recently  as  1948  by  Mulford 
Foster.  His  pictures,  published  in  the 
October,  1950,  number  of  The  National 
Geographic  Magazine,  have  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  new  mural. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  perilous 
situation  of  Puya  raimondii  when  we  con- 
sider its  life  history.  The  span  of  a  genera- 
tion from  seed  to  flowering  has  been  esti- 
mated at  150  years,  which  certainly  is  an 
extremely  long  time  for  a  plant  that  must 
be  classified  as  an  herb  and  that  dies  after 
a  single  flowering.  This  has  been  balanced 
by  the  plant's  ability  to  withstand  the  cold 
and  aridity  of  the  mountain  tops  and  its 
astronomical  production  of  seed,  some  six 
and  a  half  million  each.  However,  it  has 
earned  the  enmity  of  Indian  herders  by 
entangling  their  sheep  with  its  spiny  leaves 
and  thus  has  sealed  its  doom  unless  prompt 
measures  for  protection  are  taken. 

The  above  notes  are  largely  drawn  from 
Professor  Hans  Kinzl's  excellent  article 
"Die  Puya  Raimondii — ein  Wahrzeichen  der 
tropischen  Anden"  in  Jahrbuch  des  Oester- 
reichischen  Alpenvereins,  Volume  74,  No.  5, 
pp.  59-66,  1949. 


*  Dr.  Smith  is  Associate  Curator  in  the  Division  of 
Phanerogams  at  the  United  States  National  Museum, 
Washington,  D.C. 


Expedition   to  Wyoming 

Seeks  Eocene   Fossils 

An  expedition  to  collect  a  broad  faunal 
representation  of  fossils  of  the  Eocene  epoch 
(40  to  60  million  years  ago)  will  be  dis- 
patched by  the  Museum  to  the  Washakie 
Basin  in  Wyoming  about  August  1.  The 
expedition  will  be  conducted  by  William  D. 


Turnbull,  Assistant  Curator  of  Fossil  Mam- 
mals, and  Orville  L.  Gilpin,  Chief  Preparator 
of  Fossils. 

The  area  selected  for  reconnaissance  and 
excavations  appears  promising  from  the  in- 
dications obtained  by  preliminary  investi- 
gation in  other  years.  It  is  situated  at  an 
elevation  of  about  6,500  to  7,500  feet  in  the 
Rockies,  north  of  the  Colorado  border,  south 
and  east  of  the  Grand  Tetons. 

The  Eocene  is  at  present  inadequately 
represented  in  the  Museum's  paleontological 
collections,  and  it  is  hoped  that  several 
months'  work  by  the  1956  expedition  will 
remedy  this  situation.  The  collecting  of 
fossil  mammals  will  be  a  primary  objective, 
but  it  is  expected  that  specimens  of  reptiles 
will  also  be  obtained.  The  Eocene  was  the 
age  of  the  "dawn  horse"  Eohippus,  a  crea- 
ture about  the  size  of  a  collie  dog,  that  had 
five  toes  on  each  foot  instead  of  the  hoofed 
and  single-toed  foot  of  its  larger  descendants. 


'HOW  ABOUT  THIS  ONE' 


Judy  Wilhite  of  Des  Moines,  Iowa,  and 
her  cousins  Vicki  and  Jeannean  of  Montrose, 
Pennsylvania,  puzzle  over  the  identification 
of  a  stamp  selected  by  Tim  Wilhite,  also  of 
Montrose,  as  the  youngsters  begin  a  "Post- 
age-Stamp Safari"  through  the  Museum. 
Sixth  in  a  series  of  Museum  Journeys  given 
over  the  past  15  months,  the  safari  may  be 
taken  at  any  time  until  August  31.  Young- 
sters wishing  to  participate  in  the  safari  are 
presented  with  questionnaires  asking  for 
identification,  in  the  Museum,  of  animals 
imprinted  on  stamps  from  all  parts  of  the 
world.  Four  successful  Journeys  entitle  the 
youngster  to  an  award  designating  him  as  an 
official  Museum  Traveler;  eight  successful 
Journeys  qualify  him  as  a  Museum  Adven- 
turer. Boys  and  girls  may  take  their  post- 
age-stamp safari  at  any  time  of  the  day 
during  Museum  hours  (9  a.m.  to  6  p.m.). 


EXPLORATION  BY  CANOE 
ON  BORNEO  RIVERS 

DR.  ROBERT  F.  INGER,  Curator  of 
Amphibians  and  Reptiles,  who  is  con- 
ducting the  Borneo  Zoological  Expedition, 
has  moved  his  camp  down  to  extreme  south- 
eastern North  Borneo  and  is  encamped  on 
a  river  called  the  Kalabakan,  according  to 
his  latest  report  (dated  June  14). 

The  day  before  writing  he  spent  eleven 
hours  in  a  native  dugout — a  prau  it  is 
called  locally — exploring  the  river.  With 
two  Dusuns  and  his  Dyak  hunter  Guan, 
he  went  upstream  by  daylight,  prospecting 
for  collecting  sites  for  fishes  and  frogs. 
Fishing  on  a  big  river  is  difficult,  but  the 
big  rivers  may  have  special  species  in  them. 
Using  a  cast  net,  Inger  caught  a  number  of 
species  new  to  him  that  evidently  live  only 
in  large  rivers,  for  he  hadn't  found  them 
in  the  smaller  streams  he  had  fished  so  far. 

Moving  silently  in  a  prau  along  the  Kala- 
bakan River  at  dusk  is  a  wonderful  ex- 
perience, Inger  writes.  Mammals  and  birds 
are  conspicuous  and  active.  Red  monkeys, 
long-tailed  monkeys,  and  gibbons  stare  at 
you  from  the  trees  along  the  shoreline. 
The  gibbons,  he  says,  are  the  finest  mammals 
in  Borneo  with  their  graceful  leaps — swings, 
rather — for  incredible  distances  through  the 
trees;  and  no  forest  sound  can  compare  with 
their  wonderful  yodeling.  At  dark,  fruit 
bats,  the  so-called  flying  foxes,  circle  over 
the  trees  by  the  dozens,  and  after  dark  their 
incessant  quarreling  screams  and  barks  come 
from  the  treetops. 

When  traveling  by  prau  the  almost  in- 
cessant chatter  of  the  Dusuns  is  trouble- 
some and  Inger  continually  has  to  remind 
them  that  the  only  sounds  he  wants  to  hear 
are  frog  sounds.  But  one  night  they  were 
as  silent  as  possible,  for  there  were  said  to  be 
pigs  on  the  banks,  and  sure  enough  Guan 
shot  not  only  a  pig,  but  also  a  mouse  deer. 

The  new  camp  is  near  the  coast,  and  the 
abundant  tree  frogs  Inger  finds  are  not  the 
same  species  that  he  found  at  last  month's 
camp  in  the  interior  on  the  Kinabatangan 
River  but  are  more  like  those  he  found  at 
other  coastal  localities;  and  similar  ecological 
data  is  accumulating  on  other  groups.  So 
far  Inger  has  collected  28  species  of  frogs. 
He  had  hoped  to  get  half  the  species  known 
for  Borneo,  but  to  do  this  he  must  get  12 
more,  and  he  writes  it's  harder  and  harder 
to  get  species  new  for  the  collection. 

The  Bombay-Burmah  Company,  Inger's 
host  for  two  months  of  his  earlier  1950  ex- 
pedition, also  has  the  timber  concession  for 
the  entire  river  basin  in  which  he  is  working 
now.  The  company's  personnel  is  doing 
everything  they  can  to  help  him.  To  his 
thanks  the  manager  replied  that  the  more 
that  was  known  about  Borneo,  the  better 
off  the  Bombay-Burmah  Company  would 
be.  Such  hospitality  and  farsighted  ap- 
preciation of  a  naturalists'  labors  is  rare 
enough  to  be  heartwarming. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


August,  1956 


EVERYTHING  FROM  'HOPPERS  TO  HIPPOS  IN  MUSEUM  GIFTS 


By  JANE  ROCKWELL 

TEN  GRASSHOPPERS,  2  human  skele- 
tons, 1  alligator,  19  slides  of  fleas, 
10  pounds  of  raw  uranium  ore,  29  seed 
samples  .  .  . 

The  above  isn't  a  list  of  items  for  a  playful 
scavenger  hunt — it's  only  a  partial  enumer- 
ation of  typical  gifts  received  and  recorded 
at  the  Museum  each  month.  Most  people, 
we  imagine,  would  be  rather  hesitant  to 
look  upon  these  items  as  "gifts,"  but  to  the 
Museum  they  are  welcome  acquisitions, 
eagerly  anticipated  and  gratefully  received. 
Bizarre  as  they  may  seem  to  the  layman,  to 
Museum  staff  members  who  deal  constantly 
in  study  and  research  with  thousands  of 
similar  articles  every  year,  they  are  quite 
commonplace.  However,  in  the  long  gift- 
receiving  history  of  the  Museum  there  have 
been  many  gifts  that  have,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  stood  apart  from  the  usual 
acquisitions. 

One  such  gift  was  an  elephant  seal  whose 
arrival  in  1929  was  made  all  too  evident 
by  the  fact  that  it  was  in  an  advanced  state 
of  decay.  The  seal,  which  had  been  shipped 
to  St.  Louis  by  a  dealer  in  circus  and  zoo 


was  jubilant  at  the  arrival,  seven  years  ago, 
of  a  specimen  of  the  dawn  redwood,  taken 
from  the  "discovery"  tree  found  in  Szech- 
wan  province  in  southeastern  China.  The 
tree,  still  the  largest  of  this  species  known 
to  exist,  is  98  feet  high  and  is  68  inches  in 
diameter.  Collected  at  the  close  of  World 
War  II,  the  herbarium  specimen  was  sent 
to  the  Museum  by  the  Arnold  Arboretum 
of  Harvard  University  and  the  wood  sample 
was  sent  by  a  private  collector.  Botanists 
also  rejoiced  at  the  arrival  of  a  massive 
board  of  the  wood  of  the  Norfolk  Pine, 
which  is  native  only  to  Norfolk  Island, 
located  off  the  coast  of  Australia. 

ZOO  CELEBRITIES 

One  of  the  most  popular  Museum  exhibits 
is  Bushman,  the  famed  gorilla  who  was  sent 
to  the  Museum  from  Lincoln  Park  Zoo  after 
his  death  in  1951.  Born  in  1928,  Bushman 
in  his  prime  attained  a  height  of  6  feet 
2  inches  and  a  weight  of  approximately  550 
pounds.  A  few  steps  from  Bushman  in 
Carl  E.  Akeley  Memorial  Hall  (Hall  22) 
is  another  former  zoo  celebrity — a  hippo- 
potamus who  basked  in  the  admiration  of 


was  unknown  during  the  animal's  life,  but 
it  happens  that  in  quite  a  few  animals  the 
reproductive  organs  are  not  evident. 

Harwa,  the  hero  of  our  "See  a  Mummy 
X-Rayed"  exhibit  which  few  people  fail  to 
inspect  while  at  the  Museum,  was  himself 
a  gift,  and  the  fluoroscopic  apparatus  that 
has  insured  his  popularity  with  the  public 
is  another  gift.  Harwa  remained  for  years 
in  almost  total  obscurity  in  Museum  store- 
rooms while  more  glamorous  mummies  were 
exhibited  in  the  Hall  of  Egypt  (Hall  J). 
Finally  the  General  Electric  X-Ray  Cor- 
poration of  Chicago  arranged  to  build  an 
X-ray  apparatus  for  him  so  that  he  could  be 
exhibited  at  the  New  York  World's  Fair 
(1939-40).  After  the  fair  the  General 
Electric  Company  gave  the  mechanical 
equipment  to  the  Museum  and  Harwa  was 
housed  in  a  special  chamber  in  the  Hall  of 
Egyptian  Archaeology  where  he  became  the 
only  man  living  or  dead  who  is  X-rayed 
publicly  every  day.  Visitors  entering 
Harwa's  home  see  him  first  in  his  mummy 
wrappings  and  then  a  flip  of  a  switch 
enables  them  to  see  his  ancient  skeleton 
projected  before  them. 


ZOO  PERSONALITY  PERPETUATED 
A  great  iavorite  with  children  and  adults  alike  at  the  Cincinnati  Zoo,  this  outstanding  hippo   came  to   an 
untimely  death  when  a  small  boy  threw  a  rubber  ball  into  his  mouth.   He  is  now  immortalized  in  the  Museum. 


animals,  died  while  en  route,  after  which 
it  was  sent  to  this  Museum.  Upon  unpack- 
ing the  crate  containing  the  carcass,  our 
taxidermists  discovered  that  the  dead 
animal  had  not  been  packed  with  sufficient 
ice.  An  unbearable  stench  permeated  the 
entire  Museum  while  frantic  efforts  were 
successfully  made  to  salvage  the  skeleton. 
The  herculean  task  of  disposing  of  the  re- 
mainder of  the  beast  was  solved  by  cre- 
mation in  the  Museum  incinerator.  Memo- 
ries of  that  unwelcome  gift  are  likely  to 
remain  vivid  to  staff  members  for  a  long 
time. 

Few  gifts  are  received  so  unenthusiasti- 
cally, however.    The  Department  of  Botany 


visitors  to  the  Cincinnati  Zoo  until  a  small 
boy  brought  about  the  hippo's  death  by 
throwing  a  ball  into  his  mouth.  Unusually 
large  and  well-proportioned,  the  hippo's  own 
skin  was  used  for  a  mold  by  Museum  taxider- 
mists. A  close  second  to  Bushman  in  popu- 
larity is  Su-lin,  a  giant  panda  in  nearby 
Hall  15  (Mammals  in  Systematic  Arrange- 
ment). At  his  death  in  1938  Su-lin  came  to 
the  Museum  from  Brookfield  Zoo,  where 
he  had  led  a  highly  publicized  existence. 
While  the  animal's  body  was  under  study 
at  the  Museum  preparatory  to  mounting, 
it  was  discovered  that  Su-lin  was  a  male 
and  not  a  female  as  had  been  supposed. 
Offhand  it  may  seem  strange  that  this  fact 


PUSHBUTTON  MUMMY 
Harwa,  the  most  X-rayed  man.  living  or  dead,  in  all 
history.  First  you  see  him  in  his  mummy  wrappings 
(as  at  left),  and  then  only  "in  his  skeleton"  on  the 
fluoroscopic  screen  in  a  special  chamber  in  the  Hall 
of  Egypt  (Hall  J). 

Two  Museum  acquisitions  have  an  es- 
pecially grim  history  behind  them.  They 
are  the  Man-eaters  of  Tsavo,  two  lions  so- 
called  because  they  killed  and  ate  135 
workers  and  injured  many  others  who  were 


August,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


building  the  Uganda  Railway  in  East  Africa 
in  1898.  The  infamous  lions  were  finally 
killed  by  Colonel  J.H.  Patterson,  who  sold 
the  skins  in  1924  to  President  Stanley  Field 
of  the  Museum,  after  which  President  Field 
gave  the  skins  to  the  Museum.  The  lions 
now  can  be  seen  in  Hall  22  (Carl  E.  Akeley 
Memorial  Hall). 

Two  gifts  that  have  excited  comment 
because  of  their  respective  size  and  quantity 
are  recent  arrivals.  One,  a  65-foot  skeleton 
of  a  California  fin-back  whale  (described 
in  the  February,  1956,  Bulletin),  was 
received  from  the  Wistar  Institute  of  Phila- 
delphia. The  huge  skeleton,  now  stored  in 
the  Museum's  Division  of  Taxidermy,  is 
15  feet  longer  than  the  right-whale  skeleton 
it  will  replace  in  Hall  19  (Skeletons  of 
Vertebrate  Animals).  The  second  gift, 
purchased  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  from  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History  in 
New  York  and  given  to  the  Museum, 
probably  has  occasioned  more  public  interest 
than  any  other  single  gift  in  the  Museum's 
history.  It  is  the  impressive  skeleton  of 
Gorgosaurus,  a  75,000,000-year-old  carniv- 
orous dinosaur  now  permanently  quartered 
in  Stanley  Field  Hall  with  its  prey  Lambeo- 
saurus,  a  plant-eating  dinosaur.  Dramati- 
cally shown  in  a  life-like  drama  which  might 
have  occurred  while  the  two  giant  reptiles 
were  roaming  Alberta,  Canada,  the  two 
dinosaurs  already  are  great  favorites  of  Mu- 
seum visitors. 

COMPLICATED   BIRD 

The  gift  of  a  Congo  peacock,  a  rare 
African  peacock  identified  only  as  recently 
as  1936,  had  its  complications.  The  bird 
was  discovered  to  have  come  from  the 
Belgian  Congo  when  Dr.  J.  P.  Chapin  of  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History  saw 
two  mounted  pheasants  in  the  Congo  Mu- 
seum near  Brussels  that  were  identified  only 
as  two  peacocks.  Dr.  Chapin  recalled 
a  pheasant  feather  that  he  had  found  in  the 
Belgian  Congo  during  an  expedition  in  1913 
and  had  kept  in  his  possession  although  he 
was  unable  to  identify  it.  The  feather 
matched  those  of  the  two  birds  mounted 
in  the  Congo  Museum  and  Dr.  Chapin  was 
able  to  establish  that  the  birds  were  of 
a  new  genus  and  species  from  the  Belgian 
Congo.  In  1949  Dr.  Charles  Cordier  col- 
lected for  the  New  York  Zoological  Society 
several  Congo  peacocks  that  were  sent  to 
the  Bronx  Zoo.  One,  a  male,  died  a  natural 
death  at  the  zoo,  and  was  dispatched  to  this 
Museum  by  parcel  post  as  a  gift  from  the 
New  York  Zoological  Society.  It  arrived 
in  Chicago,  but  somehow  through  a  postal 
mixup  it  was  sent  back  to  New  York.  Then 
a  period  of  memos,  telegrams,  and  letters 
followed  until  the  peacock  was  finally  located 
and  sent  to  this  Museum.  The  long  delay 
in  the  mail  did  not  aggravate  the  bird's 
decomposition  to  any  significant  degree,  and 
the  splendid  specimen  now  occupies  a  place 
in  the  Museum's  research  collections.    But 


the  Congo  peacock  underwent  quite  a  strug- 
gle before  it  took  its  rightful  place  in  natural 
science  and  in  this  Museum. 

These  gifts  are  only  a  few  of  the  many 
that  have  attracted  both  scientific  and  pub- 
lic fame,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
they  form  only  an  infinitesimal  part  of  the 
thousands  of  gifts  that  annually  pour  into 
the  Museum  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
The  majority  of  these  thousands  of  gifts 
come  from  laymen  whose  interest  in  natural 
history  prompts  them  to  devote  time, 
money,  and  effort  to  collecting  specimens 
for  the  Museum.  Many  Museum  gifts  also 
come  from  other  institutions,  and  many 
come  from  our  own  staff  members.  Without 
the  interest  of  these  donors  whose  services 
are  of  invaluable  aid  to  the  introduction, 
maintenance,  and  improvement  of  Museum 
exhibits  and  research  collections,  the  Mu- 
seum's functioning  would  be  greatly  im- 
paired. 


CICADAS- 

(Continued  from  page  4) 

tivity  of  our  woodland  in  terms  of  cicadas 
alone  until  we  had  calculated  the  weight  of 
the  cicadas  being  produced.  As  insects  go, 
cicadas  are  relatively  large.  The  average 
live  weight  of  a  full-grown  nymph,  based  on 
a  sample  of  more  than  a  hundred  nymphs 
from  the  floodplain  forest,  was  .73  grams. 
This  gave  us  a  total  of  1,046,408  grams  of 
cicadas  per  acre  (2,306.9  pounds) — or  more 
than  a  ton  of  cicadas  per  acre. 

Comparable  figures  on  other  animals  are 
very  difficult  to  obtain.  It  is  interesting  to 
note,  however,  that  one  study  on  the 
raising  of  beef  cattle  on  managed  pasture  in 
the  eastern  United  States  cites  an  annual 
beef  production  of  145  pounds  and  195 
pounds  per  acre  depending  on  the  degree  of 
grazing  of  the  pasture.  Our  figure  of  2,307 
pounds  of  cicadas  is  a  total  for  seventeen 
years  of  growth.  An  annual  average  would 
be  136  pounds  per  acre--a  figure  that  is  in 
the  general  range  of  that  for  beef  production 
in  the  study  referred  to.  But  we  should  not 
stretch  the  comparison  too  far.  The  whole 
field  of  study  of  biological  productivity  and 
the  relative  biological  efficiency  of  different 
kinds  of  habitats  is  in  its  earliest  beginnings, 
and  it  is  clear  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  very 
difficult  kind  of  problem. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  things  that 
we  learned  about  Periodical  Cicadas  during 
their  recent  emergence  in  our  area.  Seven- 
teen years  from  now  we  may  be  able  to 
contribute  a  few  more  facts  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  these  distinguished  insects. 


TWO  MORE  FREE  MOVIES 
FOR  CHILDREN 

The  last  two  free  programs  of  motion 
pictures  in  the  summer  series  for  children 
will  be  given  on  the  first  two  Thursday 
mornings  in  August.  There  will  be  two 
showings  of  each,  the  first  beginning  at 
10  a.m.  On  August  2  the  second  showing 
will  begin  at  11  a.m.;  on  August  9,  because 
of  an  extra-long  film,  the  second  showing 
will  be  about  11:30  a.m.  The  programs  are 
presented  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre 
under  the  auspices  of  the  James  Nelson  and 
Anna  Louise  Raymond  Foundation.  No 
tickets  are  required.  Children  may  come 
alone,  accompanied  by  parents  or  other 
adults,  or  in  organized  groups.  Following 
are  the  programs: 

August  2 — Nature's   Children   (repeated 
by  request) 
Also  a  cartoon 

August  9 — Elephant    Boy     (repeated    by 
request) 
Based  on  Rudyard  Kipling's  Jungle  Book 
story  of  "Toomai  of  the  Elephants"  in 
India 


STAFF  NOTES 


Fossil  Flower  Reconstructed 

Added  to  the  exhibits  in  Martin  A.  and 
Carrie  Ryerson  Hall  (Hall  29,  Plant  Life) 
is  a  reconstruction  of  a  fossil  cycadeoid 
"flower"  that  grew  about  100  million  years 
ago  in  South  Dakota. 


George  I.  Quimby,  Curator  of  North 
American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  par- 
ticipated last  month  in  a  two-week  archae- 
ological survey  of  the  east  shore  of  Lake 
Superior.  The  survey  was  a  co-operative 
undertaking  of  the  University  of  Michigan 
and  this  Museum  ....  Miss  Elaine  Bluhtn, 
Assistant  in  Archaeology,  recently  spoke  on 
"Digging  in  the  Chicago  Area"  before  the 
Barrington  Natural  History  Society  .... 
Mrs.  Marion  Grey,  Associate  in  the  Divi- 
sion of  Fishes,  recently  studied  deep-sea 
fishes  at  the  California  Academy  of  Sciences 
in  San  Francisco  and  the  Natural  History 
Museum  of  Stanford  University  ....  Loren 
P.  Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  was  elected 
vice-president  in  charge  of  conservation  at 
the  recent  meeting  of  the  American  Society 
of  Ichthyologists  and  Herpetologists  at 
Higgins  Lake,  Michigan.  Dr.  Edward  M. 
Nelson,  Associate  in  the  Division  of  Fishes, 
who  presented  two  papers,  and  Robert 
Hass,  volunteer  worker,  were  delegates 
....  Luis  de  la  Torre,  Associate  in  the 
Division  of  Mammals,  has  been  elected 
a  member  of  the  University  of  Illinois 
chapter  of  Sigma  Xi,  honor  society  in 
science  ....  Dr.  Rainer  Zangerl,  Curator 
of  Fossil  Reptiles,  and  Dr.  Eugene  S. 
Richardson,  Jr.,  Curator  of  Fossil  Inverte- 
brates, are  engaged  in  field  work  along  the 
Gulf  Coast  of  Louisiana  ....  Bryan  Pat- 
terson, former  Curator  of  Fossil  Mammals 
and  a  Museum  Research  Associate  since  he 
accepted  a  professorship  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, is  spending  several  months  in  re- 
search in  the  paleontology  laboratories  here. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


August,  1956 


RAIN-PLAGUED  TRIBE 
BLAMES  EXPLORERS 

Dr.  D.  S.  Rabor,  leader  of  the  1956 
Zoological  Expedition  in  the  Philippines, 
reports  a  successful  completion  of  the  year's 
work.  During  Dr.  Rabor's  vacation  from 
teaching  in  Silliman  University  he  led 
a  party  of  assistants  and  student  helpers  to 
Mt.  Malindang  in  Zamboanga,  which  had 
been  visited  by  a  zoological  collector  only 
once  before,  nearly  fifty  years  ago. 

It  is  an  isolated  mountain  in  far  western 
Mindanao,  rising  to  about  8,000  feet  above 
sea  level  and  with  a  beautiful  forest  on  its 
upper  slopes.  Dr.  Rabor's  party  estab- 
lished camp  well  up  on  the  mountain  and 
was  able  to  collect  to  its  summit. 

The  season  was  especially  rainy;  Rabor 
and  his  associates  had  only  four  sunny  days 
during  their  two  months  on  the  mountain. 
The  pagan  people  of  the  mountains,  the 
Subaflos,  were  not  able  to  burn  their  clear- 
ings to  prepare  them  for  rice  planting  be- 
cause of  the  wet  weather.  These  super- 
stitious people  blamed  this  on  the  Museum 
collecting  party's  presence  in  the  mountains. 
Later,  when  there  is  no  crop  and  starvation 
threatens  them,  they  will  again  blame  the 
Museum's  party.  Such  are  the  ramifications 
of  our  activities.  Yet  all  the  time  lumber 
companies  are  eating  away  at  this  isolated 
forest.  When  Dr.  Rabor  and  Dr.  Austin  L. 
Rand,  Chief  Curator  of  Zoology,  visited  the 
area  two  years  ago  on  a  reconnaissance, 
high-line  logging  was  taking  the  trees  out 
of  the  rough  mountain  valleys.  In  time 
only  a  remnant  of  battered  tree-growth  will 
be  left.  Thus,  a  collecting  trip  now,  to 
record  what  animal  life  is  there,  is  timely. 

Dr.  Rabor  sent  to  the  Museum  an  im- 
posing list  of  rare  and  unusual  birds  he  has 
secured.  There  are  two  monkey-eating 
eagles,  series  of  fairy  bluebirds,  tailor  birds, 
and  sunbirds.  Many  of  the  interesting 
mountain  species  have  never  been  found  in 
this  part  of  the  Philippines,  such  as  the 
brush-tongued  lorries  and  the  red-capped 
flowerpecker.  Several  of  them  will  almost 
surely  be  new  to  science. 


Books 


Expedition  to  Bahamas 

Dr.  Fritz  Haas,  Curator  of  Lower  Inverte- 
brates, left  on  July  7  for  Bimini,  Bahamas, 
where,  as  a  guest  of  the  American  Museum 
of  Natural  History,  in  its  Marine  Laboratory 
on  Bimini,  he  will  continue  his  studies  on 
coral  reefs  in  the  Caribbean.  On  his  way, 
he  made  brief  stopovers  both  in  Washington, 
D.C.,  and  in  Miami,  Fla.,  where  he  visited 
his  colleagues  in  museums  and  in  marine 
biological  laboratories.  He  is  expected  to 
return  in  August. 


Specimens  illustrating  contrasting  color 
phases  of  red  and  arctic  foxes  are  displayed 
in  Hall  15. 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  NORTH 
AMERICAN  AMPHIBIANS  AND 
REPTILES.  By  James  A.  Oliver.  D. 
Van  Nostrand  Company,  Princeton,  New 
Jersey,  359  pages,  72  figures,  12  plates. 
$6.95. 

Curators  in  the  Department  of  Zoology 
receive  many  telephone  calls  and  letters 
from  the  general  public  asking  for  infor- 
mation on  this  or  that  animal.  Some 
questions  are  easy  to  answer.  Either  the 
answer  is  in  our  minds  or  it  can  be  found 
quickly  in  one  of  the  reference  books  we 
keep  on  our  desks  close  to  the  telephone.  On 
the  other  hand,  certain  kinds  of  questions 
take  hours  to  answer.  To  tell  someone  how 
fast  a  blacksnake  can  travel  or  how  long  the 
American  chameleon  lives  may  require  sev- 
eral hours  of  searching  through  the  technical 
literature. 

But  now,  thanks  to  The  Natural  History 
of  North  American  Amphibians  and  Reptiles 
by  James  A.  Oliver,  all  that  is  known  about 
these  animals  has  been  summarized  in 
a  well-written  and  interesting  book.  Start- 
ing with  a  chapter  on  folklore,  in  which 
Dr.  Oliver  recalls  Tom  Sawyer's  remedy  for 
warts  supposedly  caused  by  toads,  "Barley- 
corn, barley-corn,  Injun-meal  shorts,  Spunk 
water,  spunk  water,  swaller  these  warts," 
the  book  takes  up  the  economic  value, 
occurrence,  locomotion,  activities,  food  and 
feeding,  reproduction,  and  growth  and 
longevity  of  our  reptiles  and  amphibians. 
An  additional  section  dealing  with  classifi- 
cation has  a  brief  but  effective  survey  of  the 
families  of  North  American  turtles,  snakes, 
lizards,  frogs  and  toads,  and  salamanders. 
The  final  section  discusses  reptiles  and 
amphibians  as  pets. 

The  book  is  well  supplied  with  drawings 
and  photographs  that  facilitate  understand- 
ing of  the  habits  or  activities  that  Dr.  Oliver 
describes  in  words.  The  drawings  illustrat- 
ing the  peculiar  locomotion  of  the  side- 
winder rattlesnake  are  the  best  of  this 
category  in  my  opinion.  The  photograph 
of  a  tree  frog  perched  on  a  branch  and 
stuffing  a  grasshopper  half  his  own  size 
down  his  throat  with  one  hand  is  tops  in 
its  class.  Equally  remarkable,  the  photo- 
graph of  the  "combat  dance"  of  two  male 
red  diamond  rattlesnakes  is  unmatched  for 
showing  one  of  the  little-known  and  poorly 
understood  habits  of  animals. 

Dr.  Oliver,  who  is  Curator  of  Reptiles 
at  the  New  York  Zoological  Society,  has 
written  a  book  that  fits  as  easily  into  the 
library  of  a  professional  herpetologist  as  into 
the  library  of  a  high-school  boy  who  keeps 
live  snakes  or  into  that  of  an  adult  who  has 
a  general  interest  in  the  out-of-doors. 

Robert  F.  Inger 
Curator  of  Amphibians  and  Reptiles 


2  LECTURE-TOURS  A  DAY 
OFFERED  IN  AUGUST 

During  August,  guide-lecture  tours  of 
Museum  exhibits  will  be  offered  in  both  the 
mornings  and  the  afternoons  of  weekdays, 
Mondays  through  Fridays.  Although  there 
will  be  no  tours  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays, 
the  Museum  will  be  open  during  regular 
visiting  hours,  9  a.m.  to  6  p.m.  on  those  days. 

Except  on  Thursdays,  the  morning  tours 
will  be  devoted  to  the  exhibits  in  one  de- 
partment of  the  Museum.  All  afternoon 
tours  (and  also  the  tours  on  Thursday 
mornings)  will  be  comprehensive  in  scope, 
including  outstanding  exhibits  in  all  depart- 
ments. Tours  are  conducted  by  lecturers 
of  the  Raymond  Foundation  staff.  Follow- 
ing is  the  schedule: 

Mondays:  11  a.m. — Records  from  the  Rocks 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Tuesdays:   11  A.M. — Animals  Around  the 
World 
2  P.M.— Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Wednesdays:  11  A.M. — People  and  Places 
2  p.m. — Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 

Thursdays:  11  a.m.  and  2  P.M. — Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits 

Fridays:  11  A.M.— The  World  of  Plants 
2  p.m.— Highlights  of  the  Exhibits 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of  Anthropology: 

From:  Miss  Elizabeth  M.  Goodland, 
Chicago — 2  baskets,  Philippines;  E.  D. 
Hester,  Jeffersonville,  Ind. — Oriental  ce- 
ramics, Philippines;  Robert  Trier,  Chicago 
— 3  fire  pistons,  Malay  Peninsula;  Wenner- 
Gren  Foundation  for  Anthropological  Re- 
search, New  York — a  dictation  wire  re- 
corder 

Department  of  Botany; 

From:  Agricultural  Experiment  Station, 
Urbana,  111. — 3  hybrid  seed-corn  samples; 
Dr.  Leandro  Aristiguieta,  Caracas,  Vene- 
zuela— a  Rhynchospora  aristata;  Dr.  Jose 
Cuatrecasas,  Washington,  D.  C. — 14  plants, 
Colombia;  Department  of  Tourists  and 
Publicity,  Wellington,  New  Zealand—  22 
photographs  of  New  Zealand  flax  industry 

Department   of  Geology: 

From:  Henry  Horback,  Chicago — 2  speci- 
mens of  marcasite  nodules;  Dr.  Ernest 
Lundelius,  Pasadena,  Calif. — collection  of 
fossil  mammals,  western  Australia;  David 
Techter,  Chicago — a  fossil  spider;  Trans- 
vaal Museum,  Transvaal,  South  Africa — 
15  casts  of  fossil  hominoids 

Department   of  Zoology: 

From:  Bernard  Benesh,  Burrville,  Tenn. 
— 11  wasps,  10  beetles,  Tennessee  and  Chile; 
Chicago  Zoological  Society,  Brookfield,  111. 
— a  mammal  head,  North  America;  Mrs. 
Emmett  Reid  Dunn,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. — 
458  reptiles  and  amphibians 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


CHICAGO/>   /£*- 
N  ATU  RkJjlMetW 

HISTORY      rUtt        t/fi_9 
MUSEUM      a>---'- 


<Ao.  9 

4956 


i* 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


September,  1956 


Chicago   Natural   History   Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar  . .  r Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy C*te/  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the    Museum 
promptly   of  changes  of   address. 


Schooldays  Are  Here    .     .     . 

A  SCIENTIST  ADMONISHES 
TEACHERS  AND  PUPILS 

By  AUSTIN  L.  RAND 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ZOOLOGY 

IN  THE  COMMUNITY  outside  Chicago 
where  I  live,  my  wife  and  I  are  called  on 
often  each  year  by  pupils  of  the  local  schools 
to  advise  and  help  in  biology  projects. 
Mrs.  Rand  keeps  a  few  books  handy  to  lend 
to  children  for  this  purpose,  and  within  the 
year  I've  lent  a  dog  skull  from  the  miscel- 
laneous collection  in  our  garage,  helped 
trace  out  the  hearing  apparatus  in  a  freshly 
butchered  cow's  head,  and  suggested  an 
arrangement  for  making  a  heterogeneous 
assortment  of  bones  into  a  science  display. 
This  is,  of  course,  unofficial  aid. 

Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  also 
takes  an  official  interest  in  Science  Fairs. 
In  the  spring  of  1955  it  exhibited  projects 
undertaken  by  upper  elementary  and  high- 
school  students  sponsored  by  the  Chicago 
Teachers  Science  Association.  These  were 
shown  in  Stanley  Field  Hall,  central  hall  of 
the  Museum,  between  the  main  entrance  and 
the  elephants  that  so  dominate  the  hall 
they  are  practically  a  trade  mark  of  the 
Museum.  This  year,  on  May  12,  the  entire 
Science  Fair  was  held  at  the  Museum 
instead  of  being  split,  as  in  the  past,  among 
several    institutions,    by    age    and    grade 


groups  and  on  several  different  dates.  I've 
pointed  out  these  activities  of  ours  to  show 
that  both  officially  and  unofficially  we  help 
and  encourage  science  fairs  and  school  proj- 
ects, at  two  widely  different  levels. 

SOME  REQUESTS  UNREASONABLE 

However  much  we  believe  in  helping  and 
encouraging  school  science-projects,  we  get 
some  types  of  requests  of  which  we  dis- 
approve. The  following  is  an  example, 
quoted  in  its  entirety: 

Dear  Gentlemen 

I  would  like  to  request  all  the  information 
you  can  give  me  on  animals.  Information 
on  the  classification  of  animals  such  as  fish, 
reptiles,  and  so  on  will  be  appreciated.  I 
would  like  this  information  for  a  ninth- 
grade  science  project.  Please  include  some 
picture  if  possible.  Also  some  on  prehistoric 
animals.    Thank  you. 

Sincerely 

Three  other  similar  letters  came  to  my 
desk,  all  the  same  day  in  January,  the  be- 
ginning of  the  "science-project  season." 
They  contain  such  requests  as:  "I  am 
working  on  a  science  project  concerning 
....  bird  feathers  ....  would  like  pictures 
....  to  use  in  my  project .  .  .  ." 

"I  go  to  ...  .  school  [this  one  in  Chicago] 
and  in  science  I  have  to  make  a  notebook 
on  ...  .  birds  that  stay  all  year  round  in 
Illinois  ....  give  me  a  list ....  and  any 
information  that  you  have  on  them  .... 
must  have  this  information  by  the  15th  of 
of  this  month  ....  if  you  have  any  feathers 
please  may  I  have  some." 

".  .  .  .  I  am  ....  a  sophomore  ....  par- 
ticipating in  a  biology  contest  ....  I  wish 
to  inquire  whether  you  have  any  information 
and  specimens  on  the  butterflies  of  Illinois. 


If  so,  will  you  kindly  mail  them  to  me.  I  am 
willing  to  absorb  mailing  costs,  and  any 
other  expenses." 

Letters  received  on  other  days  asked  for 
bird  feathers  or  all  about  parakeets. 

WOULD   NULLIFY    PROJECT'S    VALUE 

They  are  polite,  well-written  letters.  But 
compliance  by  us  would  nullify  the  object 
of  the  science  project,  which  is  to  teach 
something  about  science,  where  to  find  ma- 
terial, and  where  to  get  information  at 
a  level  the  students  can  understand. 

These  letters  are  not  from  children  inter- 
ested in  science,  craving  information.  They 
are  from  children  interested  in  a  short  cut 
to  a  project.  Just  suppose  they  were  to 
write  to  an  English  or  a  history  professor 
saying  they  were  doing  a  project  in  one  of 
those  subjects  and  would  the  professor 
please  send  them  a  few  suitable  themes 
including  one  on  spring  and  another  on 
culture,  or  an  outline  of  the  American 
revolution,  with  a  few  maps  and  pictures, 
and  if  they  have  them  a  few  pieces  of  armor, 
of  course  offering  to  pay  mailing  and  other 
expenses. 

A  point  these  letters  have  in  common  is 
that  they  all  seem  to  be  teacher-inspired. 
They  all  ask  help  with  school  work — not 
collateral  material,  but  the  project  itself. 

Science  projects  have  as  their  aim,  the 
education  of  pupils.  In  any  school  with 
biology  projects  there  is  obviously  a  biology 
teacher  and  an  abundance  of  material  near 
at  hand.  And  for  information,  as  some  of 
my  correspondents  seem  to  forget,  there  is 
the  dictionary,  the  encyclopedia,  the  biology 
texts  that  any  school  teaching  biology  must 
surely  have,  and  there  is  often  a  local 
library.  For  ideas  there  are  the  science  and 
the  nature  journals,  which  contain  ad- 
(Continued  on  page  7,  column  1) 


THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


Buy  your  mushrooms — don't  gather  them! 

This  is  the  advice  of  the  scientists  in  the  Museum's  Department  of  Botany.  The 
principal  season  when  mushrooms  are  gathered  by  enthusiastic  epicures  is  at  hand, 
and  many  courageous  souls  with  confidence  in  their  own  ability  to  distinguish  between 
edible  and  poisonous  varieties  will  be  out  seeking  delicacies  for  their  dining  tables. 

Mushrooms  and  related  fungi  appear  in  many  shapes  and  colors  besides  those 
most  familiar  to  gourmets.  Many  varieties,  some  edible,  some  poisonous,  are  shown 
in  a  special  exhibit  of  large  hand-colored  photographs  to  be  on  view  in  Stanley  Field 
Hall  from  September  1  until  October  1.  The  Museum  exhibit  is  not  intended  to  be 
used  as  a  guide  in  distinguishing  between  safe  and  dangerous  kinds  of  mushrooms, 
however.  Because  of  the  dangers  of  a  mistake  even  by  many  who  think  they  are 
experts,  Museum  botanists  distinctly  warn  against  the  practice  of  gathering  wild 
mushrooms  for  food  by  laymen  (when  they  want  mushrooms,  the  botanists  themselves 
buy  them  in  grocery  stores,  which  obtain  them  from  commercial  cultivators). 

The  48  photographs  on  exhibition  are  the  work  of  Herbert  T.  Tweedie,  a  retired 
portrait-photographer  of  Dayton,  Ohio. 


September,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  S 


MEMBERS'  NIGHT  WILL  SPOTLIGHT  AFRICA  AND  OCEANIA 


MEMBERS'  NIGHT  this  year  will  be 
on  Friday,  October  12. 

A  feature  of  the  evening  will  be  the  un- 
veiling of  an  elaborate  new  exhibit — the 
home  of  an  African  tribal  king.  Occupying 
some  450  square  feet  in  Hall  E  on  the 
Ground  Floor,  this  is  a  full-size  reproduction 
of  the  royal  dwelling-place  of  a  chieftain 
who  ruled  over  several  thousand  subjects 
in  the  Cameroons  region  of  West  Africa  in 
the  early  part  of  this  century.  The  exhibit 
is  a  faithful  replica,  although  to  meet  the 
practical  requirements  of  the  Museum  more 
durable  materials  are  used  to  simulate  those 
of  which  the  original  in  Africa  was  built.  In 
an  actual  house  the  walls  would  be  of  mud 
plastered  over  a  framework  of  latticed  bam- 
boo, and  the  enclosure  would  be  covered  by 
a  grass-thatched  roof.  Apart  from  materials, 
the  only  architectural  licence  taken  is  in 
building  into  the  replica  several  viewing 
windows  in  the  walls  so  that  Museum  visitors 
may  look  into  the  interior  of  the  house. 

For  some  fifty  years  the  Museum  has 
possessed  one  of  the  finest  collections  of 
Cameroons  artifacts  in  existence,  and  the 
king's  house  provides  a  setting  in  which  to 
display  these  in  context,  showing  them  as 
they  would  be  used  instead  of  merely  in 
rows  in  glass-fronted  exhibition  cases.  Like 
many  of  the  sovereigns  of  the  royal  houses 
of  Europe  over  the  centuries,  the  Cameroons 
kings  were  the  patron?  of  the  arts  in  their 
own  world.  The  finest  furnishings,  sculp- 
tures, charms,  fetishes,  ancestor  figures,  and 
other  creations  of  their  people  came  to  the 
kings  as  tribute.  So  the  royal  residence 
in  the  Museum  has  been  furnished  with  more 
than  100  of  the  best  objects  in  our  Camer- 
oons collection,  placed  just  as  they  would  be 
found  in  the  original  house,  for  decorative, 
functional,  and  ceremonial  purposes. 

Entrance  to  the  house  is  by  two  doorways 
flanked  with  strikingly  carved  tall  poles,  in 
which  a  single  human  figure  supports  aloft 
a  host  of  other  human  figures  mounted  on 
each  other's  shoulders  in  much  the  manner 
of  a  troupe  of  acrobats.  Figures  of  animals 
are  also  carved  on  these  portal  posts. 

Among  the  articles  inside  the  house  are 
several  crowns,  some  of  colorful  beadwork, 
others  of  carved  wood;  royal  stools  equiva- 
lent to  thrones;  masks  of  religious  and 
magical  significance;  ceremonial  drums; 
flasks  of  two  kinds — some  used  for  wine, 
some  for  preserving  the  remains  of  revered 
ancestors;  tobacco-pipes  over  five  feet  long; 
spears  and  other  weapons;  ancestor  figures; 
sleeping  mats  for  the  wife  of  the  day,  chosen 
from  a  harem  that  often  numbered  eighty 
or  more  women;  and  the  king's  bed.  The 
last,  a  most  elaborately  carved  wooden 
couch  presents  in  symbol  a  social  commen- 
tary on  the  absoluteness  of  the  king's  rule 
— it  is  supported  on  the  heads  of  rows  of 
carved  figures  of  his  subjects. 


Members'  Night  could  also  be  called 
"South  Pacific  Night."  It  will  mark  the 
reopening  of  three  exhibition  halls  contain- 
ing completely  refurbished  and  improved 
exhibits  of  the  excitingly  colorful  primitive 
arts  and  industries  of  the  various  island- 
groups  forming  Oceania.  The  halls,  all 
adjacent  to  each  other  on  the  Ground  Floor, 
are  Hall  A  (Peoples  of  Melanesia  and  the 
Philippines)  with  its  adjunct,  Hall  A-l 
(Aboriginal  Peoples  of  Australia),  Hall  F 
(Peoples  of  Polynesia  and  Micronesia — Cen- 
tral and  South  Pacific),  and  Hall  G  (Peoples 
of  the  Malay  Peninsula  and  Indonesia). 

The  Museum's  collections  from  these 
areas,  particularly  Melanesia,  rank  among 
the  most  complete  in  number  and  variety 
and  the  most  superb  in  quality  of  any  ever 
assembled  anywhere  in  the  world.  The 
exhibition  cases  containing  this  material 
have  been  rearranged  in  a  new  and  more 
attractive  fashion  that  highlights  the  fas- 
cinating imaginative  creations  of  the  primi- 
tive artists  and  craftsmen. 

As  usual,  Members'  Night  will  include 
an  open  house  for  the  guests  to  visit  "behind 
the    scenes"    in    the   laboratories,    studios, 


workshops,  and  offices  of  the  Museum, 
where  they  will  meet  the  scientists  and 
technicians  of  the  staff  and  see  and  hear  how 
the  work  of  the  institution  is  carried  on. 

At  9:15  P.M.  a  special  program  will  be 
presented  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre. 
Details  of  this  will  be  announced  in  the 
October  Bulletin. 

Members'  Night  schedule  runs  from  7  to 
10:30  p.m.  (the  doors  of  the  building  will  be 
open  from  6  p.m.  to  accommodate  those  who 
wish  to  dine  at  the  Museum  Cafeteria, 
which  will  serve  dinner  at  its  regular  prices 
from  6  to  8). 

Extensive  free  parking  space  will  be 
available  to  guests  at  the  north  of  the  Mu- 
seum building.  Special  free  motor-bus 
service  has  been  arranged  for  those  who  do 
not  wish  to  drive  their  own  cars.  A  bus 
marked  to  indicate  that  it  is  for  Museum 
shuttle-service  will  leave  Jackson  Boulevard 
and  State  Street  at  15-minute  intervals 
beginning  at  6:30  p.m.  The  last  bus  will 
leave  the  Museum  at  10:45  p.m.  In  both 
directions  intermediate  stops  will  be  made 
at  7th  Street  and  Michigan  and  at  Jackson 
and  Michigan. 


'BUFFALO  HUNTERS'  STALK  PREY  IN  MUSEUM 


Boys  and  girls  from  the  West  Community 
YMCA  summer  day-camp  of  Chicago  are 
transformed  into  determined  hunters  as  they 
participate  in  a  Buffalo  Hunt  given  for  sum- 
mer day-camps  of  the  YMCA  by  the  Mu- 
seum's Raymond  Foundation.  Having 
spotted  the  "herd"  in  the  Hall  of  American 
Mammals  (Hall  16),  they  listen  to  instruc- 
tions given  by   Edith   Fleming,   Raymond 


Foundation  lecturer  in  charge  of  the  pro- 
gram, before  answering  written  questions 
about  buffaloes  and  continuing  on  their  hunt 
through  the  Museum's  halls.  "Training" 
for  the  hunt  begins  with  two  films:  one  on 
the  Sioux  Indians  and  another  on  Indian 
animal-dances,  including  a  buffalo  dance. 
The  buffalo  hunts,  which  began  July  1,  will 
continue  throughout  this  month. 


Page  k 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


September,  1956 


THE  FOXGLOVE:  MEDICINAL 
AND  ORNAMENTAL  PLANT 

By  JOHN  W.  THIERET 

CURATOR  OF  ECONOMIC  BOTANY 

AN  OLD  WELSH  WOMAN  of  Shrop- 
shire, using  a  concoction  of  herbs  she 
had  brewed,  cured  a  number  of  cases  of 
dropsy  nearly  200  years  ago  after  even  the 
most  able  physicians  had  failed.  Hearing 
of  this,  Dr.  William  Withering,  a  junior 
staff-member  in  the  Birmingham  Hospital, 
visited  the  woman  in  1775  and,  after  much 
persuasion,  obtained  a  handful  of  her  herbs. 
After  long  analysis,  Dr.  Withering  con- 
cluded that  of  all  the  plants  represented  in 
the  mixture,  only  one — foxglove — was  of  any 
value.  His  curiosity  about  this  common 
plant  was  aroused,  and  he  soon  learned  that 
in  other  English  and  Welsh  communities 
foxglove  was  a  major  ingredient  in  medicines 
for  dropsy.  Then  Dr.  Withering  began 
a  long  series  of  experiments,  using  foxglove 
to  treat  numerous  cases  of  dropsy  with 
apparently  great  success. 

The  medicine  soon  began  to  attract  the 
attention  of  other  physicians,  and  its  use 
spread.  In  1785  Dr.  Withering  published 
the  results  of  his  long  research  in  his  classic 
book  An  Account  of  the  Foxglove,  and  some 
of  its  medical  Uses;  with  practical  Remarks 
on  Dropsy,  and  other  Diseases.  Although 
his  main  concern  was  with  foxglove  as 
a  remedy  for  dropsy,  Dr.  Withering  made 
the  following  prophetic  statement  concern- 
ing the  herb:  "It  has  a  power  over  the 
motion  of  the  heart,  to  a  degree  yet  un- 
observed in  any  other  medicine,  and  this 
power  may  be  converted  to  salutary  ends." 
And  how  right  he  was,  for  today  foxglove 
is  one  of  the  most  important  drugs  in  the 
treatment  of  heart  diseases. 

Although  the  foxglove  was  introduced 
into  modern  medicine  through  the  careful 
work  of  Dr.  Withering,  it  was  used  to  treat 
various  ills  long  before  the  18th  century, 
though  it  is  not  one  of  the  oldest  drugs. 
The  ancient  herbalists  such  as  Theophrastus, 
Dioscorides,  and  others  of  the  time  just 
before  and  during  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era  did  not  know  of  the  plant. 
The  earliest  record  of  its  utilization  is  during 
the  5th  century  when  the  Irish  used  it  in 
cases  of  childbed  fever.  "Foxes  Glofe"  is 
mentioned  in  the  Saxon  Herbarium,  a  manu- 
script of  a.d.  1000.  In  the  Welsh  Meddygon 
Myddfai,  a  collection  of  medical  recipes 
compiled  in  the  13th  century,  foxglove 
found  use  in  the  treatment  of  abdominal 
swellings,  abscesses,  and  headaches. 

CONTENTION   OVER  EARLY   USE 

Between  1600  and  the  latter  part  of  the 
18th  century,  foxglove  had  its  ups  and 
downs  as  a  medicinal  plant.  Some  writers 
considered  it  poisonous  or  too  acrid  for 
internal  use  and  maintained  that  it  had  no 
therapeutic  value  anyway.  Others  thought 
it  to  be  "efficacious  as  any  drug  the  Indies 


produce"  and  recommended  it  for  a  myriad 
of  ills,  including  consumption,  scrofula, 
wounds,  old  sores,  running  ulcers,  epilepsy, 
scabby  head,  and  to  "cleanse  and  purge  the 
body  both  upwards  and  downwards,  some- 
times of  tough  phlegm  and  clammy  hum- 
ours; and  to  open  obstructions  of  the  liver 
and  spleen."  Finally  Dr.  Withering  ap- 
peared on  the  scene,  and  the  careful  study 
of  foxglove  and  its  uses  began. 

Leonard  Fuchs,  in  his  De  Historia  Stir- 
pium  (1542),  presented  the  first  exact  de- 
scription of  the  plant  and  also  a  good  wood- 


DIGITALIS  PURPUREA 

Woodcut  from  Matthias  de  Lobel's  "Kruydtboeck," 
published  at  Antwerp,  Belgium,  in  1581. 

cut  of  it.  Noting  that  there  was  no  Latin 
name  for  the  foxglove,  he  coined  one, 
"Digitalis,"  meaning  of  or  belonging  to  the 
finger,  in  reference  to  the  flowers,  which 
are  shaped  like  thimbles  or  the  fingers  of 
a  glove.  This  name  is  now  used  for  the 
genus  to  which  the  foxglove  belongs,  and 
the  foxglove  itself  is  called  Digitalis  pur- 
purea (purple).  The  name  foxglove  ap- 
pears to  be  a  corruption  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish name  of  the  plant,  Folks'  Glove,  which 
can  be  traced  back  about  ten  centuries.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  the  "fox"  refers  to 
the  fact  that  the  plant  grows  in  the  haunts 
of  foxes.  Actually,  while  foxglove  does 
occur  where  foxes  may  be  found,  it  also 
occurs  in  the  haunts  of  a  great  many  other 
animals.  This  suggestion  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  name  might  best  be  called  improbable. 


The  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  defines 
the  drug  digitalis  as  the  dried  leaf  of  Digi- 
talis purpurea.  The  leaves  are  collected  from 
either  first-  or  second-year  plants,  usually 
from  July  to  September.  They  are  dried 
rapidly,  either  with  or  without  artificial 
heat,  and  then  are  stored  and  shipped  in 
airtight,  waterproof  containers.  In  the 
period  between  the  World  Wars  a  yearly 
average  of  about  50,000  pounds  of  digitalis 
was  imported  into  the  United  States,  chiefly 
from  England  and  continental  Europe.  At 
the  present  time  much  of  our  supply  is 
grown  in  Pennsylvania,  Minnesota,  and  the 
Pacific  Northwest.  Sufficient  digitalis  to 
meet  domestic  medical  needs  can  be  grown 
on  several  hundred  acres. 

Digitalis  is  commonly  administered  as 
tablets  made  either  from  the  powdered 
leaves  or  from  an  extract  of  the  leaves. 
Another  form  sometimes  used  is  a  70  to  75 
per  cent  alcohol  tincture  of  the  leaf.  The 
most  active  principle  in  this  drug  is  a  glyco- 
side called  digitoxin,  a  colorless,  odorless, 
crystalline,  bitter  substance.  When  digi- 
talis is  taken  in  any  of  its  forms,  the  heart 
is  regulated  to  beat  more  uniformly  and 
efficiently  because  its  muscle  tone  is  im- 
proved. There  is  an  increase  in  the  force  of 
contraction  of  the  heart  muscle  that  pushes 
the  blood  through  the  arteries.  The  period 
of  the  heart's  relaxing  and  filling  up  again 
is  prolonged.  Digitalis  has  tided  many 
people  over  a  period  of  severe  cardiac  crises. 

HANDSOME   GARDEN   PLANT 

The  foxglove,  well  known  as  an  orna- 
mental plant,  is  a  biennial,  producing  during 
the  first  year  of  its  growth  only  a  rosette  of 
leaves.  In  the  second  season  the  leafy 
flower  stalk  appears  and  reaches  a  height  of 
usually  three  to  four  feet.  The  bell-shaped 
flowers,  up  to  three  inches  long,  vary  in 
color  from  white  to  lavender  and  purple. 
When  the  foxglove  is  in  bloom,  the  numerous 
large  blossoms  make  this  plant  one  of  the 
most  handsome  to  be  seen  in  our  gardens. 
The  genus  Digitalis  contains  some  thirty 
species,  native  to  central  and  southern  Eur- 
ope, the  Canary  Islands,  and  western  and 
central  Asia.  Many  of  these  are  cultivated 
as  ornamental  plants,  and  all  of  them  seem 
to  have  the  same  medicinal  effect  as  the 
foxglove. 

Foxglove  is  a  member  of  the  figwort 
family  (Scrophulariaceae),  a  group  whose 
flowers  are  surpassed  in  variety  of  form  and 
color  only  by  the  orchids.  Relatively  few 
members  of  this  family  are  of  economic 
importance.  These  include  numerous  gar- 
den subjects  such  as  penstemon,  veronica, 
torenia,  linaria,  and  the  ubiquitous  snap- 
dragon; the  parasitic  witch  weeds  of  Africa 
and  Asia,  depredators  of  cereal  crops;  and 
the  princess  trees  of  eastern  Asia  that  yield 
commercial  timber.  But  of  all  the  figwort 
family,  none  is  more  important  to  man  than 
the  foxglove,  source  of  one  of  the  most 
dependable  and  useful  of  all  plant  drugs. 


September,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


NATURE    MYSTERY:    THE    SECRET    OF   THE   PACA'S   POUCHES 


By  PHILIP  HERSHKOVITZ 

CURATOR  OF  MAMMALS 

THE  PACA  is  a  large  rodent  that  lives  in 
the  forests  of  tropical  America.  It  is 
about  the  same  size  and  shape  as  its  close 
relative,  the  porcupine,  but  its  fur  is  short 
and  stiff,  not  spiny,  and  the  upper  parts  of 
its  body  are  flecked  by  fawn-like  rows  of 
whitish  spots.  The  hind  legs  are  long,  the 
ears  are  short  and  rounded,  and  the  tail  is 
a  mere  nubbin. 

The  really  amazing  thing  about  the  paca, 
is    the    extraordinary   development    of    its 


Drawing  by  Tom  Dol.ui 

MYSTERY  SOLVED 

The  paca  of  tropical  America  is  a  large,   spotted 

rodent  with  a  broad  head  and  strange  cheek-pouches. 

The  function  of  the  pouches  has  just  been  discovered 

by  Curator  Hershkovitz. 

cheek  bones.  They  are  expanded  into  enor- 
mous chambers,  one  on  each  side  of  the  face. 
A  slit-like  opening  in  front  of  each  eye 
reveals  the  presence  of  the  chamber.  The 
skin  of  the  face  dips  through  this  opening 
into  the  front  part  of  the  bony  chamber 
where  it  forms  a  hairy  pocket.  The  lining 
of  the  mouth  of  the  animal  forms  another 
pouch  that  fits  into  the  back  part  of  the 
same  expanded  portion  of  the  cheek  bone. 
Thus,  each  side  of  the  head  has  a  pair  of 
pouches,  one  inner  and  one  outer,  which 
touch  each  other.  Any  pressure  on  one 
pouch  pushes  its  mate  in  the  same  direction. 
There  is  absolutely  nothing  like  this  any- 
where else  in  nature. 

How  does  the  paca  use  this  remarkable 
combination  of  a  pair  of  extensible  skin 
pouches  lodged  within  each  cheek-bone 
chamber?  This  question  has  mystified 
hunters  and  intrigued  and  baffled  zoologists 
for  centuries. 

FOOD  STORAGE   RULED   OUT 

Is  it  possible  that  the  cheek  pouches  of 
the  paca  are  used  for  storing  food?  Certain 
other  rodents,  and  Old  World  monkeys  too, 
have  cheek  pouches  that  serve  that  very 
purpose.  Such  pouches,  however,  are  quite 
different  from  those  of  the  paca.  They  are 
simple  extensible  folds  of  skin  entirely  in- 
dependent of  facial  bones,  and  there  is  only 
one  on  each  side  of  the  mouth.  They  are 
filled  with  food  by  hand  and  they  are 
emptied  by  hand,  or  by  the  muscles  of  the 
cheek,  with  or  without  the  aid  of  the  tongue. 
The  cheek  pouches  of  the  paca  cannot  be 
used  this  way.  The  opening  of  each  outer 
pouch  is  narrow  and  framed  with  bone,  and 


it  would  be  impossible  for  the  paca  to  force 
food  into  it  with  its  forefeet.  In  any  case, 
the  pouch  is  too  small  to  serve  as  a  food 
reservoir  for  an  animal  so  large.  As  for  each 
internal  pouch — it  was  never  designed  for 
storage.  In  the  final  analysis,  no  one  has 
ever  found  food  in  the  pouches  of  a  paca. 

I  had  many  opportunities  during  the 
course  of  Museum  expeditions  to  observe 
pacas  in  their  natural  abodes.  I  studied 
their  habits  and  learned  the  most  successful 
ways  to  hunt  them.  I  performed  dissections 
on  a  number  of  them,  but  an  explanation  for 
the  existence  of  the  cheek  pouches  was  not 
apparent.  Native  hunters,  wise  in  the  ways 
of  the  paca,  only  shrugged  when  I  showed 
them  the  pouches  and  tambor-shaped 
chamber  of  the  cheek  bone.  Odd  structures, 
they  admitted,  but  are  not  all  pacas  made 
that  way? 

Everyone  agreed  that  the  flesh  of  the  paca 
is  delicious  no  matter  how  prepared.  The 
liver,  however,  is  bad  medicine  and  should 
not  be  eaten.  Indians  of  the  Amazon  basin 
point  out  that  the  tusk  of  the  paca  mounted 
with  beeswax  on  their  blowguns  for  a  sight 
insures  deadly  aim  and  good  hunting. 
Others  aver  that  one  of  the  leg  bones,  the 
fibula,  makes  a  good  spatula  for  spreading 
hot  pepper-sauce  over  the  meat.  Yes, 
wilderness  sages  could  tell  me  how  well  the 
paca  serves  them,  but  none  knew  how  the 
cheek  pouches  serve  the  paca. 

A  gourmet's  delight 

It  isn't  that  the  paca  is  one  of  those  rare 
species  known  only  to  specialists  in  natural 
history  and  to  a  few  lucky  hunters.  This 
shy  nocturnal  beast  is  undoubtedly  the  most 
sought-after   game   animal   in   all   forested 


An  XnJ'fM 


Cartoon  by  Ruth  Andris 

parts  of  Latin  America  from  southern 
Mexico  to  southern  Brazil.  It  is  pursued 
for  food  by  the  fox,  the  ocelot,  the  jaguar, 
and  the  Indian  with  the  same  avidity  as 
a  gourmet  selects  it  from  the  menu  of  the 


choicest  restaurants  below  the  border.  The 
Spanish  discoverers  of  the  mainland,  the 
first  Europeans  to  taste  the  light-pink  suc- 
culent flesh  of  the  paca,  gave  rapturous 
accounts  of  its  exquisite  flavor.  The  Span- 
iards, however,  never  let  their  interest  in 
the  animal  stray  from  the  purely  gastro- 
nomic level.  They  said  nothing  about  the 
peculiarities  of  the  paca's  cheeks. 

My  hope  for  finding  the  solution  for  the 
mystery  lay  in  hunting  the  paca  and  ob- 
serving it  in  nature.  The  animal  lives  in 
burrows  in  rocky  ground  or  at  the  base  of 
trees  between  the  main  roots.  Frequently 
it  makes  its  abode  in  caves.  The  paca's 
burrow  has  at  least  two  entrances  and, 
where  the  substratum  is  honeycombed,  there 
may  be  as  many  as  a  dozen  openings  leading 
to  the  nest.  There  are  runways  from  the 
openings  of  the  burrows  to  the  various 
feeding   places   and,   invariably,   to   water. 


Drawing  by  Tom  Dolan 

•COUSINS'  COMPARED 
The  enormously  expanded  cheekbone  enclosing  the 
pouches  of  the  paca  (on  the  left)  has  been  drawn 
with  a  broken  line.  The  animal's  relative,  the  por- 
cupine, which  has  a  normal  cheekbone,  is  shown 
on  the  right. 

The  rodent  not  only  drinks  copiously  but 
instinctively  seeks  safety  in  water  when 
pursued.  The  Spanish  name  guardatinaje, 
corrupted  in  some  parts  of  Latin  America  to 
guatinaje,  guatin,  and  guanta,  means  "animal 
that  refuges  in  water  holes."  To  catch 
a  paca  at  home,  it  is  necessary  quickly  to 
locate  and  block  all  but  one  of  the  entrances 
to  the  nest.  To  make  sure  the  animal  is 
really  trapped,  the  hunter  pokes  a  long  stem 
or  sapling  through  the  remaining  open  hole 
and  listens  for  the  sound  of  the  prodded 
beast.  If  present,  the  paca  responds  with 
a  rumbling  noise  that  reverberates  like  low 
distant  thunder.  The  animal  is  then  dug  out 
or  smoked  out,  or  it  may  be  pulled  out  by 
a  dog  small  enough  to  gain  entrance  to  the 
nest.  Unhappily  I  failed  to  learn  anything 
about  the  cheek  pouches  from  pacas  taken 
this  way. 

mystery  solved  at  last 

It  was  a  specially  set  live-trap  during  my 
last  expedition  to  Colombia  that  made  the 
paca  give  up  its  secret.  Live-trapping  for 
pacas  along  their  runways  demands  great 
care  to  avoid  contamination  of  the  trail  and 
(Continued  on  page  7,  column  3) 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


September,  1956 


EXHIBIT    OF    WORLD'S    SONGBIRDS    COMPLETED 


By  AUSTIN  L.  RAND 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ZOOLOGY 

OUR  DISPLAY  of  the  songbirds  of  the 
world  has  been  completed  with  the  in- 
stallation of  a  third  exhibit  representing  ten 
families  from  larks  to  birds  of  paradise. 
This  is  part  of  a  project  planned  to  present 
in  Boardman  Conover  Hall  (Hall  21)  a  syn- 
opsis of  the  birds  of  the  world.  Represent- 
ative examples  of  each  family  or  of  related 
families  are  grouped   together  on   plaques 


BIRDS  OF  PARADISE 
Part  of  the  new  addition  to  exhibit  of  songbirds  in 

with  perches  reduced  to  a  minimum  to 
avoid  distracting  attention  from  the  birds 
themselves.  Collateral  material,  such  as 
nests,  sketches,  and  diagrams,  are  intro- 
duced to  increase  the  information  presented 
and  to  avoid  monotony  in  the  exhibit, 
while  background  and  plaques  are  painted 
in  harmonizing  pastel  shades  to  add  to  the 
pleasing  effect.  This  accords  with  the  ex- 
hibition technique  developed  in  Chicago 
Natural  History  Museum  for  this  display  as 
described  in  earlier  Museum  Bulletins 
(November,  1952,  p.  6,  and  July  1955,  p.  4). 
The  new  exhibit  contains  some  of  the 
most  widespread  and  best-known  groups  of 
birds,  such  as  the  larks,  including  the  Euro- 
pean skylark,  whose  flight  song  inspired  the 
poets  Shelley  and  Wordsworth;  the  swallows, 


harbingers  of  spring;  and  the  crows  and  jays, 
among  the  most  intelligent  of  birds. 

However,  a  number  of  the  families  are 
exclusively  Old  World,  such  as  cuckoo 
shrikes  and  Old  World  orioles;  and  several 
are  restricted  to  the  antipodes  in  the  Aus- 
tralian-New Guinea  area:  the  bell  magpies 
and  the  Australian  butcherbirds,  the  magpie 
larks,  the  bowerbirds,  and  the  birds  of 
paradise. 

The  birds  of  paradise  have  received 
more  space  than  the 
small  number  of 
species  in  the  family 
(only  about  40)  would 
warrant,  if  it  were  not 
for  their  bizarre  and 
beautiful  ornamenta- 
tion and  their  strange 
displays.  We  have 
shown  the  greater  bird 
of  paradise  of  the  New 
Guinea  forests,  which 
at  mating  time  gathers 
in  bands  in  the  tree- 
tops  where  the  birds 
raise  their  long  orange- 
yellow  flank  plumes 
and  go  through  elabo- 
rate dances;  the  long- 
tailed  bird  of  paradise 
with  its  velvety  fron- 
tal shield  edged  with 
burnished  copper;  the 
superb  bird  of  paradise 
with  its  metallic  green- 
blue  breast  shield  and 
its  velvety  cape 
erected;  the  red  king 
bird  of  paradise;  and 
the  orange-winged 
magnificent  bird  of 
paradise. 

Perhaps  most  un- 
usual of  all  is  the  blue 
bird  of  paradise,  which 
in   its    display   hangs 

loardman  Conover  Hall.         upside    down    SO    that 

its  vivid  blue  plumes 
fall  in  filmy  blue  sprays  on  each  side  of  its 
body  to  frame  a  maroon  and  black  spot  in 
the  middle  of  its  belly.  Correlated  with 
such  extravagant  courtship  behavior,  these 
species  are  polygamous.  The  female  is  dull 
colored,  and  she  alone  looks  after  the  nest, 
the  eggs,  and  the  young. 

'poor  relations' 

Contrasting  with  these  "dandies"  in  the 
family  are  some  that  are  practically  "poor 
relations,"  illustrated  by  the  manucode  in 
the  exhibit.  They  have  no  brilliant  plumes, 
are  monogamous,  and  both  sexes  take 
a  share  in  nest  duties. 

The  bowerbirds  are  another  family  closely 
related  to  the  birds  of  paradise  and  the 
crows.      They    are    relatively    dull-colored 


birds,  but  what  they  lack  in  physical  orna- 
mentation they  have  made  up  in  special- 
ized behavior.  To  take  the  place  of  brilliant 
and  bizarre  plumage,  bowerbirds  have 
developed  the  bower-building  habit.  Some 
of  the  bowers  are  saucer-shaped  structures 
of  moss  with  a  "maypole"  raised  in  the 
center;  others  are  hut-like  or  wigwam-like, 
and  the  birds  spread  brilliantly  colored 
objects  in  front  of  them  like  flower  gardens; 
and  others  include  an  "avenue"  lined  on 
each  side  with  a  fence  of  twigs  stuck  upright, 
and  at  each  end  of  this  avenue  the  birds 
make  a  platform  decked  with  various  objects 
that  attract  them,  such  as  bones,  shells,  and 
fruit. 

'lonely  hearts  clubs' 

The  birds  use  these  bowers  as  dancing 
and  mating  stations  and  spend  a  great  deal 
of  time  keeping  them  in  repair  and  changing 
the  decorations.  We  have  shown  in  this 
family  the  catbird,  the  regent's  bowerbird, 
and  the  satin  bowerbird  with  a  small  piece 
of  its  bower.  This  last  species  has  two 
special  distinctions.  It  is  the  only  bird  I 
know  that  orients  a  structure  north  and 
south,  building  its  avenue  so  that  the  walls 
shade  the  structure  except  at  midday.  Also, 
it  uses  a  wad  of  vegetable  material  saturated 
with  fruit  juice  or  with  ground-up  charcoal 
and  saliva  to  actually  paint  the  walls  of  the 
avenue  in  its  bower. 


Curator  Returns  from  Bahamas 

Dr.  Fritz  Haas,  Curator  of  Lower  In- 
vertebrates, has  returned  from  a  field  trip 
to  the  island  of  North  Bimini  in  the  Ba- 
hamas. For  several  weeks  he  was  the  guest 
of  New  York's  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  at  its  Lerner  Marine  Laboratory  in 
North  Bimini.  He  made  studies  of  the  life- 
conditions  of  sessile  marine-invertebrates  in 
the  shallow  waters  of  the  Bahama  Bank,  as 
well  as  of  the  land  mollusks  on  the  three 
little  islands  that  constitute  the  Bimini 
group.  Data  obtained  by  him  will  be  of 
value  in  connection  with  a  projected  ex- 
hibition program. 


Daily  Guide-Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons.  Requests  for  such  service 
must  be  made  at  least  one  week  in  advance. 

Although  there  are  no  tours  on  Sundays 
(and  none  on  Saturday,  September  1  or 
Labor  Day,  September  3),  the  Museum  is 
open  from  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m.  on  those  days. 


September,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


A  SCIENTIST'S  ADVICE 
TO  OUR  SCHOOLS 

(Continued  from  page  2) 

vertisements  of  biological  supply  houses  that 
make  a  business  of  supplying  material  and 
plans  for  projects.  For  schools  competing 
in  science  fairs,  there  is  the  science  fair 
organization  itself,  which  will  give  advice 
and  information  about  sources.  In  book 
shops  never  was  there  such  a  flood  of  natural- 
history  literature,  in  low-priced  editions, 
even  comic  books,  and  much  of  this  material 
is  of  high  quality.  Even  the  daily  papers 
carry  a  surprising  amount  of  natural  history. 
And  finally,  if  there  is  a  natural-history 
museum  within  reach,  the  pupil  should 
visit  it  and  look  at  the  exhibits.  He  should 
not  ask  the  curators  to  supply  the  material 
and  plans,  doing  both  the  pupil's  and  the 
teacher's  work! 

OUTLINE  FOR  PROPER  GUIDANCE 

My  attitude  regarding  such  inquiries  is 
best  shown  by  the  following  actual  answers 
to  such  letters: 

(1.)  "In  regard  to  your  request  for  all 
information  on  animals,  I  doubt  that  you 
realize  the  scope  of  your  question.  There 
are  probably  more  than  1,000,000  different 
species  of  animals  and  we  have  hundreds 
of  volumes  containing  information  about 
them. 

"As  yours  is  a  school  project,  instead  of 
my  sending  you  information  I  will  point 
out  how  you  can  go  about  your  project 
using  material  at  hand.  Begin  with  the 
volumes  available  to  you  in  your  school 
library.  Look  up  the  word  animal,  then  all 
the  names  of  animals  you  can  think  of: 
mammal,  bird,  fish,  reptile,  starfish,  mol- 
lusk,  squid,  worm,  amoeba,  etc.,  and  the 
additional  names  you  find  along  the  way. 
The  amount  of  material  you  find  in  a  big 
dictionary  will  probably  surprise  you.  If 
you  are  interested  further,  go  to  an  en- 
cyclopedia and  repeat  the  process.  Then 
look  up  textbooks  on  biology  available 
through  your  teacher.  Perhaps  you  have 
a  local  library  with  back  files  of  the  National 
Geographic  Magazine  or  Nature  Magazine 
or  Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 
Bulletin,  amongst  others  in  which  there 
is  a  wealth  of  material. 

(2.)  "Rather  than  sending  the  feathers  and 
the  information  you  ask  for  your  project, 
I  would  make  another  suggestion.  Having 
had  some  experience  with  high-school  proj- 
ects and  their  aims,  I  would  suggest  that 
rather  than  getting  as  many  different  kinds 
of  feathers  as  possible,  you  endeavor  to  find 
out  as  much  as  you  can  about  the  feathers 
of  some  bird  that  is  available  to  you. 
Surely  a  duck,  chicken,  pigeon,  pheasant, 
crow,  or  starling — some  common  bird — 
could  be  secured  for  study.  Then  you  will 
find  a  whole  field  to  investigate  right  there. 
There  are  different  kinds  of  feathers  on  the 


same  bird :  flight  feathers,  contour  feathers, 
filoplumes,  and  down  feathers.  There  is  the 
structure  of  each  feather:  barbs,  barbules, 
etc.,  that  can  be  studied  under  a  lens  or 
a  microscope.  There  are  different  functions 
for  feathers  and  different  ways  in  which 
they  integrate  into  a  whole.  This  varies 
with  the  different  types  of  feathers  on  the 
same  bird.  Then  there  is  the  arrangement 
of  the  feathers  on  the  bird.  They  are  not 
distributed  uniformly  nor  haphazardly,  but 
are  arranged  in  orderly  patterns.  Color 
pattern  of  course  is  another  aspect.  Finally, 
there  is  the  question  of  the  uses  of  the 
various  feathers:  the  pinions  for  flight,  the 
rectrices  for  steering  and  balancing,  the  body 
feathers  for  protection  from  the  weather, 
and  the  down  feathers  for  warmth.  The 
number  of  feathers  on  a  bird  can  also  be 
counted  and  there  is  in  some  species  a  differ- 
ence between  the  number  present  in  summer 
and  in  winter,  perhaps  an  adaptation  to 
climate. 

"As  you  can  see,  there  is  more  than 
enough  material  for  a  high-school  project 
in  the  feathers  of  a  single  common  bird. 
I  suggest  that  a  project  along  these  lines 
would  be  much  more  profitable  to  you  in 
the  amount  you  learn,  than  making  a  hap- 
hazard collection  of  feathers  of  different 
kinds  of  birds." 

(3.)  "In  regard  to  your  request  for  infor- 
mation about  the  origin  of  parakeets,  I  note 
that  this  is  a  biology  class  project,  so  I 
assume  you  would  like  some  suggestions 
as  to  how  to  go  about  looking  up  information 
about  parakeets. 

"The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  look  in  the 
dictionaries  and  the  encyclopedias  in  your 
school  or  public  library.  Then  look  up 
books  on  parrots  or  perhaps  general  books 
on  cage  birds  or  birds  as  pets. 

"In  looking  up  the  parakeets  you  will  find 
that  the  common  parakeet  that  is  so  popular 
in  the  United  States  today  is  also  called 
a  budgerigar,  shell  parakeet,  Australian 
lovebird,  Australian  parakeet,  and  warbling 
or  undulated  grass  parakeet.  Its  scientific 
name  is  Melopsittacus  undulatus,  and  it 
comes  from  Australia.  If  you  can  find  any 
book  on  Australian  birds  in  your  local 
library,  that  also  may  help  you  in  your 
project. 

"The  first  living  budgerigar  was  brought 
to  Europe  in  1840.  Since  then  it  has  become 
very  popular  as  a  cage  bird  and  pet  in 
Europe  and  in  America. 

"Since  about  1900  parakeets  have  been 
raised  on  a  large  scale  in  Europe  and  since 
1924  in  America. 

"Some  magazine,  such  as  All-Pets  Maga- 
zine, might  also  supply  you  with  additional 
information  about  these  birds." 


MYSTERY  OF  THE  PACA 
AND  ITS  POUCHES 

(Continued  from  page  5) 
trap  with  suspicious  odors.  The  wily  paca 
survives  even  in  well-settled  countrysides 
because  it  becomes  more  wary  and  sensitive 
to  danger  as  its  enemies  increase.  The  paca 
that  smells  a  trap  in  its  runway  will  never 
use  that  trail  again.  I  set  my  trap  at  the 
foot  of  a  steep  slope  where  the  animal  was 
obliged  to  slide  or  jump  without  means  for 
detaining  itself  or  deviating  from  course. 
The  trap  was  triggered  in  the  morning. 
Heavy  rains,  later  in  the  day,  washed  away 
all  strange  odors  before  the  paca  emerged 
that  night.  Not  only  did  the  snare  work  but, 
to  my  great  astonishment,  the  captive 
obligingly  showed  me  how  its  cheek  pouches 
function! 

The  beast,  an  adult  male  weighing  about 
20  pounds,  was  held  in  the  trap  by  its  fore- 
foot. At  my  approach,  the  furious  animal 
suddenly  emitted  the  familiar  rumbling 
noise  with  its  mouth  closed  and  then  clicked 
its  front  teeth  rapidly.  When  I  withdrew 
a  short  distance,  the  animal  quieted  down. 
When  I  neared  again,  it  repeated  the  sound 
and  the  clicking  of  its  incisors.  After  a  few 
attempts  at  slashing  with  those  long,  thick 
tusks,  the  animal  permitted  me  to  come 
within  a  few  inches  of  its  mouth.  At  that 
historic  moment  I  saw  the  closed  ends  of  the 
external  pouches  just  barely  extruding 
through  the  slits  on  the  sides  of  the  face  and 
quivering  as  the  rumbling  sound  was  being 
made.  The  enigma  of  pouches  and  cham- 
bered cheek  bones  was  solved.  Here  was  one 
of  nature's  oddest  mechanisms  for  the  ampli- 
fication and  reverberation  of  sound.  The 
vibrating  air  is  forced  from  the  closed  mouth 
into  the  internal  pouches.  The  latter  distend 
against  the  external  pouches  forcing  them  to 
extrude  slightly  and  to  flutter  because  of  the 
variable  pressure.  The  bony  chambers  pro- 
tect the  delicate  pouches  and  act  as  resonat- 
ing chambers. 

Development  of  a  unique  system  for 
sound  production  in  pacas  opens  up  the 
problem  of  special  sound-producing  organs 
in  other  animals.  The  inflated  resonating 
drum  at  the  base  of  the  tongue  in  howler 
monkeys  is  just  as  remarkable  as  the  cheek- 
bone chambers  of  the  paca.  But  "How  the 
Howler  Howls"  would  make  a  good  title 
for  another  story. 


Seasonal  Change  in  Visiting  Hours 

Autumn  visiting  hours,  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m., 
will  go  into  effect  at  the  Museum  on  Sep- 
tember 4,  the  day  after  Labor  Day. 


Research  in  Great  Lakes  Area 

Test  excavations  on  sites  of  early  American 
Indians  in  areas  of  the  Upper  Peninsula  of 
Michigan  near  the  Wisconsin  border  were 
made  last  month  by  George  I.  Quimby, 
Curator  of  North  American  Archaeology 
and  Ethnology.  This  field  trip  was  part  of 
a  general  Great  Lakes  area  research-project 
in  which  anthropologists,  botanists,  and 
geologists  of  a  number  of  Midwest  museums, 
colleges,  and  universities  are  participating. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


September,  1956 


LECTURES  ON  SATURDAYS 
TO  BEGIN  OCTOBER  6 

The  Museum's  106th  course  of  free  illus- 
trated lectures  for  adults  will  be  presented 
on  the  eight  Saturday  afternoons  in  October 
and  November.  All  of  the  lectures  will  be 
given  at  2:30  P.M.  in  the  James  Simpson 
Theatre.  Color  motion-pictures  will  ac- 
company each  lecture. 

The  opening  program  will  be  "Minnesota," 
on  October  6,  when  Fran  William  Hall  of 
the  National  Audubon  Society  will  present 
a  naturalist's  viewpoint  as  he  shows  in  color 
films  the  scenic  beauties  and  the  wildlife  of 
"the  land  of  10,000  lakes." 

The  complete  schedule  of  the  eight  lec- 
tures will  appear  in  the  October  Bulletin. 
A  section  of  the  Theatre  is  reserved  for 
Members  of  the  Museum  at  each  program. 
Each  Member  is  entitled  to  two  reserved 
seats,  for  which  requests  should  be  made 
in  advance  by  telephone  (W Abash  2-9410) 
or  by  mail.  Seats  will  be  held  in  the 
Member's  name  until  2:25  P.M.  on  the  day 
of  the  program. 


SATURDAY  PROGRAMS 
FOR  CHILDREN 

"Alohaland" — a  visit  to  beautiful  Hawaii 
in  color  motion-pictures — will  be  the  open- 
ing program  in  the  series  of  free  motion- 
pictures  for  children  to  be  presented  on 
Saturday  mornings  at  10:30  o'clock  during 
October  and  November  in  the  James 
Simpson  Theatre.  The  shows  are  given 
under  the  auspices  of  the  James  Nelson  and 
Anna  Louise  Raymond  Foundation. 

On  the  first  program,  October  6,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  films,  Fran  William  Hall  of  the 
National  Audubon  Society  will  make 
a  personal  appearance  to  tell  his  story  of 
the  people,  animals,  and  plants  of  Hawaii. 

Titles  of  the  seven  other  programs  during 
the  two  months  will  be  announced  in  the 
October  Bulletin.  No  tickets  are  needed 
for  admission,  and  children  are  invited  to 
attend  alone,  accompanied  by  parents  or 
other  adults,  or  in  groups  from  schools, 
clubs,  and  other  centers. 


STAFF  NOTES 


Rupert  L.  Wenzel,  Curator  of  Insects, 
and  Henry  S.  Dybas,  Associate  Curator, 
attended  the  meeting  of  the  Tenth  Inter- 
national Congress  of  Entomology  at  Mont- 
real from  August  17  to  25,  where  Curator 
Wenzel  presented  a  paper  on  photomicrog- 
raphy and  other  techniques.  Associate 
Curator  Dybas  accompanied  other  members 
of  the  congress  on  a  field  trip  to  Laurentide 
National  Park  where  he  collected  minute 
insects  of  the  forest  floor  and  treeholes  .... 


Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus 
of  Zoology,  gave  four  lectures  before  high- 
school  and  college  teachers  at  the  Insti- 
tute of  Biology  held  at  the  University  of 
Utah  under  the  auspices  of  the  National 
Science  Foundation.  He  has  been  invited 
by  the  American  Institute  of  Biological 
Sciences  to  speak  at  several  small  colleges 
of  the  Midwest  during  the  forthcoming 
academic  year  ....  Dr.  Theodor  Just, 
Chief  Curator  of  Botany,  presented  a  paper 
on  paleobotany  at  the  annual  meeting  at  the 
University  of  Connecticut  last  month  of  the 
American  Institute  of  Biological  Sciences. 


Studies  of  Volcanoes  Resumed 

Dr.  Sharat  K.  Roy,  Chief  Curator  of 
Geology,  left  last  month  for  field  trips  in 
Mexico  and  Central  America  to  continue 
his  studies  of  volcanoes  and  collect  speci- 
mens of  volcanic  products.  After  attending 
the  International  Geological  Congress  in 
Mexico  City  and  participating  in  study- 
excursions  to  recent  and  Cenozoic  volcanoes, 
he  will  proceed  to  Central  America  for 
further  research  and  collecting  at  volcanoes 
in  Nicaragua,  Guatemala,  and,  if  time  per- 
mits, other  countries.  He  will  return  to  the 
Museum  late  in  October. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of  Anthropology: 

From:  University  of  Chicago — 41  flint 
artifacts,  southern  France;  Giles  Healey, 
Pacific  Palisades,  Calif. — 3  photographs  of 
Stela  2  at  Bonampak,  Mexico;  Roberto 
Quiroz,  Tempe,  Ariz. — wool  poncho  and 
leather  cap,  Bolivia;  Dennis  E.  Shanahan, 
Chicago — 12  prehistoric  Eskimo  objects  of 
bone  and  ivory,  Point  Barrow,  Alaska 

Department   of  Botany: 

From:  Director  of  Agriculture,  Reduit, 
Mauritius — 25  seed  samples  of  agricultural 
legumes;  Dr.  L.  J.  Gier,  Liberty,  Mo. — 
2  Festuca;  Miss  Nellie  Haynie,  Elmhurst, 
111. — a  Rhamnus  frangula;  University  of 
Minnesota,  St.  Paul — 3  seed  samples  of 
hybrid  Zea  mays;  G.  E.  Moore,  St.  Louis — 
an  anemone;  New  York  State  College  of 
Agriculture,  Ithaca,  N.Y. — 2  photographs 
of  Dutch-elm-disease-fungus  fruiting  bodies; 
E.  J.  Palmer,  Webb  City,  Mo.— 594  plants 

Department   of  Zoology: 

From:  Mrs.  Charles  Fernald,  Chicago — 
a  mounted  passenger  pigeon;  Arthur  M. 
Greenhall,  Trinidad,  B.W.I.— 12  coral 
snakes;  Miss  La  Verne  Hand,  a  collection  of 
shells,  worldwide;  W.  J.  Hanson,  Lawrence, 
Kan. — 2  paratypes  of  a  stratiomyid  fly, 
Duchesne,  Utah;  Dr.  Hans  Holub,  Indonesia 
— 4  frogs,  2  lizards,  apple-snails,  3  fishes; 
Harry  Hoogstraal,  Cairo,  Egypt — 3  frogs; 
Hermano  Niceforo  Maria,  Bogota,  Colombia 
— 8  salamanders,  172  frogs,  5  lizards,  9 
snakes;  Dr.  Edward  C.  Raney,  Ithaca,  N.Y. 
— 2  fishes,  North  Carolina;  University  of 
Texas,  Austin — 7  fishes 


EXPEDITION  RETURNS 
FROM  PERU  DIG 

The  1956  Archaeological  Expedition  to 
Peru  returned  to  the  Museum  in  August. 
Under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Donald  Collier, 
Curator  of  South  American  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  the  expedition  completed  six 
months  of  exploration  and  excavations  in 
Casma  Valley  on  the  Peruvian  coast,  200 
miles  north  of  Lima.  Curator  Collier  was 
assisted  by  Donald  Thompson,  who  is 
a  graduate  student  at  Harvard  University. 
The  expedition  was  made  possible  by  a  grant 
from  the  National  Science  Foundation. 

Previous  to  this  year's  work  the  Casma 
Valley  had  been  one  of  the  least-known 
archaeologically  of  the  coastal  valleys.  For 
this  reason  an  attempt  was  made  to  study 
all  parts  of  the  valley  to  determine  the 
number,  character,  and  age  of  the  pre- 
historic settlements  and  other  ruins.  De- 
tailed studies,  including  mapping,  photo- 
graphy, and  the  making  of  surface  collec- 
tions, were  carried  out  at  fifty-three  sites, 
and  test  excavations  were  made  at  ten  of 
these.  Of  particular  interest  to  the  expedi- 
tion were  two  large  towns  laid  out  in 
rectangular  grid  pattern,  each  covering 
nearly  a  square  mile.  These  dated  from  the 
Tiahuanaco  period,  about  a.d.  1000. 

The  expedition's  collection,  consisting  of 
ceramics,  fragments  of  textiles,  organic 
materials  from  refuse  deposits  (animal  bones, 
shells,  and  vegetable  material),  and  wood 
samples  for  radiocarbon  dating,  will  be 
shipped  to  the  Museum  from  Peru  in  the 
near  future.  Then  will  begin  the  task  of 
laboratory  analysis  and  of  piecing  together 
the  lives  of  the  ancient  farmers  and  town 
dwellers  of  Casma  Valley. 


NEW  MEMBERS 
(July  16  to  August  15) 

Associate  Members 

J.  W.  Anderson,  Joseph  W.  Hibben, 
Frank  P.  Kosmach,  Lawrence  E.  Langdon, 
Van  E.  Marker,  Dr.  Peter  S.  Y.  Neskow, 
Dr.  Melvin  R.  Salk,  E.  W.  Zimmerman 

Non-Resident  Associate  Member 

George  R.  Baxter 

Sustaining  Members 

Wilfrid  X.  Stanhaus,  Douglas  E.  Tibbitts 

Annual   Members 

C.  Foster  Brown,  Jr.,  Mrs.  Dorothy  M. 
Burwell,  James  A.  Cuca,  Draper  Daniels, 
R.  C.  Dickinson,  Louis  Fishman,  Mrs. 
Donald  W.  Fiske,  Kenneth  S.  Flagg,  J.  D. 
Fuchs,  Mrs.  Milton  Handelsman,  Miss 
Marie  Hill,  George  S.  Isham,  A.  C.  Ketzler, 
E.  Richard  Kuehne,  Charles  W.  Lake,  Jr., 
Fenton  D.  Lapham,  Roger  MacArthur, 
Ray  J.  McCurdy,  Stephen  M.  Murphy,  Mrs. 
Max  D.  Orr,  Frank  J.  Richter,  Mrs.  James 
E.  Rutherford,  Paul  A.  Schroeder,  L.  W. 
Stratton,  Ray  G.  Torgerson,  Guy  H.  Van 
Swearingen,  Mrs.  Charles  F.  Venrick, 
Lester  Witte 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


*i  * 


CHICAGO/5 „/£-- 

HISTORY     %,;  J7  ^fe.yo 

MUSEUM  a**,  «k« 


* 


^«fct-. 


TA/s  yMo/KA  a* 

Saturdays,  10:30  a.m.,  Movies  for  Children" 
Saturdays,     2:30  p.m.,  Film-Lectures  for  Adults 

MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT,  FRIDAY,  OCTOBER  12 

Preview  of  New  Exhibits,  Theatre  Program,  and 
Open  House  (7  to  10:30  p.m.) 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


October,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field -  ■  ■  President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vtce-Pr«siden( 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sh arat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to   inform   the   Museum 
promptly  of  changes  of  address. 


INTERNATIONAL  MUSEUM  WEEK 
SPOTLIGHTS  CO-OPERATION 

A  surprising  number  of  Museum  visitors 
are  unacquainted  with  forces  behind  the 
scenes  that  are  constantly  at  work  to  im- 
prove exhibits  and  research  collections. 
One  of  these  forces  is  the  nourishing  ex- 
change program  carried  on  among  museums 
all  over  the  world. 

Chicago  Natural  History  Museum,  via 
a  network  of  good  will,  exchanges  knowl- 
edge and  thereby  shares  knowledge  with  the 
largest  and  most  renowned  or  the  smallest 
and  most  remote  institutions  of  the  world. 
While  relations  among  countries  continu- 
ally fluctuate  from  friendship  to  mere 
toleration  to  outright  enmity,  museums 
maintain  consistently  active  exchange  rela- 
tions that  are  dedicated,  in  the  final  analysis, 
to  increasing  man's  understanding  of  him- 
self and  his  world. 

Co-operation  among  museums  and  allied 
institutions  also  makes  it  possible  for 
students,  scholars,  and  scientists  to  visit 
foreign  institutions  to  gain  new  ideas  and, 
in  some  cases,  even  to  learn  more  about 
their  own  countries.  A  scientist  from  the 
Dark  Continent  visiting  this  Museum  was 
heard  to  remark,  "How  strange  that  I 
should  come  to  Chicago  to  learn  about 
Africa." 

International  Museum  Week,  under  the 
sponsorship   of  the  U.   S.   National   Com- 


mission of  UNESCO  and  the  International 
Council  of  Museums,  will  be  held  from 
October  7  through  October  13  as  a  world- 
wide effort  to  focus  attention  on  the  peaceful 
and  creative  role  of  the  museums  of  the 
world.  A  special  exhibit  in  Stanley  Field 
Hall  during  International  Museum  Week 
will  display  specimens  and  publications  on 
loan  or  received  in  exchange  from  foreign 
institutions,  illustrations  of  our  Museum 
exhibits  that  have  appeared  in  foreign 
publications,  and  publications  of  this  Mu- 
seum dealing  with  collections  from  other 
lands. 

Last  year  the  Museum's  four  departments 
— Anthropology,  Botany,  Geology  and 
Zoology — participated  in  74  exchanges  of 
natural-science  material  with  other  mu- 
seums, institutions,  libraries,  and  individu- 
als located  all  over  the  world.  A  glance  at 
the  lists  of  material  received  in  exchange 
last  year  reveals  the  world-wide  scope  of 
the  program.  A  plaster  torso  from  Thebes, 
Egypt,  sent  by  the  Brooklyn  Museum, 
arrived  in  the  Department  of  Anthropology. 
A  collection  of  Devonian  fishes  found  in  the 
Baltic  Sea  was  sent  to  the  Department  of 
Geology  from  the  natural  history  museum 
in  Stockholm,  Sweden.  Wood  specimens 
came  to  the  Department  of  Geology  from 
institutions  in  Argentina,  Ceylon,  Arizona, 
Germany,  New  York,  Southern  Rhodesia, 
and  the  Union  of  South  Africa.  A  listing  of 
(Continued  on  page  8,  column  1 ) 


-THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


The  three  grotesque  carvings 
reproduced  on  our  cover  are 
unique  examples  of  Polynesian 
art.  They  were  selected  to  es- 
tablish the  motif  of  three  halls 
of  material  from  Pacific  isles 
featured  for  this  year's  Museum 
Members'  Night,  October  12.  The 
two  standing  figures,  from  Easter 
Island,  are  carved  from  driftwood 
(there  are  virtually  no  trees  on  the 
island).  They  are  called  Moai 
Kavakava  and  represent  vener- 
ated ancestors.  The  imposing 
and  somber  mask-like  carving 
dominating  the  background  is 
a  gable  ornament  from  a  Maori 
house.  The  carving  represents 
the  intricate  curvilinear  incised 
patterns  used  by  Maori  specialists 
in  tattooing  the  faces  of  warriors. 
The  tall  figure  is  a  recent  gift 
from  Robert  Trier,  of  Chicago, 
a  Contributor  of  the  Museum. 
The  smaller  figure  was  presented 
by  Sister  M.  Inez  Hilger,  of  Saint 
Cloud,  Minnesota.  The  gable 
ornament  was  donated  by  William 
Preston  Harrison,  of  Chicago. 


MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
PROGRAM 

Friday,  October  12 

7  p.m.  to  10:30  p.m. 

(Museum  doors  open  at  6  p.m.) 


FOR  YOUR  CONVENIENCE—. 

Special  Motor-Bus  Service  has  been 
arranged  for  Museum  Members  and  guests 
who  do  not  wish  to  drive  their  own  cars.  A 
bus  marked  to  indicate  that  it  is  for  Museum 
shuttle-service  will  leave  Jackson  Boulevard 
and  State  Street  at  15-minute  intervals 
beginning  at  6:30  p.m.  The  last  bus  will 
leave  the  Museum  at  10:45  p.m.  In  both 
directions  intermediate  stops  will  be  made 
at  7th  Street  and  Michigan  and  at  Jackson 
and  Michigan. 

Ample  Free  Parking  Space  is  available 
to  the  north  of  the  Museum  building  for 
those  who  drive. 

You  May  Dine  at  the  Museum  in  the 
Cafeteria  (ground  floor).  Open  6  to  8  p.m. 
(regular  service  and  prices). 


FOR  YOUR  ENTERTAINMENT— 

Preview  of  New  Exhibits:  Isles  of  the 
Pacific.  Melanesia,  Micronesia,  Polynesia, 
and  Indonesia  (Halls  A,  F,  and  G,  on  Ground 
Floor).  Also,  A  Visit  to  the  Home  of 
a  Cameroons  Tribal  King  (Hall  E,  Ground 
Floor). 

Special  Exhibit:  World-Wide  Rela- 
tions of  the  Museum  (arranged  for  Inter- 
national Museum  Week,  October  7  through 
13). 

MOTION  PICTURES,  9:15  P.M. 

In  James  Simpson  Theatre 
(Ground  Floor  West) 

"KAPINOAMARANQI' ' 

A  color-film  documenting  life  in  Oceania 
today  with  the  changes  brought  about  in  the 
postwar  years;  with  narration  by  Roland 
W.  Force,  Curator  of  Oceanic  Archaeology 
and  Ethnology.  Preceding  the  film  will  be 
an  address  of  welcome  to  Members  by 
Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director,  and  a  re- 
view of  the  work  of  the  Department  of 
Anthropology  by  Dr.  Paul  S.  Martin,  Chief 
Curator. 

Open  House:  "Behind  the  Scenes," 
7  to  9  p.m.  Visitors  are  invited  to  take  the 
elevator  to  third  and  fourth  floors  where  the 
scientific  staff  and  other  Museum  workers 
will  welcome  them  in  laboratories,  studios, 
offices,  and  the  Library  and  explain  various 
phases  of  a  museum's  operation.  Some  lab- 
oratories also  will  be  found  on  the  Ground 
Floor. 


October,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  3 


MEMBERS'    NIGHT:    A    'JOURNEY'    TO    OCEANIA   AND    AFRICA 


MEMBERS  of  the  Museum  and 
their  guests  are  invited — on 
Members'  Night,  Friday,  October 

12 — to  make  a  journey  such  as  no 
travel  agency,  ship  line,  or  airline  can 
offer.  In  a  single  evening  our  visitors 
will  go  on  a  tour  that  ranges  through 
each  of  the  principal  island  groups 
of  the  Pacific — Melanesia,  Polynesia, 
Micronesia,  and  Indonesia — and 
thence  by  magic  carpet  to  far-off 
Africa  where  they  will  be  guests  at 
the  "palace"  (actually  a  large  mud 


hut  with  thatched  roof)  of  a  king  in 
the  Cameroons.  Doors  of  the  Mu- 
seum will  open  at  6  P.M.  to  accommo- 
date Members  and  guests  who  wish 
to  dine  in  the  Museum  Cafeteria  (6 
to  8  P.M.).  Open  house  will  be  held 
in  the  third  and  fourth  floor  labora- 
tories and  offices  by  the  scientific 
and  technical  staff  of  the  Museum 
from  7  to  9  P.M.  A  notable  color 
motion-picture,  "  Kapingamarangi," 
of  life  today  in  a  Pacific  isle  will  be 
shown  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre 


at  9:15  P.M.,  with  narration  by 
Roland  W.  Force,  Curator  of  Oceanic 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology.  Preced- 
ing the  film,  Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg, 
Director  of  the  Museum,  will  make  a 
welcoming  address,  and  Dr.  Paul  S. 
Martin,  Chief  Curator  of  Anthro- 
pology, will  review  the  work  of  his 
department.  There  is  ample  free 
parking-space  for  Members'  cars. 
Free  motor-coach  service  to  and  from 
the  Museum  will  be  provided  (for 
details  see  program  on  page  2). 


OUR    PACIFIC    EXHIBITS 
ARE  WORTH  A  BRAG! 

By  ROLAND  W.  FORCE 

CURATOR  OF  OCEANIC  ARCHAEOLOGY  AND  ETHNOLOGY 

WARANGA  tangata  haul 
So  end  the  folk  tales  on  one  Pacific 
island.  When  translated  from  the  Polynesian 
dialect  to  English  the  phrase  means :"Just 
a  tale  told  by  people." 

Culture,  in  the  anthropological  use  of  the 
term,  is  just  that — just  a  tale  told  by  people 


EASTER-ISLAND  ENIGMA 
One  of  many  massive  sculptured  stone  heads,  the 
significance  of  which  is  a  mystery  even  to  the  Poly- 
nesian inhabitants  of  the  isle  today.  Some  of  the 
heads  exceed  25  feet  in  height.  In  one  of  the  Mu- 
seum's Pacific  halls  (Hall  F)  large  reproductions 
may  be  seen  on  Members'  Night. 

— told  by  their  customs,  their  manufactures, 
their  daily  life.  In  the  long  run,  it  becomes 
converted  into  history — in  the  short  run,  it 
is  a  slice  of  the  continuum  of  life.  Outside 
of  the  living  tale  as  it  may  be  witnessed  on 
an  actual  visit  to  the  islands,  the  tale  of  life 
in  the  Pacific  is  told  better  in  the  halls  of 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  than  any- 
where else  in  the  world.  A  new  presenta- 
tion of  the  Museum's  exhibits  from  these 
areas,  is  now  offered  in  thoroughly  refur- 
bished halls  (Halls  A,  A-l,  F,  and  G),  in 
which  new  artistry  has  been  applied  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  exhibits  to  show  in- 
dividual objects  and  groups  of  objects  to 
better  advantage. 

The  tales  told  by  the  native  peoples  of  the 
Pacific  are  many  and  varied.  In  each  case 
the  denouement  of  these  tales  was  brought 
about  by  contact  with  explorers,  traders, 
whalers,  and  missionaries — the  representa- 
tives of  more  technologically  complex  so- 
cieties. These  contacts  in  greater  or  lesser 
degree  resulted  in  changes  of  plot  of  cata- 
strophic proportions.  In  more  than  one 
instance  the  casts  simply  died  out,  leaving 
only  the  empty  stage  upon  which  the  tale 
had  been  enacted  for  centuries — a  lonely, 
palm-studded,  coral-reefed  pinpoint  in  a  vast 
ocean.  In  other  cases  the  stage  properties 
changed,  the  actors  were  coached  in  new 
techniques,  outfitted  in  different  costumes, 
forced  to  alter  their  plots.  However  altered, 
the  show  has  gone  on,  the  tales  continue. 

Sir  Peter  Buck  (Te  Rangi  Hiroa),  noted 
part-Maori  anthropologist,  once  used  an 
old  Maori  proverb  analogically  to  demon- 
strate the  great  "change  of  plot"  in  the 
cultures  of  the  Pacific: 

The  old  net  is  laid  aside; 
A  new  net  goes  a-fishing. 

"The  old  world  created  by  our  Polynesian 
ancestors  has  passed  away,  and  a  new  world 
is  in  the  process  of  being  fashioned,"  mused 
Sir  Peter,  expanding  upon  this  proverb. 
"The  stone  temples  have  been  destroyed, 
and  the  temple  drums  and  shell  trumpets 
have  long  been  silent.  Tane,  Tu,  Rongo, 
Tangaroa  and  the  other  members  of  the 
divine  family  of  the  Sky-father  and  the 
Earth-mother  have  left  us.  The  great 
voyaging  canoes  have  crumbled  to  dust, 
and  the  sea  captains  and  the  expert  crafts- 
men have  passed  to  the  Spirit-land.  The 
regalia  and  symbols  of  spiritual  and  tem- 
(Continued  on  page  b,  column  1 ) 


A  KING  HAS  HIS  DAY 
ON  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 

By  JANE  ROCKWELL 

ASSOCIATE  EDITOR 

IF  IT  WERE  POSSIBLE,  visitors  might 
be  tempted  on  the  night  of  October  12  to 
trade  places  with  the  Cameroons  king  whose 
tribal  home  is  the  subject  of  an  elaborate 
new  exhibit  in  Hall  E  on  the  Ground  Floor 
of  the  Museum  and  a  featured  attraction 
of  Members'  Night. 


AFRICAN  ANCESTOR-FIGURES 
These  dramatic  wood-carvings  are  of  great  religious 
import  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Cameroons  Grass- 
lands in  West  Africa.  The  examples  shown  above 
now  grace  the  house  of  a  Cameroons  king  that  has 
been  erected  in  Hall  E  and  will  be  opened  for  the 
first  time  on  Members'  Night. 

In  the  highly  organized  and  often  hectic 
society  of  today,  an  evening's  visit  to  the 
home  of  the  ruler  of  a  village  in  the  Cam- 
eroons Grasslands  region  of  West  Africa 
fifty  years  ago  may  offer  a  refreshing  change 
of  pace  for  the  citizen  of  1956. 

Unfettered  by  modern  appliances  and 
(Continued  on  page  k,  column  3) 


Page  i 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


October,  1956 


PACIFIC  EXHIBITS- 

(Continued  from  page  3) 

poral  power  have  been  scattered  among  the 
museums  of  other  peoples.  The  glory  of  the 
Stone  Age  has  departed  out  of  Polynesia. 

"The  old  net  is  full  of  holes,  its  meshes 
have  rotted,  and  it  has  been  laid  aside. 

"What  new  net  goes  a-fishing?" 

The  new  net,  or  the  changed  plot  of 
the  tale  told  by  the  people  of  one 
Pacific  island,  is  the  subject  of  a  recent 
motion-picture  record  of  native  life 
that  will  be  presented  on  the  screen  of 
the  James  Simpson  Theatre  in  the  Mu- 
seum at  9:15  on  Members'  Night. 

The  island  called  Kapingamarangi,  whose 
life  is  documented  in  the  film,  is  located  in 
southern  Micronesia.  Studies  made  of  the 
culture  of  this  island  in  the  past  few  years 
reveal  a  most  interesting  new  net — a  tale 
upon  which  no  final  curtain  has  fallen.  The 
film  will  round  out  the  story  of  life  in  the 
Pacific  for  Members'  Night  visitors  who  in 
the  preceding  two  hours  have  made  the 
grand  tour  of  the  Pacific  via  the  Museum 
exhibits. 

Colorful  Primitive  Arts 

The  cultures  of  the  various  Pacific  island- 
groups  have  produced  some  of  the  most 
colorful  and  interesting  creations  to  be  found 
in  any  category  of  primitive  art.  As  the 
result  primarily  of  expeditions  over  many 
years,  the  Museum  has  assembled  in  Halls 
A  (and  A-l),  G,  and  F  (on  the  Ground  Floor) 
some  of  the  world's  finest  collections  repre- 
senting almost  all  phases  of  Pacific  cultures. 
New  installations  with  fluorescent  lighting 
and  improved  physical  arrangement  of  the 
halls  permit  these  exhibits  to  cast  the  true 
atmosphere  of  the  many  places  represented 
— Saipan,  Guam,  the  Carolines,  New  Brit- 
ain, New  Ireland,  Sumatra,  Java,  Australia 
and  New  Zealand,  Samoa,  the  Philippines, 
Hawaii,  the  Solomons,  New  Hebrides,  Mar- 
quesas, Borneo,  New  Guinea,  and  many 
others.  For  Members'  Night  the  halls  will 
be  flooded  with  native  music  faithfully  re- 
corded on  tape  among  various  Pacific  peoples. 
Not  only  the  exhibition  halls  but  also  the 
Pacific  Research  Laboratory  will  be  open 
to  visitors.  Here  the  preparatory  work  for 
the  refurbished  exhibits  was  carried  out 
under  the  direction  of  Evett  D.  Hester, 
assigned  to  this  task  under  the  Museum's 
Thomas  J.  Dee  Fellowship  in  Anthropology. 
Mr.  Hester  and  other  members  of  the  staff 
will  be  present  to  greet  Members  and  their 
guests  and  to  furnish  information  requested. 

Finest  Melanesian  Collection 

The  most  complete  and  superb  collection 
of  material  from  Melanesia  ever  brought 
together  in  any  museum  of  the  world  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  newly  arranged  Hall  A. 
Ornaments,  ritual  objects,  masks,  and  items 
of  utilitarian  nature  form  together  an 
impressive  array  of  material  culture  from 


one  of  the  most  interesting  areas  of  Oceania. 
Most  of  the  components  of  the  collection 
were  secured  by  the  late  Dr.  Albert  B. 
Lewis,  Curator  of  Melanesian  Ethnology 
from  1907  to  1940,  who  spent  four  years 
in  the  early  1900's  as  leader  of  the  Joseph 
N.  Field  Expeditions  to  Melanesia.  The 
unique  elements  of  design  found  on  weapons 
and  ceremonial  paraphernalia  make  Hall  A 
one  of  the  most  colorful  parts  of  the  Mu- 
seum. The  value  of  these  specimens  is 
especially  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  many 
are  no  longer  available  in  the  areas  where 
they  were  collected.  The  native  cultures 
that  produced  them  no  longer  function  with 
the  aboriginal  vigor  of  years  past.  More- 
over, many  of  the  comparable  collections  in 
Europe  were  destroyed  during  World 
War  II. 

Life  of  the  Philippines 

Also  in  Hall  A  are  the  extensive  collec- 
tions brought  from  the  Philippines  by  Dr. 
Fay-Cooper  Cole,  formerly  Assistant  Cu- 
rator of  Malayan  Ethnology  at  the  Museum 
and  later  a  member  of  the  faculty  of  the 
University  of  Chicago,  retaining  his  Museum 
connection  as  Research  Associate  in  Malay- 
an Ethnology.  Dr.  Cole's  broad  experi- 
ence in  field  research  in  Indonesia  and  in 
the  Philippines  resulted  in  a  catalogue  of 
data  accompanying  these  specimens  that  is 
especially  noteworthy.  The  Philippine  ex- 
hibits are  interspersed  with  life-size  dioramas 
that  take  the  viewer  into  a  Luzon  village 
where  pottery  is  being  manufactured  and 
a  native  blacksmith  is  forging  weapons  and 
tools.  Native  textiles  from  the  Philippine 
highlands  and  weapons  from  the  head- 
hunters  of  the  same  region  are  among  the 
outstanding  exhibits. 

Indonesia  Well  Represented 

Hall  G  contains  an  enviable  collection  of 
materials  from  Indonesia.  Among  its  at- 
tractions is  an  assemblage  of  the  many  kinds 
of  strange  musical  instruments  used  by 
a  Balinese  orchestra  to  accompany  the 
beautifully  stylized  dances  of  these  people. 
There  is  also  an  exhibit  of  the  dancers' 
masks.  The  complicated  process  of  batik 
cloth  manufacture  is  illustrated,  and  there 
is  a  miniature  village  of  the  Menangkabau 
people.  The  people  of  Indonesia  are 
recognized  as  some  of  the  world's  most 
accomplished  artisans  and  the  products  of 
their  arts  and  crafts  are  lavishly  displayed 
in  full  testament  to  their  skills. 

Polynesia  and  Micronesia 

The  massive  sculptured  heads  of  Easter 
Island  in  eastern  Polynesia  stand  guard  in 
Hall  F  where  they  flank  the  intricately 
carved  Maori  council  house,  one  of  only 
half  a  dozen  or  so  still  extant  in  the  world 


today.  The  Easter  Island  heads  have 
remained  a  mystery  to  professional  anthro- 
pologists and  laymen  alike  for  many  years. 
These  enigmatic  blocks  of  stone  are  rem- 
nants of  a  lost  people.  The  brightly  colored 
feather  "kahili"  from  Hawaii  and  the  simi- 
larly festive  feather  capes  in  adjoining  cases 
show  the  painstaking  and  skillful  efforts  of 
native  craftsmen  whose  watchword  was 
certainly  that  this  is  indeed  "a  timeless 
world."  War  clubs  from  Fiji,  fish  nets  and 
hooks  from  Hawaii,  armor  and  shark's-tooth 
swords  from  the  warlike  inhabitants  of  the 
Gilbert  Islands,  and  thousands  of  other 
items  from  Micronesia  and  Polynesia  are 
displayed  in  this  hall. 

Within  the  confines  of  a  Bulletin  it  is 
possible  to  present  only  the  sketchiest 
indication  of  the  contents  of  these  three 
great  halls.  Together  they  form  a  whole 
museum  in  themselves — a  museum  of  many 
fascinating  peoples  and  cultures  that  have 
flourished  on  the  tiny  isles  that  dot  the 
vast  Pacific. 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
Friday,  October  12 


AFRICAN  KING'S  HOUSE- 

(Continued  from  page  3) 

gadgets,  the  royal  house  in  the  Cameroons 
is  30  feet  high  (including  its  thatched  roof), 
15  feet  wide,  and  23  feet  long.  The  entrance 
to  the  house  is  through  two  doorways  on 
which  human  and  animal  figures  are  carved. 
Another  feature  of  the  king's  house  that  may 
appeal  to  present-day  dwellers  is  that  when 
the  king  tires  of  his  hut  or  when  the  birds, 
bats,  and  squirrels  become  too  noisy  or 
dirty  in  the  hut's  thatched  roof,  the  king 
simply  orders  his  servants  to  build  another 
house — a  task  that  takes  little  more  than 
a  week.  The  Museum's  maintenance  crew 
built  our  reconstruction  of  the  King's  House 
of  plaster  and  steel  because  Museum 
building-rules  require  more  durable  material 
than  the  mud  and  latticed  bamboo  of  the 
original  in  Africa.  Another  major  change 
from  the  original  is  the  inclusion  of  several 
viewing  windows  placed  so  that  visitors  may 
easily  see  the  interior  of  the  house. 

Patrons  of  the  Arts 

Cameroons  chieftains  were  patrons  of  the 
arts,  and  so  their  homes  were  repositories 
for  the  finest  sculptures,  charms,  fetishes, 
and  ancestor  figures  available.  More  than 
one  hundred  objects  from  the  Museum's 
Cameroons  collection — one  of  the  finest  in 
the  world — were  selected  for  the  house. 
Royal  stools  equivalent  to  thrones,  masks 
of  religious  and  magical  significance,  cere- 
monial drums,  tobacco  pipes  more  than  five 
feet  long,  a  sleeping  mat  for  the  one  of  the 
king's  many  wives  who  was  currently  in 
favor,  and  the  king's  own  bed,  an  elaborately 
carved  object  with  a  built-in  wooden  pillow. 

The  events  that  go  to  make  up  a  day  in 
the  life  of  a  Cameroons  king — from  his  early- 
morning  fishing  jaunt  and  bath  in  a  nearby 


October,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


stream,  his  holding  of  court  and  other 
official  duties,  to  an  evening  feast  and  dance 
in  honor  of  a  neighboring  chieftain — are  told 
in  a  booklet  entitled  The  King's  Day, 
written  by  Mrs.  Margaret  Plass  of  New 
York  City  and  London.  Mrs.  Plass,  who 
recently  represented  the  Department  of 
Ethnography  of  the  British  Museum  at  the 
Fifth  Session  of  the  International  Congress 
of  Anthropological  and  Ethnological  Sciences 
at  Philadelphia,  served  this  Museum  as 
a  consultant  in  the  planning  of  the  new 
exhibit.  Copies  of  the  booklet,  which  con- 
tains photographs  of  some  of  the  objects 
found  in  the  King's  House,  will  be  given 
to  visitors  on  Members'  Night. 

In  recreating  the  King's  House  and  pre- 
senting the  Museum's  Cameroons  specimens 
in  their  immediate  physical  context  together 
with  a  written  account  of  the  life  in  that 
region  of  Africa,  the  Department  of  Anthro- 
pology has  endeavored  to  provide  Members' 
Night  visitors,  and  later  the  general  public, 
with  a  more  illuminating  view  of  the  life  of 
an  African  people  than  would  have  been 
possible  by  the  exhibition  of  specimens 
alone.  Phillip  H.  Lewis,  an  assistant  in  the 
Department  of  Anthropology,  supervised 
the  selection  of  specimens  and  installations. 

The  Cameroons  region  in  1956  has 
markedly  changed  from  what  it  was  fifty 
years  ago — there  is  a  tendency  to  replace 
the  thatch  of  the  roofs  with  galvanized  iron, 
the  clay  pots  with  kerosene  tins,  the  ancient 
drums  with  modern  phonographs,  and  the 
painted  symbolic  friezes  on  hut  walls  with 
travel  posters  and  soft-drink  advertisements. 
But  on  Members'  Night  visitors  will  see 
that  the  tranquil  life  of  the  Cameroons  of 
fifty  years  ago  has  been  preserved  in  the 
Museum's  African  exhibits. 


MOVIES  FOR  CHILDREN 
ON  8  SATURDAYS 

The  Raymond  Foundation  will  present 
its  autumn  series  of  free  motion-picture 
programs  for  children  on  Saturday  mornings 
during  October  and  November.  All  pro- 
grams begin  at  10:30  a.m.  in  the  James 
Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum.  No  tick- 
ets are  needed.  Children  are  welcome  to 
attend  alone,  accompanied  by  parents,  or 
in  groups  from  schools,  clubs,  or  other 
centers. 

On  four  of  the  programs  the  explorers 
who  made  the  films  will  be  present  to  tell 
the  story  of  their  adventures.  Following 
are  titles  and  dates: 

October  6 — Alohaland 

The  islands  of  Hawaii,  their  people  and 

the  natural  wildlife 
Story  by  Fran  William  Hall 

October  13— A  World  Is  Born 

A  Disney  color-picture  on  the  first  2  bil- 


lion years  of  life  on  our  earth 
Also  a  cartoon 

October  20 — Outdoor  Almanac 

Year-round  activities  in  nature 
Story  by  Karl  H.  Maslowski 

October  27 — Treasure  Island 

A  Disney  interpretation  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson's  adventure  story 

November  3 — Prehistoric  Times 

Strange  undersea  life ;  also  dinosaurs,  mam- 
moths, saber-tooth  cats,  and  prehistoric 
hunters  and  artists 

Also  a  cartoon 

November  10 — Adventure  in  Africa 

A  four-month  and  10,000-mile  safari 
Story  by  Murl  Deusing 

November  17 — The  Great  Adventure 

Two  boys'  adventures  on  a  Swedish  farm 
(Arne  Sucksdorff's.  nature  masterpiece) 

November  24 — 'Gatorland 

Into  the  cypress  swamps  of  Dixieland 
Story  by  Allen  Cruickshank 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS  INVITED 
TO  VISIT  LABS 


^            :"■■> 

The  Museum's  scientific  staff  will  hold 
open  house  in  the  laboratories  throughout 
the  Departments  of  Anthropology,  Botany, 
Geology  and  Zoology  from  7  to  9  p.m.  on 
Members'  Night,  October  12.  The  visitors 
will  have  opportunity  to  talk  to  curators 
engaged  in  many  lines  of  research,  and  to 
view  demonstrations  of  museum  techniques 
in  preparing  material  for  exhibition  and 
study.  Illustration  shows  part  of  the 
ichthyological  laboratory  where  Loren  P. 
Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  and  Assistant 
Pearl  Sonoda  find  out  more  truly  exciting 
things  about  finny  creatures  than  those 
related  in  the  wildest  of  sportsmen's  yarns. 


AUDUBON  SOCIETY  OFFERS 
LECTURES  AT  MUSEUM 

On  Sunday  afternoons  during  the  fall, 
winter,  and  spring  the  Illinois  Audubon 
Society  will  present  in  the  James  Simpson 
Theatre  of  the  Museum  a  series  of  five  free 
lectures  illustrated  with  color  motion-pic- 
tures. The  first  is  scheduled  for  October  14, 
when  Patricia  Bailey  Witherspoon  will  give 
a  screen-tour  of  "Kangaroo  Continent." 

Other  lectures  to  be  given  are:  November 
18,  "Cypress  Kingdom,"  Alexander  Sprunt, 
Jr.;  January  27,  "Ranch  and  Range," 
Albert  Wool;  March  10,  "Great  Smoky 
Skyland,"  G.  Harrison  Orians;  and  April 
28,  "Little-Known  New  Jersey,"  George 
Ragensburg.  Admission  is  free.  Seats  in 
the  reserved  section  of  the  Theatre  are 
available  both  to  Members  of  the  Audubon 
Society  and  Members  of  the  Museum  on 
presentation  of  membership  card. 

Mrs.  Witherspoon  is  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Alfred  M.  Bailey,  Director  of  the  Denver 
Museum  of  Natural  History.  Together 
they  explored  strange  and  fascinating  Aus- 
tralia, where  the  ordinary  is  picturesque  and 
the  extraordinary  is  almost  unbelievable. 
The  films  present  the  life  of  two  of  the 
world's  strangest  mammals — the  duck- 
billed platypus  and  the  spiny  echidna,  both 
of  which  lay  eggs.  Also  shown  are  koalas, 
the  originals  for  the  famous  Teddy  bears, 
and  of  coarse  kangaroos.  Other  scenes 
show  a  herd  of  fur-seals  at  Lady  Julia  Percy 
Island  and  birds,  mammals,  and  plants  of 
the  North  and  South  islands  of  New  Zealand. 


STAFF  NOTES 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
Friday,  October  12 


Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark,  Curator  of 
the  Phanerogamic  Herbarium,  has  been 
awarded  a  grant  from  the  National  Science 
Foundation  to  complete  his  work  on  a  cata- 
logue of  the  plants  of  Missouri.  He  recently 
lectured  on  botanical  subjects  before  the 
Kiwanis  Club  of  Chicago,  and  the  Danville 
(Illinois)  Garden  Club,  and  the  Missouri 
Chapter  of  Nature  Conservancy  at  St. 
Louis  ....  Dr.  Austin  L.  Rand,  Chief  Cu- 
rator of  Zoology,  and  Melvin  A.  Traylor, 
Jr.,  Assistant  Curator  of  Birds,  attended 
the  meetings  of  the  American  Ornithologists' 
Union  in  Denver  last  month  ....  Loren  P. 
Woods,  Curator  of  Fishes,  will  leave  in 
October  for  studies  of  tropical  eastern 
Pacific  fishes  at  Leland  Stanford  University, 
and  the  University  of  California  at  Los 
Angeles  ....  The  staffs  of  the  Departments 
of  Anthropology  and  Zoology  last  month 
were  hosts  to  many  distinguished  scientists 
from  abroad  who  visited  Chicago  after 
attending  congresses  in  Philadelphia  and 
Montreal.  Among  the  countries  represented 
were  Norway,  Italy,  Switzerland,  the  Soviet 
Union,  Great  Britain,  Germany,  Uruguay, 
and  Brazil. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


October,  1956 


LECTURES    ON    SATURDAYS    BEGIN    OCTOBER    6 


WITHOUT  LEAVING  CHICAGO  this 
fall  you  can  spend  a  Saturday  after- 
noon in  the  Canary  Islands.  Or  you  can 
thrill  at  the  weird  forms  surrounding  you 
as  you  sit  comfortably  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  You  can  join  a  safari  and  come  face- 
to-face  with  Africa's  lions  and  elephants  in 
the  wild.  You  can  take  an  enchanted 
voyage  among  the  isles  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean or  an  exciting  trip  on  rubber  rafts 
down  the  canyon-bound  tortuous  Colorado 
River. 

These  are  some  of  the  stay-at-home- 
travel  opportunities  offered  in  the  .06th 
series   of   free   lectures   for   adults.      Illus- 


to  the  screen  in  vivid  color  by  the  films  of 
Fran  William  Hall,  one  of  the  topflight 
naturalist-lecturers  of  the  National  Audubon 
Society.  He  proves  that  the  wonders  of 
nature  can  be  just  as  exciting  a  few  hundred 
miles  from  Chicago  as  in  some  exotic  land 
half-way  around  the  world. 

October  13 — The  Canary  Islands 

Robert  Davis 

"A  colorful  archipelago  of  everlasting 
spring"  is  the  way  Robert  Davis  describes 
the  Canaries,  the  island  group  lying  some 
seventy-five  miles  off  the  northwest  coast 
of  Africa.    As  shown  in  our  lecturer's  color- 


MALTA-'THAT  UNSINKABLE   AIRCRAFT  CARRIER' 
Herbert  Knapp  will  show  color  films  and  tell  the  story  of  this  and  other  Mediterranean  isles  in  his  lecture  on 
November   17.     Other   lectures    on   travel   and    science    will   be    given   on   Saturday    afternoons    throughout 

October  and  November. 


trated  with  color  motion-pictures,  the  lec- 
tures will  be  presented  at  2:30  o'clock  on 
the  eight  Saturday  afternoons  during 
October  and  November  in  the  James  Simp- 
son Theatre  of  the  Museum.  The  programs 
are  provided  by  the  Edward  E.  Ayer  Lecture 
Foundation  Fund.  Admittance  is  restricted 
to  adults  because  of  limits  of  accommoda- 
tions, but  children  will  have  their  own  series 
of  free  motion-picture  programs  on  the 
mornings  of  the  same  Saturdays  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Raymond  Foundation. 

A  section  of  the  Theatre  seats  for  the 
adult  lectures  is  reserved  for  Members  of 
the  Museum  until  2:25  p.m. 

Following  are  the  programs: 

October  6 — Minnesota 

Fran  William  Hall 

For  the  nature-lover  and  the  sportsman 
few  areas  anywhere  have  as  much  to  offer 
as  "the  land  of  10,000  lakes" — Minnesota. 
The  awe-inspiring  scenic  beauties,  the  in- 
finite variety  of  birds  and  other  animals,  the 
rich  flora,  and  the  vast  forests  are  brought 


films,  the  islands  greet  the  visitor  with 
displays  of  flowers  and  luxuriant  vegetation 
on  mountain  slopes  that  rise  from  a  desert 
to  snowcapped  peaks  as  high  as  12,000  feet. 
On  the  largest  island,  Tenerife,  noted  for 
its  bananas  and  vineyards,  are  found  the 
weird  dragon-trees  that  are  believed  to  live 
3,000  years  but  of  which  only  a  few  now 
remain.  On  the  island  of  Artenara  a  visit 
is  made  to  a  village  of  cave-dwellers.  The 
islands,  incidentally,  were  not  named  for 
the  singing  birds  but  from  the  Latin  word 
canis  for  fierce  dogs  found  there  by  ancient 
invaders  (the  birds  were  named  for  the 
islands). 

October  20 — Outdoor  Almanac 

Karl  Maslowski 

A  sweeping  panorama  of  nature's  annual 
cycle  of  year-round  activity  is  presented  in 
the  lecture  and  color  films  of  Karl  Maslow- 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
Friday,  October  12 


ski,  dramatic  ace  photographer  and  keen 
naturalist.  In  "Outdoor  Almanac"  the 
audience  is  permitted  to  follow  in  close 
intimacy  the  season-to-season  life  of  a  family 
of  raccoons,  a  fawn  deer  growing  to  buck- 
hood,  playful  fox-cubs,  bats,  and  humming- 
birds and  also  the  life  cycle  of  flowers  and 
other  plants.  Just  as  our  own  lives  and 
activities  differ  around  the  calendar,  the 
changes  that  spring,  summer,  autumn,  and 
winter  bring  to  creatures  and  plants  are 
revealed  in  Maslowski's  unusual  filmed 
document. 

October  27— Call  of  the  Sea 

John  D.  Craig 

Many  people  may  travel  the  world  over, 
but  few  are  privileged  to  see  the  bottom  of 
the  sea  with  its  weird  and  mysterious  forms 
of  life.  But  now,  through  the  daring  of 
John  D.  Craig,  author  of  Danger  Is  My 
Business,  and  by  magic  of  underwater  color- 
photography,  all  may  share  in  the  thrills  of 
expert  deepsea  divers.  Craig's  film  and 
lecture  cover  most  aspects  of  sea-life. 
Record  dives  are  made,  shipwrecks  are 
explored  in  their  burial-places — freak  fishes 
are  found  and  whales  are  hunted.  There 
is  a  ride  on  the  back  of  a  giant  manta- 
ray  and  a  game  of  tag  with  sea-elephants 
in  the  ocean  depths.  The  audience  will 
participate  in  the  thrill  of  shooting  a  tre- 
mendous thirty-foot  surf  and  roaming  silent 
kelp  forests  deep  in  the  blue  water. 

November  3 — Thrills  on  the  Colorado 

Julian  Gromer 

Action  of  this  film  and  story,  as  told  by 
Gromer,  begins  with  harnessing  fifteen 
huskies  to  a  sledge  that  takes  to  the  trail 
from  high  in  snow-covered  mountains  of 
Colorado.  The  journey  along  the  Colorado 
River  is  picked  up  at  the  source  in  Rocky 
Mountain  National  Park,  whence  the  river 
hurries  on  its  way  to  Shadow  Mountain 
and  the  Grand  Lakes.  At  Hite,  Utah,  huge 
stacks  of  supplies  are  loaded  aboard  rubber 
rafts,  and  for  the  next  two  weeks  the  ex- 
ploring party  is  on  the  canyon-bound  river 
where  there  is  no  turning  back.  Remote 
wonders  are  explored  along  the  banks,  and 
quicksands  and  rapids  add  to  the  thrills. 

November  10 — Adventure  in  Africa 

Murl  Deusing 

The  day-to-day  activities  of  eleven  lions 
in  the  wild  on  the  Serengeti  Plains,  as 
recorded  on  color-film  by  Murl  Deusing  and 
his  wife  who  lived  near  the  animals  for  many 
days,  are  a  feature  of  this  lecture.  Many 
other  adventures  are  packed  into  this  story 
of  four  months  and  10,000  miles  of  safari  in 
the  African  veld  and  jungle.  The  Deusings 
captured  giraffes  and  zebras  and  recorded 
the  seldom-heard  voice  of  the  giraffe.  They 
faced  charges  of  mad  elephants  and  rhinos 
as  they  calmly  kept  their  cameras  grinding. 
They  risked  their  lives  making  close-ups  of 
poisonous  puff  adders  and  spitting  cobras. 


October,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


November  17 — Mediterranean  Isles 

Herbert  Knapp 

Lodging  with  all  meals  included,  from  65 
cents  to  5  dollars  a  day,  and  potatoes  at 
1  cent  a  pound!  Yes,  these  are  1956  prices 
in  the  Paradise-like  isle  of  Mallorca  says 
Herbert  Knapp,  who  brings  color  films  of 
this  and  other  islands  that  dot  the  blue  of 
the  Mediterranean.  He  describes  Mal- 
lorca as  a  beauty  spot  that  holds  the  answer 
for  jaded  nerves  and  battered  budgets.  His 
lecture  and  films  take  his  audience  also  to 
Sicily,  Corsica,  Crete,  Corfu,  Rhodes,  and 
Malta — some  of  them  ancient,  all  of  them 
garden  spots  of  the  modern  world,  and 
certain  of  them  tension  spots  of  history 
currently  in  the  making. 

November  24 — River  of  the  Crying  Bird 

Allan  Cruickshank 

In  Florida  a  beautiful  river  flows  south- 
ward to  the  sea.  Called  the  Wakulla,  an 
Indian  word  for  "mysterious  water,"  it  is 
a  river  of  the  crying  bird — where  the 
limpkin  wails  a  kind  of  music  as  truly 
Dixieland  as  that  of  Basin  Street.  It  is  this 
river  with  its  many  wildlife  wonders  that 
noted  naturalist  Allan  Cruickshank  has 
filmed  in  all  its  marvelous  color.  The  river 
begins  twenty  miles  south  of  Tallahassee  and 
flows  out  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  with  many 
of  its  miles  bordered  by  a  wilderness  of 
cypress  knees  and  moss-draped  trees  in- 
habited by  the  American  egret,  alligators, 
and  the  anhinga  or  snake-bird. 


COLLECTING    IN    THE    BORNEO    RAIN    FORESTS 


RESERVED  SEATS 

FOR  MEMBERS 

No  tickets  are  necessary  for  ad- 
mission to  these  lectures.  A  sec- 
tion of  the  Theatre  is  allocated  to 
Members  of  the  Museum,  each  of 
whom  is  entitled  to  two  reserved 
seats.  Requests  for  these  seats 
should  be  made  in  advance  by 
telephone  (W Abash  2-9410)  or  in 
writing,  and  seats  will  be  held  in 
the  Member's  name  until  2:25 
o'clock  on  the  lecture  day. 


Daily  Guide  Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons  by  advance  request. 

Although  there  are  no  tours  on  Sundays, 
the  Museum  is  open  from  9  a.m.  to  5  P.M. 


By  ROBERT  F.  INGER 

CURATOR  OF  AMPHIBIANS  AND  REPTILES 

THE  BORNEO  Zoological  Expedition  of 
1956  ceased  operations  in  the  field  on 
August  20.  On  that  day  the  last  boxes  were 
locked  and  banded,  the  last  cans  soldered 
shut,  and  the  whole  shipment  turned  over 
to  a  steamship  company  in  Kuching,  Sara- 
wak. I  had  spent  the  five  preceding  months 
in  North  Borneo  and  Sarawak  (both  British 
colonies)  collecting  frogs  and  toads,  lizards, 
snakes,  turtles,  fresh-water  fishes,  and  mam- 
mals. In  that  time  about  40  snakes,  200 
lizards,  1,000  frogs  and  toads,  and  several 
thousand  fishes  were  obtained. 

One  of  the  aims  of  the  expedition  was  to 
learn  as  much  as  possible  about  the  lives  of 
the  animals.  What  are  their  relations  with 
one  another?  What  do  they  eat?  Exactly 
what  sorts  of  places  do  they  live  in?  At 
what  times  are  they  active?  To  answer  such 
questions  a  great  many  kinds  of  observa- 
tions are  needed.  Therefore  the  notebooks 
that  were  filled  are  as  important  as  the 
specimens  collected.  Detailed  information 
on  the  habitat  of  each  animal,  notes  on  food 
and  activities,  des- 
criptions of  the  areas 
worked,  and  observa- 
tions on  weather  were 
all  recorded. 

For  the  weather- 
conscious  readers  of 
the  Bulletin,  the 
weather  in  Borneo  was 
fine.  Perhaps  it  was 
a  little  damp,  but  not 
excessively  so.  The 
average  rainfall  dur- 
ing my  stay  there  was 
6  inches  per  month. 
At  midafternoon  the 
temperature  usually 
reached  85  to  95  de- 
grees but  fell  to  80  or 
below  by  9  p.m.,  with 
a  low  of  70  to  75  in 
the  early  morning 
hours.  The  relative 
humidity  was  rather 
high.    At  6  a.m.  it  was 

90  to  95  per  cent,  dropping  to  50  to  70  per 
cent  at  midday  and  climbing  to  90  to  95 
per  cent  by  nightfall. 

Two  of  the  field  bases  were  in  eastern 
North  Borneo  approximately  100  miles  from 
the  bases  used  by  the  Borneo  Zoological 
Expedition  of  1950,  of  which  I  was  a  mem- 
ber. Study  of  the  material  obtained  in  1950 
pointed  to  the  necessity  of  working  in  the 
areas  chosen  this  year.  But,  had  it  not  been 
for  a  revolution  in  communications  in  the 
intervening  six  years,  these  bases  could  not 


have  been  reached.  In  1950  no  boats  were 
available  for  transportation  up  rivers,  in 
contrast  to  present  availability.  In  fact,  far 
in  the  interior  of  Sarawak  so  many  of  the 
Dyaks  now  have  outboard  motors  that  the 
river  sounds  like  one  of  our  own  summer 
resorts. 

Since  there  are  many  tribes  of  natives  in 
Borneo,  the  people  I  employed  varied  from 
one  field  base  to  the  next.  For  example,  in 
North  Borneo  people  known  as  Dusuns 
worked  for  me.  At  Matang,  Sarawak,  my 
assistants  were  Land  Dyaks,  while  up  the 
Rejang  River  in  Sarawak  they  were  Sea 
Dyaks  (more  properly  known  as  Ibans). 
Though  each  tribe  has  its  own  language, 
most  of  the  people  speak  Malay.  If 
a  stranger  (like  myself)  works  alone  in 
Borneo,  he  must  conduct  his  business  in 
Malay.  Fortunately  it  is  a  relatively  easy 
language  to  learn. 

The  second  zoological  expedition  to  Borneo 
was,  if  anything,  more  interesting  than  the 
first.  The  advantages  of  working  in  a  par- 
ticular area  twice  can  scarcely  be  over- 
estimated.   Indeed  Dr.  Wilfred  H.  Osgood, 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
Friday,  October  12 


FIELD  LABORATORY  IN  BORNEO 

Expedition  camp  is  a  place  for  skinning,  tagging,  and  preserving  specimens  and 

for  writing  copious  notes  as  well  as  for  sleeping  and  eating.    The  working  day 

of  Dr.  Robert  F.  Inger  and  his  Iban  assistant,  Gaun,  often  ran  to  16  hours. 


who  was  Chief  Curator  of  Zoology  until 
1940,  was  so  impressed  with  this  fact 
that  he  coined  an  aphorism  that  the  staff 
of  the  Department  of  Zoology  swears  by: 
"Never  go  anywhere  for  the  first  time." 

Any  region  of  tropical  rain  forest  is  so  rich 
from  the  biologist's  point  of  view  that  one's 
first  trip  to  a  place  like  Borneo  passes  in 
a  kaleidoscope  of  sights,  sounds,  and  smells. 
The  luxuriance  of  the  vegetation  and  the 
wealth  of  animal  types  are  almost  over- 
whelming. It  is  literally  a  case  of  not  being 
able  to  see  the  forest  for  the  trees.  But, 
given  several  years  in  which  to  digest  the 
experiences  and  to  study  the  specimens 
(Continued  on  page  8,  column  3) 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


October,  1956 


INTERNATIONAL  WEEK- 

(Continued  from  page  2) 
material  received  in  exchange  last  year  in 
the  Department  of  Zoology  includes  the 
names  of  institutions  in  England,  Kenya 
Colony,  India,  Israel,  Belgium,  Buenos 
Aires,  Mexico,  Durban,  Netherlands,  Philip- 
pine Islands,  and  Pennsylvania. 

Hundreds  of  natural-science  publications 
are  received  throughout  the  year  on  an 
exchange  basis  by  the  Museum's  Library. 
While  wars  and  depressions  temporarily 
curtail  and  sometimes  halt  exchange  activi- 
ties, the  hunger  for  scientific  knowledge 
goes  on  unappeased.  Recently  exchange 
relations  with  four  countries  behind  the 
iron  curtain — the  USSR  itself  and  Czecho- 
slovakia, Poland,  and  Austria — were  re- 
established, and  others  soon  may  follow. 
Our  Museum,  through  exchange  with  in- 
stitutions and  individuals  last  year,  distri- 
buted 12,737  copies  of  its  own  publications. 
This  year  the  number  is  likely  to  increase. 

In  the  Museum  the  hall  that  most  typifies 
the  spirit  of  International  Museum  Week 
is  the  Hall  of  the  Races  of  Mankind  (Chaun- 


MUSEUM  MEMBERS'  NIGHT 
Friday,  October  12 


cey  Keep  Memorial  Hall,  Hall  3)  where 
a  series  of  96  bronze  and  four  stone  sculp- 
tures illustrates  representative  types  of 
living  races  of  man.  The  sculptures, 
modeled  from  life  by  Malvina  Hoffman, 
are  arranged  in  geographical  order  by 
continents:  the  west  end  of  the  hall  shows 
the  races  of  Africa  and  Oceania,  the  octag- 
onal section  in  the  center  of  the  hall  the 
races  of  Europe  and  America,  and  the  east 
end  the  races  of  Asia.  In  the  center  of  the 
octagon  the  bronze  group  entitled  "Unity 
of  Mankind"  presents  life-size  figures  that 
represent  at  their  highest  development  the 
black,  white,  and  yellow  races,  together 
supporting  the  world. 

At  a  time  when  increased  communication 
knits  all  countries  closer  together,  the  mu- 
seums of  the  world  have  a  unique  opportu- 
nity to  promote,  through  educational  means, 
understanding  among  peoples  and  nations. 

— J.  R. 


DINOSAUR  EXCURSION 


Those  successfully  participating  in  eight 
Museum  Journeys  can  become  official 
"Museum  Adventurers."  Under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Raymond  Foundation,  journeys 
showing  Africa,  China,  Animals  Around  the 
World,  Toys,  and  Bible  Plants,  and  a  Post- 
age-Stamp Safari  have  been  given  since  the 
program  began  early  last  year. 


Winter  Visiting  Hours  to  Begin 

Winter  visiting  hours,  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m., 
will  go  into  effect  at  the  Museum  on  October 
15.    Sunday  hours:  9  A.M.-5  p.m. 


Pausing  on  the  first  lap  of  their  journey 
to  "Dinosaur  Land"  in  the  Museum,  these 
two  youngsters  in  Stanley  Field  Hall  gaze 
upward  at  Gorgosaurus  (a  meat-eating 
dinosaur  of  some  75  million  years  ago), 
which  seems  about  to  devour  his  prey, 
Lambeosaurus,  a  plant-eating  contempo- 
rary. 

Boys  and  girls  can  visit  Dinosaur  Land 
(Museum  Journey  No.  7)  any  day  during 
October  and  November  within  regular  Mu- 
seum visiting  hours.  Travel  instructions 
and  questions  about  the  various  dinosaurs 
seen  on  the  Museum  Journey  will  be  given 
to  children  upon  request  at  the  Museum's 
north  and  south  entrances.  Youngsters 
who  satisfactorily  complete  the  Dinosaur- 
Land  questionnaire  and  those  of  three  other 
Museum  Journeys  can  become  "Museum 
Travelers"    and    receive   a   special    award. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(August  16  to  September  14) 

Associate   Members 

Robert  Buehler,  Mrs.  Edmund  L.  Burke, 
Sheridan  Gallagher,  Mrs.  Spencer  R.  Keare, 
Thomas  W.  McCloud,  Miss  Elizabeth  W. 
Morgan 

Annual   Members 

L.  R.  Austin,  Benjamin  Baldwin,  Carl  E. 
Betz,  Sidney  Buchbinder,  James  O.  Burke, 
Miss  Jessie  Churan,  John  J.  Coffey,  Jr., 
J.  Robert  Coffield,  Miss  Charlotte  A.  Cole- 
grove,  Robert  A.  Crawford,  F.  Schuyler 
Dauwalter,  Philip  G.  Duff,  Mrs.  Daisy 
Earley,  Sampson  Esko,  Nelson  C.  George, 
Gilbert  T.  Graham,  Harold  Graham,  John 
E.  Grice,  Howard  G.  Haas,  Robert  Insley, 
Robert  H.  Lodge,  Philip  W.  Lotz,  L.  G. 
McKnight,  Laurence  W.  Morgan,  Dwight 
Nicholson,  George  Radford,  Eugene  F. 
Ryan,  Arthur  J.  Schiller,  Charles  I. 
Schneider,  Richard  A.  Staat,  Philip  F.  Staf- 
ford, Mrs.  Dorothy  J.  Steitz,  Dr.  Graham 
A.  Vance,  John  J.  Weber,  George  B.  Young 


BORNEO  EXPEDITION- 

{Continued  from  page  7) 
collected  and  the  observations  recorded,  one 
is  mentally  prepared  for  a  second  expedition. 
And  generally  during  the  second  trip  one's 
original  impressions  are  sifted,  clarified,  and 
expanded  so  that  a  clearer  picture  of  this 
terribly  complex  environment  begins  to 
emerge. 

Yet  the  work  is  far  from  over.  The  new 
collections  must  be  studied,  the  new  obser- 
vations analyzed,  and  an  attempt  made  to 
integrate  the  new  information  with  the  old. 
Even  then  the  important  goal  of  under- 
standing the  tropical  rain  forest  will  not  have 
been  achieved.  The  staff  of  Chicago  Natural 
History  Museum  is  too  small  for  that  ambi- 
tion. What  we  do  expect,  however,  is  that 
the  Museum  will  have  made  a  contribution 
toward  that  goal. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department   of   Anthropology: 

From:  Theodore  J.  Shapas,  Dolton,  111. 
— Late  Woodland  pottery  vessel 

Department   of  Botany: 

From:  Dr.  John  W.  Thieret,  Homewood, 
111. — 45  cultivated  plants;  U.  S.  Department 
of  Agriculture,  Beltsville,  Md. — photo- 
graph of  Dutch-elm-diseased  tree;  Uni- 
versity of  Arkansas,  Fayetteville,  Ark. 
— Draba  verna,  Missouri;  Karl  Bartel,  Blue 
Island,  111. — 5  plants;  Bill  Bauer,  Imperial, 
Mo. — Centaurium  texense;  Holly  Reed  Ben- 
nett, Chicago — 944  herbarium  specimens, 
Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan,  Montana;  Dr. 
Henry  Field,  Coconut  Grove,  Fla. — 4  fungi, 
Massachusetts;  Forest  Department,  Colony 
of  North  Borneo — 188  specimens  of  Diptero- 
carpaceae;  Dr.  Duane  Isely,  Ames,  Iowa — 
3  prints  of  Mimosa  horridula  type;  Dr.  E. 
L.  Keithahm,  Juneau,  Alaska — Dodecatheon 
Jeffreyi;  New  York  Botanical  Garden — 
50  Rubiaceae,  South  America;  Dr.  Earl  E. 
Sherff,  Hastings,  Mich. — 512  plants,  Hawaii 
and  Europe;  Mrs.  L.  F.  Yutema,  Wads- 
worth,  111. — 2  plants;  Emil  Sella,  Chicago — 
2  Solanum  rostratum;  Jesse  Strauss,  Glencoe, 
111. — Ornithogalum  umbellatum. 

Department   of   Geology: 

From:  Albert  W.  Tucker  Estate,  Daytona 
Beach,  Fla. — mineral  collection 

Department   of  Zoology: 

From:Bernard  Benesh,  Burrville,  Tenn. 
— 32  insects;  Charles  M.  Bogert,  New  York 
— 2  salamanders,  lizard,  Mexico;  Chicago 
Zoological  Society,  Brookfield,  111. —  bird 
skeleton,  Antarctica;  Dr.  Gordon  M.  Clark, 
College  Park,  Md. — 2  paratypes  of  bird 
mite;  General  Biological  Supply  House, 
Chicago — 8  caecilians;  William  J.  Gerhard, 
Chicago — 786  U.  S.  Hemiptera-Homoptera 
(true  bugs),  United  States;  Arthur  M. 
Greenhall,  Trinidad — fish  specimen;  Dr. 
Arnold  B.  Grobman,  Gainesville,  Fla. — 
2  salamanders,  Virginia;  C.  E.  Heether, 
Skokie,  111. — fresh-water  clam;  Harry  Hoog- 
straal,  Cairo,  Egypt — 144  birdskins,  37 
frogs,  40  lizards,  8  snakes,  6  turtles 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PRESS 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


November,  1956 


Chicago  Natural   History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Isham 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wii.  Mccormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sharat  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L-  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  Harte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  Mac  Minn- Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to    inform    the   Museum 
promptly   of   changes   of   address. 


FRANK  V.  GREGG  MEMORIAL 

In  memory  of  Commander  Frank  V. 
Gregg,  United  States  Navy,  employees  of 
the  Museum  have  established  a  permanent 
memorial  fund  at  the  Museum.  Com- 
mander Gregg,  son  of  Dr.  Clifford  C.  Gregg, 
Director  of  the  Museum,  was  killed  in  an 
automobile   accident   early   in    September. 


A  CURATOR  REVIEWS  BOOK 
BY  HIS  CHIEF— FRANKLY 

AMERICANWATERANDGAMEBIRDS. 

By  Austin  L.  Rand.*  239  pages,  including 
127  full  color  plates;  75  other  illustrations. 
E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company,  Inc.,  New 
York,  1956.    $11.50. 

In  earlier  years  a  richly  illustrated  and 
obviously  costly  book  such  as  this  could 
have  been  published  only  as  a  special 
limited  edition  intended  for  that  segment 
of  the  population  sometimes  facetiously 
referred  to  as  the  "carriage  trade."  Even 
today,  when  pretentious  bird-books  for  the 
general  public  have  become  almost  common- 
place, American  Water  and  Game  Birds 
stands  out  as  the  most  impressive  production 
of  the  year. 

On  closer  and  more  critical  examination, 


*  Chief  Curator  of  Zoology,  Chicago  Natural  History 
Museum. 


the  result  of  Dr.  Rand's  latest  excursion 
into  the  realm  of  popular  bird-literature 
proves  to  have  a  dual  character  of  varying 
excellence.  In  a  sense,  American  Water 
and  Game  Birds  is  fundamentally  an  eye- 
catching collection  of  bird  portraits,  more 
than  one  hundred  in  natural  color,  supported 
by  a  text  of  considerable  length.  Both 
elements,  the  illustrations  and  the  printed 
word,  are  essential  to  the  whole,  but  perhaps 
are  best  considered  separately,  since  of 
unequal  merit. 

The  superior  organization  of  the  book  as 
a  whole  is  at  once  evident.  In  an  intro- 
duction of  some  8,000  words  Rand  defines 
the  scope  of  his  subject,  touches  upon  mat- 
ters of  conservation,  and  indicates  the  value 
— both  aesthetic  and  economic — of  our 
American  heritage  in  water  birds  and  upland 
game  birds.  In  brief,  these  conspicuous 
elements  of  our  wildlife  are  brought  into 
pleasing  focus,  preparatory  to  elaborating 
on  the  several  component  species. 

AREAS   WHERE   BIRDS   THRONG 

Much  of  the  introduction  is  devoted  quite 
effectively  to  a  descriptive  survey  of  the 
areas  and  localities  most  noted  for  their 
great  concentrations  of  birdlife.  Here  one 
learns  with  pleasure  that,  even  today, 
phenomenally  favored  localities  exist 
throughout  the  nation,  several  being  within 
easy  distance  of  our  most  congested  centers 
of  population.  This  section  shows  the 
author  at  his  best,  since  he  obviously  is  both 
personally  familiar  with  the  areas  discussed 
and  well  qualified  to  serve  as  the  reader's 
guide  to  their  wildfowl. 

Each  of  the  thirty-five  chapters  succeed- 
ing the  introduction  is  devoted  to  a  single 
family  of  birds,  arranged  in  standard 
sequence  from  loons  to  pigeons  and  doves. 
A  general  account  of  the  family  and  its 
more  notable  characteristics  is  followed  by 
an  informative  account  of  the  American 
species.  Here,  in  the  aggregate,  is  to  be 
found  a  truly  impressive  array  of  pertinent 
facts  relating  to  distribution,  habitat,  mi- 
gration, food,  behavior,  and  other  aspects 
of  avian  biology.  Technicalities  are  largely 
avoided,  the  author  successfully  presenting 
his  material  in  a  style  that  is  at  once  lucid 
and  scholarly.  He  will  be  read  with  pleasure 
and  profit  by  the  ornithologist,  the  casual 
bird-watcher,  and  the  sportsman. 

American  Water  and  Game  Birds,  un- 
fortunately, is  less  successful  as  a  collec- 
tion of  bird  portraits.  Although  profusely 
illustrated  with  the  handiwork  of  an  artist 
of  distinction  and  of  several  leading  wildlife 
photographers,  the  assemblage  of  illustra- 
tions leaves  much  to  be  disired. 

MANY  COLOR  PLATES 

The  color  plates,  especially — and  there 
are  127  of  these — are  of  very  uneven  dis- 
tinction. Some  of  the  pictures  are  strikingly 
beautiful  and  in  every  way  superior.  But 
others,  and  they  are  in  the  majority,  can 


■THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


A  royal  bedchamber  is  shown  on 
our  cover.  It  is  part  of  the  full- 
size  one-room  "palace"  of  an 
African  tribal  king  placed  on  ex- 
hibition in  Hall  E  last  month. 
The  royal  residence  is  furnished 
from  the  Museum's  Cameroons 
collections  which  have  been  pro- 
nounced the  finest  and  most  ex- 
tensive in  the  world.  The  carved 
wooden  couch  with  zebra-striped 
blanket  was  exclusively  the  king's. 
This  bed  was  forbidden  to  all  of 
his  86  wives  under  the  threat  that 
it  had  magical  power  to  make 
them  barren.  The  wife  sum- 
moned as  favorite  of  the  day  oc- 
cupied the  mat  with  pillow  on  the 
floor.  At  the  left  end  of  the  shelf 
over  the  bed  is  one  of  the  king's 
crowns;  the  receptacles  on  the 
shelf  held  the  bones  of  revered 
ancestors.  This  entire  exhibit  was 
prepared  by  Phillip  H.  Lewis  and 
other  members  of  the  Museum 
staff  in  consultation  with  Mrs. 
Webster  Plass  of  New  York  and 
London,  volunteer  keeper  in  the 
Department  of  Ethnography  of 
the  British  Museum.  Mrs.  Plass 
painted  some  of  the  murals  simu- 
lating native  art. 


best  be  described  as  merely  adequate.  A 
few  are  decidedly  inferior.  Indeed,  a  crit- 
ical viewer  might  strongly  suspect  that 
certain  of  the  color  plates  portray  mounted 
birds  photographed  in  staged  surroundings. 
The  color  reproduction  is  often  faulty, 
although  in  many  instances  this  doubtless 
could  have  been  corrected  by  known  tech- 
nical means.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the 
publishers  apparently  made  less  than 
a  conscientious  effort  to  obtain  the  very  best 
of  the  many  good  color-photographs  that 
have  been  taken  of  these  birds. 

A  series  of  35  bird  silhouettes,  by  Ugo 
Mochi,  serves  as  chapter  headings  and  is 
perhaps  the  most  pleasing  pictorial  feature 
of  the  book.  It  is  further  illustrated  by  40 
black-and-white  photographs  that  are  rou- 
tinely adequate  and  occasionally  superior. 

Although  falling  somewhat  short  of  its 
promise,  American  Water  and  Game  Birds 
nevertheless  has  a  place  in  every  bird 
library.  In  the  opinion  of  this  reviewer  it  is 
superior,  both  in  text  and  in  its  illustrations, 
to  the  companion  volume  Land  Birds  of 
America,  published  in  1953.  With  the 
appearance  of  this  book  Dr.  Rand  takes 
a  long  stride  forward  in  becoming  as  well 
known  to  the  general  bird-watcher  as  he 
long  has  been  to  the  scientific  world. 

Emmet  R.  Blake 
Curator  of  Birds 


November,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  3 


WELWITSCHIA,   LIVING   FOSSIL   OF    SOUTH   AFRICAN  DESERT 


By  THEODOR  JUST 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  BOTANY 

DESCRIBED  AS  A  TREE  that  isn't 
a  tree  and  likened  in  appearance  to  an 
enormous  woody  carrot  or  turnip  or  giant 
octopus,  Welwitschia  mirabilis  Hooker  f. 
occupies  indeed  a  unique  place  among  living 
and  fossil  plants.  Originally  placed  in  the 
family  Gnetaceae,  the  highest  family  of  the 
gymnosperms  (plants  whose  seeds  are  not 
enclosed  in  a  special  ovary),  Welwitschia  is 


Drawing  by  Samuel  H.  Grove,  Jr. 

WHERE  IT'S  FOUND 
Map  shows  known  distribution  of  Welwitschia  mira- 
bilis,  extending  along  Atlantic  coast  of  Africa  from 
Portuguese  colony  of  Angola  to  Southwest  Africa. 
The  plant  was  discovered  in  1860  near  Cape  Negro, 
Angola,  by  Dr.  Friedrich  Welwitsch. 

now  regarded  as  the  sole  representative  of 
a  new  family,  Welwitschiaceae.  This  assign- 
ment is  based  on  new  knowledge  pertaining 
to  this  plant  as  well  as  other  gymnosperms, 
both  living  and  extinct. 

Exploration  of  the  coastal  area  extending 
from  Angola  to  South  Africa  has  disclosed 
a  number  of  new  and,  in  some  cases,  differ- 
ent localities  where  Welwitschia  occurs  (see 
accompanying  map).  Thus  the  total  area 
of  its  known  distribution  covers  about  700 
miles  of  desert  near  the  coast  and  projects 


*  Ten  years  ago  Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 
installed  a  habitat  group  in  Martin  A.  and  Carrie 
Ryerson  Hall  (Hall  29,  Hall  of  Plant  Life)  showing 
several  specimens  of  Welwitschia  mirabilis  that  had 
been  collected  in  the  Mossamedes  desert  (Angola)  by 
Professor  Henri  Humbert  of  Museum  National 
d'Histoire  Naturelle  in  Paris.  For  details  see  Bulle- 
tin, November-December  1946. 


inland  for  about  100  miles  into  the  Kaoko- 
veld.  These  inland  habitats  are  semidesert 
and  have  an  annual  rainfall  of  several  inches, 
whereas  in  the  coastal  belt  welwitschia 
plants  depend  largely  on  nightly  fog  or  on 
dew  for  their  water  supply.  Welwitschia 
plants  tend  to  grow  in  dried-up  river  beds 
and  depressions  because  their  seeds  are 
believed  to  have  been  washed  ashore  and 
germinated  there.  With  equally  good  reason 
it  has  recently  been  suggested  that  the  dry 
winged  seeds  may  have  been  transported  by 
wind  and  left  in  these  depressed  and  rela- 
tively protected  spots. 

GERMINATION   EXPERIMENTS  SUCCESSFUL 

The  life-history  of  Welwitschia  is  also 
better  known  now.  The  plants  are  dioecious 
(with  male  and  female  flowers  appearing  on 
different  plants)  and  are  pollinated  by  the 
brown-red  insect  Odontopus  sexpunctatus 
(a  hemipteron  belonging  to  the  family 
Pyrrhocoridae).  However,  it  is  not  known 
whether  this  insect  is  the  only  pollinating 
agent  and  whether  insect-pollination  is 
obligatory.  After  many  failures  welwitschia 
plants  can  now  be  grown  in  greenhouses  and 
carried  from  seed  to  maturity.  Experiments 
at  Montreal  Botanical  Garden  were  success- 
ful and  a  male  plant  was  brought  to  flower 
after  thirteen  years.  Similar  experiments 
at  the  Botanical  Garden  in  Stellenbosch 
were  equally  successful  where  a  female 
plant  was  brought  to 
flower  after  25  years 
and  set  seeds  after 
having  been  hand-pol- 
linated. Male  and  fe- 
male cones  appear 
about  the  same  time 
(January)  and  seeds 
ripen  in  May.  The 
nightly  fogs  in  the 
natural  habitat  cause 
the  seeds  to  germinate 
immediately.  How- 
ever, some  seeds  fail 
to  germinate  because 
they  are  infected  by 
a  fungus  that  fills 
them  with  black 
spores.  Fortunately 
the  fungus  is  still  quite 
restricted  in  occur- 
rence, and  Welwitschia 
is  not  in  immediate 
danger  of  becoming 
extinct.  Grazing  by 
sheep  in   the  Kaoko- 

veld,  about  100  miles  from  the  coast,  has 
also  been  reported  as  a  serious  local  threat 
to  the  plants.  The  leathery  fibrous  leaves 
containing  numerous  sclereids  full  of  calcium 
oxalate  crystals  must  be  a  rough  diet  even 
for  sheep,  unless  serious  drought  prevails. 

Measurements  taken  of  cultivated  speci- 
mens indicate  that  old  plants,  such  as  the 


female  plant  shown  in  the  Museum  exhibit, 
may  be  hundreds  of  years  old  and  possibly 
more  than  a  thousand.  Because  the  plants 
lack  growth  rings  comparable  to  those  of 
our  native  trees,  welwitschia  plants  can  be 
regarded  as  old,  but  their  age  cannot  be 
determined  by  any  standard  methods. 

Comparison  of  the  two  seed  leaves  (coty- 
ledons) with  the  two  large  permanent  leaves, 
situated  at  right  angles  to  the  former,  shows 
that  these  organs  have  the  same  venation 
pattern,  a  condition  not  known  in  other 
gymnosperms.  Further  fundamental  dif- 
ferences separating  Welwitschia  from  its 
former  associates  are  as  follows:  The  struc- 
ture of  the  wood  of  Welwitschia  approaches 
in  certain  respects  that  of  its  former  associ- 
ates and  in  other  respects  approaches  that 
of  palms  and  other  flowering  plants.  The 
reproductive  structures  are  quite  unlike 
those  of  most  gymnosperms  with  the  ex- 
ception of  those  of  the  fossil  cycads  (cy- 
cadeoids).  Welwitschia  also  differs  from 
the  majority  of  gymnosperms  by  its  complex 
type  of  stomatal  apparatus  (the  minute 
pores  and  adjacent  cells  found  on  leaves  and 
other  organs  through  which  plants  carry  on 
gaseous  exchange  with  their  environment). 
Among  living  plants  only  Welwitschia  and 
its  former  associate  Gnetum  (tropical  clim- 
bers and  trees)  have  this  type  of  stomatal 
apparatus,  whereas  among  fossil  plants  only 
the   fossil   cycads    (cycadeoids)    possess   it. 


PART  OF  EXHIBIT  IN  MUSEUM 
Closeup  of  the  large  female  plant  of  Welwitschia  mirabilis,  as  shown  in 
Martin  A.  and  Carrie  Ryerson  Hall  (Hall  29— Plant  Life).  This  trunk  is  46 
inches  across  its  greatest  diameter.  Exhibit  shows  reproductive  organs  (cones) 
and  the  two  large  permanent  leaves  that  continue  to  grow  from  the  base,  and 
tear  from  the  opposite  end.    Plant  may  live  hundreds  of  years. 


Thus  in  these  two  very  important  charac- 
teristics Welwitschia  approaches  the  fossil 
cycads  and  differs  profoundly  from  other 
gymnosperms. 

OTHER   DIFFERENCES 

In  addition,  Welwitschia  has  a  different 
arrangement    of     vascular    elements    and 


Page  U 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


November,  1956 


lacks  an  apex  (growing  point)  after  the 
seedling  stage,  resulting  in  a  closed  system 
of  growth,  a  condition  unique  among  higher 
plants  and  the  immediate  cause  of  its  failure 
to  grow  in  height.    In  fact,  WelwiUchia  has 


witschia  with  certain  groups  of  fossil  plants, 
especially  the  fossil  cycads,  document  its 
isolated  position  among  living  plants  and 
entitle  us  to  regard  it  as  a  living  fossil. 


t^t 


IH 


COLLECTOR  OF  MUSEUM'S  SPECIMENS 

Professor  Henri  Humbert  of  the  Museum  National 

d'Histoire  Naturelle  in  Paris,  standing  in  Mossa- 

medes  Desert  of  Angola   where   he   collected  Wel- 

witschia  plants  shown  in  the  Museum's  exhibit. 

been  aptly  described  as  "a  seedling  whose 
apical  growth  has  been  arrested."  In  this 
respect,  Welwitschia  has  no  counterpart  in 
the  plant  kingdom.  Another  striking 
character  is  represented  by  the  rather  large 
number  of  chromosomes  (carriers  of  heredi- 
tary characteristics  or  genes).  The  somatic 
(diploid)  number  of  chromosomes  in  Wel- 
witschia is  42,  among  the  highest  reported 
from  gymnosperms.  In  one  instance  the 
count  was  84,  suggesting  that  the  particular 
plant  was  a  tetraploid,  carrying  four  sets 
of  the  haploid  number  (21)  of  chromosomes. 
Finally,  Welwitschia  apparently  possesses 
sex-determining  chromosomes  operating  in 
the  same  manner  as  those  of  the  well-known 


IHIIMUIINHIIIH 


WELWITSCHIA  POSTAGE   STAMP 

An  issue  of  the  South  African  government.    From 

the  private  collection  of  Dr.  John  W.  Thieret. 

fruitfly,  Drosophila  melanogaster,  classic  ex- 
perimental animal  of  modern  genetics. 

A  recent  report  that  fossil  pollen  of  Wel- 
witschia has  been  found  in  Tertiary  deposits 
of  Russia  remains  to  be  verified.  No  other 
fossil  material  referable  to  this  genus  has 
come  to  light.  But  the  many  important 
structural    characteristics   shared    by    Wei- 


TRAILING  A  LOST  TRIBE 
OF  CENTURIES  AGO 

By  PAUL  S.  MARTIN 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ANTHROPOLOGY 

THE  Museum's  Southwest  Archaeologi- 
cal Expedition  of  1956  spent  most  of  the 
summer  preparing  a  new  camp  in  Arizona 
and  moving  into  it.  A  small  house  that  will 
serve  as  our  archaeological  research  station 
and  headquarters  for  the  next  decade  was 
purchased  in  the  town  of  Vernon.  Repairs 
and  interior  modifications  of  the  house  were 
made  and  a  small  unit  for  bunkhouse  and 
storeroom  was  built.  A  small  addition  for 
darkroom,  food  storage,  and  laboratory  will 
be  constructed  next  season.  All  gear  and 
equipment  from  our  old  headquarters  in 
New  Mexico  were  moved  to  the  new  camp. 
An  archaeologist  must  be  a  Jack-of-all- 
trades  and  able  to  do  carpentering,  wiring, 
plumbing,  concrete  work,  and  the  like.  We 
also  learned  about  well-drilling. 

ANCIENT   SITES   SURVEYED 

After  headquarters  were  partly  organized, 
we  started  our  survey  work — that  is  the 
search  for  sites  or  ancient  homesteads  of  the 
Indians  who  lived  there  many  centuries  ago. 
The  region  investigated  occupies  a  portion 
of  the  Colorado  plateau  and  embraces  part 
of  the  Little  Colorado  drainage.  It  is  near 
the  foothills  of  the  White  Mountains.  The 
area  is  semiarid  and  volcanic  in  origin. 
Volcanic  features  such  as  cinder  cones,  about 
500  to  1,000  feet  in  height,  and  small 
volcanic  dikes  are  the  most  prominent 
features.  The  elevation  above  sea  level 
ranges  from  4,500  feet  to  10,000,  the  average 
elevation  being  about  7,000  feet. 

Our  search  for  sites  was  carried  on  in 
a  methodical  manner.  We  first  visited  all 
ranchers,  collectors,  and  local  archaeologists, 
some  of  whom  gave  us  definite  leads  to  sites 
they  knew. 

Then,  by  truck  and  on  foot,  we  branched 
out  farther  and  farther  on  our  own  to 
determine  in  a  broad  manner  the  cultural 
sequence  of  the  region  (750  square  miles). 

By  these  means  we  found  more  than  100 
sites  and  became  aware  of  about  300  more. 
We  took  detailed  notes  on  each  ruin  that 
interested  us,  trying  not  to  duplicate  similar 
types  of  sites.  The  notes  include  such 
information  as  location  with  reference  to 
roads,  land  boundaries,  and  other  per- 
manent landmarks,  the  closest  water  supply, 
size  of  village  area,  surrounding  flora  and 
topography,  the  number  of  rooms  or  houses, 
and  the  kinds  of  pottery  and  tools  of  stone. 
A  collection  of  sherds  from  each  site  was 
made  and  shipped  to  the  Museum  for  anal- 
ysis and  study.  No  digging  at  all  was  done 
this  season  because  all  available  time  was 


devoted  to  reconnaisance  and  research. 

During  the  fifteen  previous  seasons  of 
work  in  New  Mexico  we  had  been  fortunate 
in  discovering  a  sequence  of  civilization — 
the  Mogollon — some  4,000  to  5,000  years 
in  length.  This  long  unbroken  sequence  is 
one  of  very  few  in  the  Southwest  compar- 
able in  length  and  detail.  The  data  obtained 
are  of  inestimable  value  in  studying  the  rise 
and  fall  of  civilizations  and  in  other  studies. 

TRAILING    VANISHED    INDIANS 

However,  "our"  Mogollon  Indians,  aban- 
doned the  Reserve-Pine  Lawn  area  about 
A.D.  1350.  Where  they  went  and  why  was 
unknown.  We  felt  that  our  researches 
would  be  reinforced  and  of  greater  impor- 
tance if  we  could  find  the  heirs  of  the 
Mogollon  culture. 

Preliminary  research  caused  us  to  think 
that  the  Mogollones  moved  north  and 
westward  into  the  country  comprising  the 
headwaters  of  the  Little  Colorado  River 
and  its  tributaries. 

Accordingly,  we  pulled  up  stakes  and 
planted  ourselves  more  or  less  in  the  middle 
of  this  region,  which,  incidentally,  is  almost 
virgin  territory  as  far  as  archaeological 
work  is  concerned. 

The  earliest  evidences  of  man  found  this 
season  occur  on  the  higher,  ancient  beaches 
of  now  extinct  lakes.  These  sites  were 
ancient  camps  and  flint  factories.  They 
yielded  stone  tools  and  remains  of  old  fire 
pits — but  no  pottery.  We  think  these 
evidences  of  habitation  are  fairly  old — 
perhaps  2,000  to  4,000  years  or  even  more. 

The  next-younger  sites  are  pit-house 
villages,  on  the  surfaces  of  which  were 
picked  up  pottery  fragments  and  tools  of 
stone.  These  villages  we  would  guess  to  be 
about  1,200  to  2,000  years  old. 

The  larger  sites,  as  revealed  solely  by 
the  pottery  fragments  picked  up,  became 
larger  and  more  grandiose.  Pottery  became 
fancier  and  there  are  many  more  kinds. 
Some  of  the  villages  contain  a  hundred 
rooms  or  more  and  cover  several  acres. 

The  significance  of  all  of  this  is  that  we 
are  now  certain  that  the  Pine  Lawn  peoples 
did  move  into  this  area,  beginning  perhaps 
about  A.D.  700-900.  One  of  the  fancy 
pottery  types  that  we  picked  up  is  related 
to  types  made  by  the  Hopi  Indians  in 
historic  times  (since  1540),  and  another  is 
clearly  related  to  a  pottery  made  by  the 
Zuni  Indians,  also  in  historic  times. 

Hence  we  have  a  kind  of  "lady  or  the 
tiger"  problem.  Which  people  are  the  heirs 
of  the  Mogollon  culture  or  many  of  its  com- 
ponents— the  Hopi  or  the  Zuni  Indians — or 
are  both  of  them  Mogollon  heirs?  We  are 
getting  closer  to  the  solution  of  our  problem, 
"What  became  of  the  Mogollon  people?" 

The  expedition  staff  included  Dr.  John 
Rinaldo,  Assistant  Curator  of  Archaeology, 
Mrs.  Martha  Perry,  Charles  Lewis,  Roland 
Strassburger,  Douglas  Keney,  and  George 
Dunham. 


November,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  5 


STAFF  NOTES 


MEMBERS'   NIGHT   DRAWS   A  RECORD   ATTENDANCE 


John  R.  Millar,  Deputy  Director,  and 
Miss  Miriam  Wood,  Chief  of  the  Raymond 
Foundation,  attended  the  Midwest  Mu- 
seums Conference  at  St.  Louis,  October 
18-20.  Miss  Wood  addressed  the  conference 
on  "The  Schools  Come  to  the  Museum." 
....  Bruce  Erickson  has  been  appointed 
as  a  preparator  of  fossils  in  the  Department 
of  Geology.  He  replaces  Cameron  Gifford 
who  has  left  for  graduate  studies  at  Harvard 
University  ....  Miss  Eugenia  Bernoff  has 
been  appointed  Reference  Librarian,  to 
replace  Mrs.  Samuel  H.  (Donna)  Grove, 
Jr.,  who  has  resigned.  Miss  Bernoff,  who 
attended  Wright  Junior  College  and  the 
University  of  Chicago,  was  formerly  em- 
ployed by  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  .... 
Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt,  Curator  Emeritus  of 
Zoology,  attended  the  meetings  of  the 
National  Science  Foundation  in  Washington, 
D.C.,  October  19-20.  Dr.  Schmidt  and 
Dr.  Robert  F.  Inger,  Curator  of  Amphi- 
bians and  Reptiles,  participated  in  the 
Midwest  Symposium  on  Systematic  Biology 
in  St.  Louis,  October  26-27. 


KOREA  PRESENTS  PICTURE 
OF  TYPICAL  WOMAN 

Korea  is  again  represented  in  the  physical 
anthropology  exhibits  in  Chauncey  Keep 
Memorial  Hall  of  the  Museum  (Hall  3, 
Races  of  Mankind).  From  last  March  until 
October  there  had  been  a  blank  space  among 
the  illuminated  transparent  color-pictures 
of  racial  types  of  the  world.     The  photo- 


KOREAN  BEAUTY  GRACES  MUSEUM 
Portrait  of  typical  young  woman  of  Seoul  is  presented 
to  Museum  by  Mrs.  Dorothy  Stone  Mills  and  Dr. 
Paul  Chung  representing  Korean-American  Friend- 
ship Association  of  Chicago.  In  center  is  Dr.  Paul 
S.  Martin,  Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology. 

graph  of  two  women  that  formerly  occupied 
this  place  had  been  removed  on  the  request 
of  Korean  government  officials  who  declared 
that  the  exhibit  was  not  typical  of  the 
women  of  the  Republic  of  Korea. 

The  new  picture,  supplied  through  Korean 
government  channels,  is  a  portrait  of  Miss 


"Good  heavens!  I  didn't  realize  that  all 
this   went   on   upstairs   in    the    Museum!" 

This  exclamation  of  surprise  was  echoed 
many  times  over  on  Members'  Night  by 
guests  as  they  explored  the  far  reaches  of 
the  Museum  on  visits  to  offices,  workshops, 
and  laboratories  normally  closed  to  the 
public.  Nearly  1,400  persons  were  present 
at  this  year's  event,  October  12,  the  most 
successful  of  the  six  Members'  Nights  since 
1951.  Host  this  year  was  the  Department 
of  Anthropology.  The  main  attractions  of 
the  evening  were  the  preview  of  a  new 
permanent  exhibit,  the  African  King's 
House,  and  three  newly  reinstalled  halls 
embracing  the  principal  island-groups  of  the 
Pacific:  Melanesia,  Micronesia,  Polynesia, 
Indonesia,  and  the  Philippines.  The  annual 
affair  closed  with  a  film  program  in  the 
James  Simpson  Theatre. 

Sharing  the  spotlight  with  the  featured 


Staff  members  were  on  hand  to  discuss  their 
research  and  exhibition  projects  and  to  show 
new  collections  received  at  the  Museum 
during  the  past  year.  Many  visitors  were 
surprised  to  learn  that  the  specimens  in  the 
exhibition  halls  form  only  a  small  part  of 
the  total  collections  housed  in  the  Museum 
for  study  purposes. 

Mrs.  Webster  Plass,  of  New  York  and 
London,  who  served  as  consultant  in  the 
planning  of  the  African  King's  House  ex- 
hibit, was  present  to  tell  visitors  about  the 
house  and  its  furnishings.  A  booklet,  The 
King's  Day,  a  story  written  for  the  occasion 
by  Mrs.  Plass  describing  the  life  of  a  chief- 
tain who  might  have  occupied  the  mud  and 
thatch  hut  of  the  exhibit,  was  distributed 
to  Members  and  their  friends  during  the 
evening. 

After  a  welcoming  address  by  Dr.  Clifford 
C.  Gregg,  Director,  and  a  brief  talk  by  Dr. 


MEMBERS'   NIGHT  GROUP  'BEHIND  THE   SCENES' 
Dioramist  Alfred  Lee  Rowell  demonstrates  for  Museum  guests  steps  in  making  miniature   restoration  of  an 
ancient  scene.    The  exhibit  in  preparation  will  show  a  group  of  Mayas  dedicating  a  new  stela  to  their  gods 

(Mexico,  circa  A.D.  760). 


events  of  the  evening  were  the  tours  of  the 
Museum,  behind-the-scenes,  where  the 
actual  research  and  preparation  of  exhibits 
are  done  by  scientists,  technicians,  editors, 
librarians,    and   other    Museum    personnel. 


Paul  S.  Martin,  Chief  Curator  of  Anthro- 
pology, a  film  Kapingamarangi,  narrated 
by  Roland  W.  Force,  Curator  of  Oceanic 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  was  shown  in 
the  James  Simpson  Theatre. 


Mi-hee  Yang,  a  25-year-old  resident  of 
Seoul,  who  is  shown  wearing  the  traditional 
holiday-type  of  dress  of  her  country. 

A  formal  presentation  of  the  picture  to 
the  Museum  was  made  on  October  2.  Dr. 
Clifford  C.  Gregg,  Director,  accepted  it  on 
behalf  of  the  Museum  from  Dr.  Paul  Chung 
and  Mrs.  Dorothy  Stone  Mills,  who  repre- 
sented the  Korean-American  Friendship 
Association  of  Chicago. 


'Thunderbolts'  of  Tibet 

Tibetan  "thunderbolts"  with  which  to 
invoke  the  wrath  of  heaven  are  on  exhibition 
in  Hall  32  (West  Gallery).  These  are  em- 
blems of  the  god  Indra,  made  of  bronze 
in  a  form  symbolizing  lightning  strokes. 
With  a  bell  in  the  left  hand  and  one  of  these 
thunderbolts  in  the  right,  Tibetan  lamas 
call  for  the  destruction  of  demons  and 
opponents  of  Buddhism. 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


November,  1956 


KEY   TO    PAST    SOUGHT    IN    LOUISIANA    BAYOUS 


By  EUGENE  S.  RICHARDSON,  Jr. 
and  RAINER  ZANGERL* 

HERE  IN  THE  MUSEUM  when  we 
speak  of  Mecca  we  are  alluding  not  to 
the  home  of  the  Prophet  but  to  a  project 
under  way  in  the  Department  of  Geology. 
In  1954  and  1955,  Members'  Night  visitors 
have  had  a  glimpse  of  this,  and  reports  in 
the  Bulletin  have  told  something  of  its 
story.  In  the  Mecca  project,  we  are  de- 
ciphering the  story  of  the  life  and  the 
environment  of  a  shallow  sea  that  once 
crept  across  and  drowned  a  forest  near 
Mecca,  Indiana,  during  the  Coal  Age  (Penn- 
sylvanian  period,  about  240,000,000  years 
ago). 

Our  basic  information  is  pried  from  the 
rock  that  was  once  black  mud  on  the 
bottom  of  that  sea.    We  have  split  the  rock, 


PALEONTOLOGISTS  EXPLORE   BAYOUS 

This  navigable  channel  through  the  cypress  swamp  is  provided  by  Bayou  La- 
branche  near  New  Orleans.  The  left  bank  is  fringed  with  miles  of  alligator  weed. 


a  black  shale,  to  thin  shards,  and  have 
charted  the  position,  character,  and  orien- 
tation of  more  than  62,000  fossils  and  fossil 
fragments  in  it.  We  have  ground  bits  of  the 
shale  to  near-transparency  for  study  under 
the  microscope.  We  have  recorded  clues  to 
the  depth  of  the  ancient  sea,  its  temperature, 
its  saltiness,  and  of  course  its  plant  and 
animal  life. 

But  to  interpret  our  clues  and  to  under- 
stand what  they  mean  in  terms  of  an  actual 
geographic  environment  that  once  existed, 
we  have  to  know  what  environments  are 


*  Dr.  Richardson  is  Curator  of  Fossil  Invertebrates; 
Dr.  Zangerl  is  Curator  of  Fossil  Reptiles. 


possible.  "The  present,"  says  every  geology 
textbook,  "is  the  key  to  the  past."  How, 
indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise?  All  the 
factors  of  an  environment  are  controlled  by 
natural  forces — gravitation,  atmospheric 
convection,  erosion  and  deposition,  chemical 
affinities,  and  many  others;  and  natural 
forces,  we  are  convinced,  have  nothing  to 
do  with  time.  They  are  in  effect  today,  they 
operated  in  the  past,  and  the  future  will 
know  their  continued  validity. 

SCIENTIFIC  CLUES   WEIGHED 

Thus,  with  a  general  idea  of  what  is 
possible  and  what  is  not,  and  with  due 
attention  to  the  immutable  laws  of  nature, 
we  were  able  to  build  up  in  our  minds 
a  developing  picture  of  the  Mecca  environ- 
ment as  we  went  along.  The  sea  was 
shallow  (because  it 
had  advanced  slowly 
across  a  nearly  flat 
shore);  it  was  excep- 
tionally quiet  (because 
the  black  bituminous 
mud  had  accumulated 
in  undisturbed  sheets 
and  decaying  fishes 
lying  on  the  bottom 
were  buried  without 
being  moved);  it  was 
warm  (because  the 
Coal  Age  climate  was 
warm);  it  was  con- 
nected with  the  open 
ocean  (because  it  con- 
tains a  few  far-swim- 
ming marine  shellfish) ; 
but  it  was  not  a  norm- 
ally healthful  marine 
environment  (because 
the  usual  marine  crea- 
tures of  the  time  were 
not  able  to  live  in  it); 
it  was,  in  fact,  from 
time  to  time  quite 
a  poisonous  place  (be- 
cause thousands  of 
fishes  died  there) ; 
black  muck  accumu- 
lated rapidly  on  its 
bottom  (quickly  covering  the  dead  fishes 
before  they  had  completely  decayed). 

So  far,  so  good.  This  is,  after  all,  a  pretty 
complete  picture.  But  certain  questions 
plagued  us.  How  can  a  black  muck  accumu- 
late quickly  in  water  that  has  no  current  to 
carry  it?  How  can  a  good-sized  body  of 
water  be  both  shallow  and  quiet,  so  that 
wind  and  waves  won't  stir  up  the  bottom? 
Just  how  long  does  it  take  for  bacteria  to 
reduce  a  fish  carcass  to  its  component  bones, 
anyway? 

We  searched  the  world's  scientific  litera- 
ture for  answers  and  found  that,  though 
similar  questions  had  come  up  before,  they 
were  in  slightly  different  context  and  the 


answers  weren't  quite  in  line  with  what  we 
wanted.  So  for  a  while  we  gave  up  looking 
in  the  rock  for  our  answers,  put  the  books 
back  on  the  shelves,  and  set  out  to  find 
some  modern  environment  that  would 
match  what  we  knew  of  ancient  Mecca. 

TO  MISSISSIPPI   DELTA 

Because  Coal  Age  Mecca  was  subtropical, 
we  looked  for  a  region  with  subtropical 
climate.  Because  the  flooded  land  was  flat, 
we  looked  for  a  flat  country,  partly  under 
water.  Because  it  lay  near  the  sea,  we  went 
toward  the  sea.  Everything  combined,  then, 
to  draw  us  to  the  Mississippi  Delta  country 
in  Louisiana  in  thesummer  season,  and  thither 
we  went  last  July,  seeking  a  modern  Mecca. 
New  Orleans  is,  of  course,  a  "Mecca"  in 
another  sense — a  more  usual  sense.  For  us 
it  became  doubly  Mecca.  We  needed 
laboratory  facilities,  and  with  hospitality 
surely  more  generous  than  even  the  fabled 
Southern  variety,  Professor  Fred  Cagle  and 
his  staff  of  the  Department  of  Zoology  at 
Tulane  University  in  New  Orleans  provided 
space  for  us  to  work  and  all  the  equipment 
we  needed  for  exploring  the  swamps  and 
lakes  of  the  Delta  country. 

It  was  with  Tulane's  outboard  motorboat 
that  we  made  our  way  through  bayous  and 
lagoons;  with  their  microscope  we  studied 
the  muds  and  animal  life;  in  their  alcohol 
we  brought  some  of  our  evidence  back  to 
the  Museum.  We  remain  deeply  grateful 
to  many  men  of  the  Tulane  staff  for  guiding 
us  in  the  field  and  for  sharing  with  us  their 
detailed  knowledge  of  the  area.  Dr.  Royal 
Suttkus,  Dr.  George  Penn,  Dr.  Milton 
Fingerman,  Dr.  Joseph  Young,  and  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Cagle,  of  the  Department  of  Zoology, 
freely  gave  us  their  time;  Mr.  Fitzjarrel, 
the  many-talented  custodian  of  that  depart- 
ment, found  us  all  the  supplies  and  equip- 
ment we  needed.  Dr.  Donald  Tinkle,  about 
to  assume  a  teaching  position  in  Texas, 
guided  us  on  foot  into  the  swamps  of  the 
Sarpy  Wildlife  Refuge  and  there  shared 
with  us  a  subtropical  thunderstorm.  Joseph 
Ewen,  of  the  Department  of  Botany,  in- 
structed us  in  recognizing  the  different 
vegetation  of  salt-  and  freshwater-marshes. 
Dr.  Richard  J.  Russell,  Dean  of  the  Gradu- 
ate College  at  Louisiana  State  University 
in  Baton  Rouge,  told  us  of  his  work  in  the 
geographic  study  of  the  Gulf  Coastal  Plain, 
and  Ed  Orton,  of  the  Institute  of  Coastal 
Plain  Studies  at  Lousiana  State  University, 
guided  us  to  Lake  Hatch  when  Dean  Rus- 
sell's description  of  it  persuaded  us  that  here, 
indeed,  was  Mecca.  The  help  and  interest 
of  these  people  were  equivalent  to  months 
of  travel  and  study. 

The  country  to  which  they  introduced  us 
is  very  different  from  that  of  Illinois — or  of 
present-day  Mecca,  Indiana.  It  is  flat, 
lying  very  near  to  sea  level  (parts  of  the 
city  of  New  Orleans  itself  are  below  sea 
level),  the  only  natural  relief  being  the 
natural  levees  along  the  Mississippi  River 


November,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


and  also  those  marking  its  abandoned 
courses.  These  natural  levees,  rising  a  few 
feet  above  the  general  level  of  the  swamps, 
determine  the  location  of  towns,  roads,  and 
railroads.  Thus  a  typical  Delta  town,  like 
the  city  of  Houma,  though  surrounded  by 
miles  of  unpeopled  land,  is  itself  crowded 
and  compact.  Between  the  towns  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  Delta  are  extensive 
marshes  and  numerous  shallow  lakes  of 
fresh  or  brackish  water.  Farther  north,  in 
the  vicinity  of  New  Orleans  itself,  are  the 
storied  cypress  swamps,  large  expanses  of 
forest  knee-deep  in  water,  drained  by  deeper 
waterways,  the  natural  bayous  and  the 
man-made  canals.  Behind  the  city  of  New 
Orleans  lies  large  and  shallow  Lake  Pont- 
chartrain,  its  mud  bottom  rich  in  plant 
debris.  We  had  thought  that  this  lake 
might  provide  us  with  an  analogy  to  Mecca, 
but  we  soon  learned  that  any  wind  stirs  up 
the  bottom,  and  we  had  to  discard  Lake 
Pontchartrain. 

BAYOU    BY-WAYS 

The  swamps,  while  immune  to  wind, 
support  a  forest  growth,  as  Mecca  did  not. 
The  bayous,  natural  drainageways  through 
the  swamps,  are  also  protected  from  wind, 
but  they  carry  an  appreciable  current  that 
keeps  their  bottoms  scoured.  However, 
garfish  live  in  the  bayous,  as  their  remote 
ancestors,  the  palaeoniscoid  fishes,  lived  at 
Mecca;  and  the  bottom  sediment  in  swamp 
and  bayou  is  in  large  part  decomposed 
plant-matter,  as  it  was  at  Mecca.  So  we 
examined  some  typical  bayous,  finding  some 
aspects  of  Mecca  recreated  for  us. 

Many  of  the  bayous,  where  not  kept 
cleared  by  man,  are  choked  with  floating 
vegetation.  The  water  hyacinth  and  the 
alligator  weed,  fast-growing  plants  dangling 
their  roots  in  water  rather  than  sinking  them 
into  soil,  cover  all  untended  water  that  is 
not  too  salty  and  interfere  seriously  with 
navigation.  We  found  that  this  weedy  mat 
will  support  a  man,  but  only  if  he  lies  prone 
and  is  willing  to  be  about  half  submerged. 
Walking  on  it  might  be  possible  with  extra- 
large  snowshoes  (a  feat  that  we  didn't  try). 

Dean  Russell  told  us  of  the  flotant, 
a  unique  type  of  marsh  confined  to  the 
Delta  country.  Here,  the  surface  of  a  lake 
or  bayou  is  covered  by  the  floating  mat  of 
water  hyacinth  and  alligator  weed,  but  other 
plants — reeds,  rushes,  grasses,  and  finally 
dry-land  weeds  and  even  shrubs  have  taken 
root  upon  it,  making  a  well-knit  upper  crust 
as  much  as  two  or  three  feet  thick.  Beneath 
the  flotant  may  be  water  of  any  depth; 
alligators  and  especially  garpike  live  under 
it  as  seals  live  under  the  polar  ice,  and,  like 
the  seals,  they  have  holes  here  and  there 
for  air. 

LIKE   WALKING    ON    A    MATTRESS 

With  Mr.  Orton's  guidance,  we  explored 
a  typical  mature  flotant,  covering  the  surface 
of  Lake  Hatch,  south  of  Houma.    Near  the 


shore  of  the  lake,  where  we  first  stepped 
upon  it,  the  flotant  readily  supports  the 
weight  of  a  man,  though  it  gives  underfoot, 
and  one  feels  he  is  walking  on  a  mattress. 
As  in  the  muskeg  swamps  of  the  north,  if 
one  man  jumps  on  the  flotant,  his  companions 
bounce.  Farther  from  shore,  the  vegetation 
becomes  thinner  as  fewer  and  fewer  shrubs, 
rushes,  and  land-plants  lend  their  roots  and 
stems  to  the  knitting  of  the  mattress.  Here, 
we  found,  it  is  only  too  easy  to  step  through 
the  vegetation  rather  than  upon  it.  Farther 
along,  patches  of  pure  water  hyacinth  and 
alligator  weed  are  found,  on  which  even 
prone  creeping  is  difficult.  In  our  brief 
foray  onto  Lake  Hatch,  though  we  gained 
a  considerable  distance  from  the  shore,  we 
never  did  manage  to  arrive  at  the  open 
water.  No  matter;  we  were  already  far 
enough  out  to  sink  our  coring  rod  into  the 
bottom  for  a  mud  sample,  and  we  were 
persuaded  that  here  was  an  answer  to  some 
of  the  Mecca  questions. 

The  floating  vegetation,  whether  firm 
enough  to  walk  on  or  not,  is  the  most 
effective  damper  of  wind  and  wave.  With 
such  a  cover,  a  body  of  water  may  be  both 
shallow  and  quiet.  Also,  the  cover  is  the 
source  of  the  great  quantity  of  decayed 
vegetation  required  to  produce  a  black 
bitumous  sediment  such  as  that  at  Mecca. 
Lake  Hatch,  however,  is  not  the  perfect 
analogy;  its  water  is  fresh.  In  fresh  water, 
sediment  remains  in  suspension  rather  than 
settling  quickly  to  the  lake  floor,  and  as 
a  result,  there  is  no  definite  bottom.  In- 
stead the  water  becomes  muddier  and  mud- 
dier with  depth,  and  presently  is  a  muddy 
soup,  then  a  soupy  mud,  then  a  harder  mud, 
and  finally  clay.  We  found  that  our  coring 
rod  sank  about  10  feet  into  Lake  Hatch  of 
its  own  weight  and  could  be  pushed  another 
14  feet  with  virtually  no  pressure  before  it 
finally  brought  up  anything  at  all  solid. 
This  was  not  the  condition  in  Mecca,  where 
fish  carcasses  lay  on  a  solid  bottom  and 
where  dead  sharks  sank  head  first  into  mud, 
leaving  body  and  tail  to  the  attention  of 
oxygen-using  bacteria.  However,  if  the 
water  were  slightly  salty,  a  process  known 
as  flocculation  would  cause  the  sediment  to 
sink  rapidly,  and  the  lake  would  have  a  more 
definite  floor.  Thus  a  salt  or  brackish  body 
of  water  covered  with  a  mat  of  vegetation 
would  answer  for  Mecca.  As  it  happens, 
the  flotant  of  the  present  day  cannot  grow 
on  salty  water,  but  it  is  entirely  possible 
(even,  we  think,  probable)  that  a  similar 
mat  might  have  grown  on  the  surface  of  our 
shallow  Mecca  sea. 

THE   TIME   ELEMENT 

Now,  another  of  the  initial  questions  set 
us  to  wondering  how  long  it  took  to  accumu- 
late the  black  shale  at  Mecca.  But  rate  of 
deposition,  especially  under  a  flotant,  is 
difficult  to  measure,  and  Dr.  Russell  in- 
formed us  that  little  was  known  on  this 
problem.     We  attempted  an  indirect  esti- 


mate of  the  rate  of  mud  accumulation. 
When  an  animal  dies,  it  is  immediately 
attacked  by  bacteria,  causing  decay,  and 
the  rate  of  decay  depends  on  the  temperature 
and  on  the  amount  of  oxygen  available  to 
the  bacteria.  Decay  continues,  with  at- 
tendant scattering  of  the  separated  parts 
of  the  carcass,  until  it  is  buried  and  the 
bacteria  smothered;  thereafter  another 
group  of  bacteria,  using  no  oxygen,  takes 
over  and  the  flesh  is  entirely  consumed. 
If  a  fish  carcass  lies  on  the  bottom  of  a  lake, 
the  oxygen-using  bacteria  will  reduce  it  to 
bare  bones  in — but  here's  what  no  one  could 
tell  us — in  how  long  a  time?  a  month?  three 
months?  If  we  knew  that,  we  could  esti- 
mate the  rate  of  shale  formation  at  Mecca, 
for  there  our  fossil  fishes  are  found  in  various 
easily  recognizable  stages  of  disarticulation. 

In  our  experiment,  we  had  to  assume  the 
temperature  conditions  and  the  oxygen  sup- 
ply, and  we  had  to  assume  that  bacteria  of 
a  quarter  of  a  billion  years  ago  operated  just 
like  our  modern  acquaintances.  But  to 
evaluate  the  variables  as  much  as  possible, 
we  picked  several  different  underwater  en- 
vironments in  the  Delta  country.  Here  we 
set  out  dead  fishes  in  screen  cages  to  keep 
off  the  larger  scavengers,  and  kept  track  of 
the  rate  of  decay  in  water  of  various  charac- 
ters. To  our  surprise,  we  found  that  one 
week  was  sufficient  to  reduce  a  %-pound 
fish  to  clean  disjointed  bones  in  water 
ranging  from  79  degrees  to  over  100  degrees 
and  with  a  variation  in  saltiness  from  a 
brackish  coastal  lagoon  to  the  nearly  fresh 
water  of  a  cypress  swamp.  Apparently  our 
variables  of  temperature  and  salt  were  not 
highly  critical.  At  the  present  time,  we 
have  other  fishes  being  observed  for  us  by 
co-operators  in  Massachusetts,  Idaho,  and 
Illinois.  Early  returns  show  that  in  these 
appreciably  cooler  waters  the  decay  rate  is 
much  slower  than  in  Louisiana,  as  one 
might  expect. 

The  surprisingly  consistent  results  of  the 
fish-rotting  experiments  in  the  South  give 
us  a  means  of  estimating  how  long  it  took 
for  enough  black  sediment  to  settle  on  the 
Mecca  fishes  to  prevent  further  disarticu- 
lation and  scattering  of  the  bones,  and  thus 
how  long  it  took  to  form  the  shale. 

So,  by  means  of  an  expedition  to  an  area 
without  fossils — and  where  we  didn't  even 
look  for  any — we  have  found  answers,  and 
guideposts  to  answers,  for  questions  con- 
cerning fossils  from  long  ago.  Truly  the 
Present  is  the  Key  to  the  Past. 


Daily  Guide-Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  P.M.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2 :30  p.m.  on  Saturday. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


November,  1956 


FOUR  MORE  FILM-LECTURES 
IN  MUSEUM  THEATRE 

Four  more  Saturday  afternoons  of  travel 
via  color  motion-pictures  and  the  lectures 
of  explorers  await  Museum  audiences  in 
November.  These  remaining  programs  of 
the  autumn  season,  provided  by  the  Edward 
E.  Ayer  Lecture  Foundation  Fund,  will  be 
given  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the 
Museum,  and  all  will  begin  at  2:30  p.m. 
Admittance  is  restricted  to  adults  because 
of  the  limits  of  accommodations,  but  free 
programs  of  movies  for  children  are  pre- 
sented on  the  mornings  of  the  same  Satur- 
days under  the  auspices  of  the  Raymond 
Foundation. 

No  tickets  are  necessary  for  admission 
to  these  lectures.  A  section  of  the 
Theatre  is  allocated  to  Members  of  the 
Museum,  each  of  whom  is  entitled  to 
two  reserved  seats.  Requests  for  these 
seats  should  be  made  in  advance  by 
telephone  (WAbash  2-9410)  or  in  writ- 
ing, and  seats  will  be  held  in  the  Mem- 
ber's name  until  2:25  o'clock  on  the 
lecture  day. 

Following  are  the  programs  for  adults: 

November  3 — Thrills  on  the  Colorado 

Julian  Gromer 
November  10 — Adventure  in  Africa 

Murl  Deusing 
November  17 — Mediterranean  Isles 

Herbert  Knapp 
November  24 — River  of  the  Crying  Bird 

Allan  Cruickshank 


AFRICAN  KING'S  HOUSE 


MOVIES  FOR  CHILDREN 
DURING  NOVEMBER 

The  autumn  series  of  free  movies  for 
children  will  continue  on  Saturday  mornings 
through  November.  The  programs,  pro- 
vided by  the  James  Nelson  and  Anna  Louise 
Raymond  Foundation,  begin  at  10:30  A.M. 
and  are  given  in  the  James  Simpson  Theatre 
of  the  Museum.  No  tickets  are  needed,  and 
children  are  welcome  to  come  alone,  ac- 
companied by  adults,  or  in  groups.  Dates 
and  titles  follow: 

November  3 — Prehistoric  Times 

Strange  undersea  life;  also  dinosaurs,  mam- 
moths, saber-tooth  cats,  and  prehistoric 
hunters  and  artists 

Also  a  cartoon 
November  10 — Adventure  in  Africa 

A  four-month  and  10,000-mile  safari 
Story  by  Murl  Deusing 

November  17 — The  Great  Adventure 

Two  boys'  adventures  on  a  Swedish  farm 
(Arne  Sucksdorff  s  nature  masterpiece) 

November  24 — 'Gatorland 

Into  the  cypress  swamps  of  Dixieland 
Story  by  Allen  Cruickshank 


Photograph  shows  exterior  of  "palace" 
of  mud  with  thatched  roof  and  bamboo  doors 
used  by  a  tribal  king  in  the  Cameroons 
grasslands.  This  full-size  reproduction  has 
been  installed  in  Hall  E  of  the  Museum. 
Especially  notable  are  the  intricately  carved 
wooden  door  posts.  The  figures  on  these 
have  many  subtle  symbolical  implications. 
A  peek  into  the  interior  of  the  royal  residence 
is  afforded  by  the  picture  on  our  cover. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department    of    Anthropology: 

From:  Transvaal  Museum,  Union  of 
South  Africa — 15  casts  of  human  skeletal 
material 

Department    of   Botany: 

From:  American  Nurseryman,  Chicago — 
Caesalpinia  Gilliesii,  Missouri;  American 
Spice  Trade  Association,  Chicago — samples 
of  32  spices  and  condiments;  Henry  F. 
Dunbar,  Kingston,  N.  Y. — Asclepias  syriaca 
var.  kansana;  C.  E.  Hansen,  Chicago — 
3  plants;  Nellie  Haynie,  Villa  Park,  111. — 
2  plants;  Lincoln  Park  Conservatory, 
Chicago — 2  plants;  Dr.  Dwight  Moore, 
Fayetteville,  Ark. — 5  plants;  Juan  V. 
Poncho,  Chicago — 18  plants,  Philippines; 
Mrs.  Lauramarie  Scharlett,  Norwalk,  Calif. 
— Sterculia  villosa;  Dr.  Karl  P.  Schmidt, 
Homewood,  111.— 19  plants;  Mrs.  Ellen  T. 
Smith,  Lake  Forest,  111. — Pterospora  andro- 
medea,  Ontario,  Canada;  Dr.  John  W. 
Thieret,  Homewood,  111. — 33  plants;  Vau- 
ghan's  Seed  Co.,  Chicago — Calendula  of- 
ficinalis var.  prolifera,  Europe 

Department   of   Geology: 

From  Indiana  University,  Bloomington 
— fossil  insect;  Maidi  Wiebe,  Maywood,  111. 
— specimen  of  Pennsylvanian  trilobite 

Department   of   Zoology: 

From:  Harry  Hoostraal,  Cairo,  Egypt — 
265  mammals;  Morris  K.  Jacobson,  Rocka- 
way,  N.  Y. — five  lots  of  inland  shells,  Peru; 
Jack  P.  Moyer,  Hamilton,  N.  Y. — 2  mam- 
mals, Japan;  Museo  Argentino  de  Ciencias 
Naturales,  Buenos  Aires — 15  cricetine  ro- 
dents; Col.  Richard  B.  Stith,  Lacon,  111. — 
trumpeter  swan,  North  America;  Iraq 
Natural  History  Museum — jackal  skeleton; 
Miguel  A.  Klappenbach,  Montevido,  Uru- 
guay— 83  land-shells,  Brazil;  James  G. 
McMillan,  Winnetka,  111. — walking-stick 
insect 


AUDUBON  SCREEN-TOUR 
ON  NOVEMBER  18 

The  Illinois  Audubon  Society  will  present 
the  second  of  its  1956-57  screen-tours  in  the 
James  Simpson  Theatre  of  the  Museum  on 
Sunday  afternoon,  November  18,  at  2:30 
o'clock.  The  lecture  and  color  films,  under 
the  title  "Cypress  Kingdom,"  will  be  pre- 
sented by  Alexander  Sprunt,  Jr.,  noted 
naturalist  of  the  National  Audubon  Society. 

Sprunt  will  lead  his  audience  into  wooded 
labyrinths  of  the  South  that  rank  among  the 
most  mysterious  of  all  regions,  teeming  with 
exotic  vegetation  and  alive  with  alligators, 
egrets,  and  ibises.  Visits  by  way  of  lily- 
filled  water  trails  are  made  to  the  swamp 
homes  of  the  Seminole  Indians.  Man's 
stature  is  dwarfed  by  the  lofty  columns  of 
cypress  and  strangler  fig,  and  airplants  add 
extravagance  to  an  already  luxuriant 
foliage. 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(September  17  to  October  15) 

Associate    Members 

Miss  Kay  Binder,  Charles  S.  Dunphy, 
Robert  O.  Lehmann,  Guy  E.  Reed,  R.  W. 
Regensburger,  Earl  Ross 

Sustaining   Members 

Albert  F.  Haas,  Dr.  Robert  R.  Hartman, 
Robert  D.  Michels 

Annual   Members 

R.  H.  Anderson,  Herbert  R.  Arnold, 
Lester  S.  Auerbach,  Dr.  Seymour  Banks, 
Miss  Nell  Bartels,  Mrs.  John  C.  Bell,  Ray- 
mond H.  Bish,  Frederick  M.  Bowes,  Dr. 
Charles  W.  Brewer,  William  F.  Bunn, 
Raymond  N.  Carlen,  Miss  Dorothy  Dag- 
gett, Joseph  De  Cesare,  Joshua  J.  D.  Deny, 
Winfield  T.  Durbin,  L.  A.  Ellner,  Max  B. 
Friedlander,  Gordon  H.  Gannett,  Jr.,  Dr. 
John  P.  Graham,  Donald  D.  Grassick,  Dr. 
Ronald  G.  Haley,  Dr.  Donald  J.  Heffner, 
Raymond  A.  Hoffman,  Lemuel  B.  Hunter, 
B.  J.  Jennings,  Charles  A.  Jennings,  J.  D. 
Kelsey,  George  G.  Kolar,  William  M.  Kuz- 
miak,  Oscar  L.  Lancaster,  Jr.,  T.  E.  Lauder, 
Charles  L.  McEvoy,  John  L.  Means,  Mrs. 
Charles  Metcalfe,  Mrs.  Dorothy  Stone  Mills, 
John  H.  Morava,  Carl  F.  Morgan,  Miss 
Etha  C.  Myers,  Harold  B.  Myers,  William 
E.  O'Connor,  John  C.  O'Gorman,  Fred  M. 
Padgett,  R.  W.  Partridge,  Stanley  L.  Payne, 
Kurt  G.  Penn,  Dr.  C.  H.  Piper,  John  S. 
Reed,  Sam  A.  Rothermel,  Werner  Ryser, 
Mrs.  Florence  Scala,  Dr.  H.  Frederick 
Staack,  Jr.,  Harold  Stein,  Ralph  Synnest- 
vedt,  Thomas  F.  Tansey,  Walter  Stanley 
Tubutis,  Jr.,  Edwin  H.  Schell,  Erhardt  M. 
Schmidt,  V.  R.  Van  Natta,  G.  W.  Watts, 
Richard  H.  Whalen,  William  Patrick 
Whalen,  Warren  Wheary,  Jerome  P.  Whis- 
ton,  Gustave  J.  Willy,  Richard  Sidney 
Yager,  William  F.  Zoll 


Ruthlessly  destroyed,  until  in  compara- 
tively recent  years  they  became  extinct, 
passenger  pigeons  are  still  preserved  in  a 
group  in  Stanley  Field  Hall. 


PRINTED   BY   CHICAGO   NATURAL   HISTORY   MUSEUM   PRESS 


\M\}RkJjiiuetin 

IISTORY   t^:  */    ^ 
1USEUM    ®e<x>»a** 


%; 


m- 


Page  2 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


December,  1956 


Chicago  Natural  History  Museum 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Roosevelt  Road  and  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago  5 

Telephone:  WAbash  2-9410 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 

Lester  Armour  Henry  P.  Ishah 

Sewell  L.  Avery  Hughston  M.  McBain 

Wm.  McCormick  Blair  William  H.  Mitchell 

Walther  Buchen  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Walter  J.  Cummings  Clarence  B.  Randall 

Joseph  N.  Field  George  A.  Richardson 

Marshall  Field*  John  G.  Searle 

Marshall  Field,  Jr.  Solomon  A.  Smith 

Stanley  Field  Louis  Ware 

Samuel  Insull,  Jr.  John  P.  Wilson 

OFFICERS 

Stanley  Field President 

Marshall  Field* First  Vice-President 

Hughston  M.  McBain Second  Vice-President 

Joseph  N.  Field Third  Vice-President 

Solomon  A.  Smith Treasurer 

Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  and  Secretary 

John  R.  Millar Assistant  Secretary 

*  Deceased  November  8,  1956 


THE   BULLETIN 

EDITOR 
Clifford  C.  Gregg Director  of  the  Museum 

CONTRIBUTING  EDITORS 

Paul  S.  Martin Chief  Curator  of  Anthropology 

Theodor  Just Chief  Curator  of  Botany 

Sh  ak at  K.  Roy Chief  Curator  of  Geology 

Austin  L.  Rand Chief  Curator  of  Zoology 

MANAGING  EDITOR 
H.  B.  H arte Public  Relations  Counsel 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS 
Helen  A.  MacMinn. Jane  Rockwell 


Members    are    requested    to   inform   the   Museum 
promptly  of  changes  of  address. 


MARSHALL  FIELD 

1893-1956 

IN  THE  DEATH  of  Marshall  Field, 
Chicago  Natural  History  Museum  has 
lost  a  friend  and  strong  supporter.  Mr. 
Field,  grandson  of  the  founder  of  the 
Museum,  became  a  member  of  its  Board  of 
Trustees  in  1914,  a  member  of  the  Executive 
Committee  the  following  year,  and  served 
as  its  First  Vice-President  since  1946.  His 
interest  was  manifested  not  only  in  his 
activity  on  the  Board,  but  through  his 
personal  touch  with  the  work  of  the  institu- 
tion. He  had  sponsored  48  expeditions,  in 
addition  to  the  one  to  Africa  that  he  person- 
ally led  and  that  brought  back  to  the  Mu- 
seum the  splendid  group  of  African  lions 
displayed  in  Carl  E.  Akeley  Memorial  Hall. 
His  interests  were  as  broad  as  the  scope  of 
the  Museum  itself.  He  had  sponsored  ex- 
peditions in  this  country  and  to  all  parts  of 
the  earth  in  search  of  zoological,  botanical, 
and  geological  specimens.  He  also  spon- 
sored several  archaeological  or  ethnological 
expeditions  that  helped  to  round  out  the 
Museum's  collections  in  the  study  of 
mankind. 

His  greatest  single  gift  to  the  Museum 
came  in  the  fall  of  1943  in  connection  with 
the  50th  Anniversary  of  the  Museum,  which, 
until  that  time,  had  borne  the  family  name 


of  "Field."  At  the  anniversary  celebration 
Stanley  Field,  the  President  of  the  Museum, 
announced  the  change  in  name  to  Chicago 
Natural  History  Museum,  noting  that 
members  of  the  Field  family,  including 
Marshall  Field,  had  thought  it  best  for  the 
future  of  the  institution  that  the  Museum 
be  identified  with  the  city  of  Chicago  rather 
than  with  the  family  that  had  been  re- 
sponsible for  its  development  to  a  position 
of  pre-eminence  in  research  and  education. 

Mr.  Marshall  Field  was  a  frequent  visitor 
to  the  Museum  and  was  personally  ac- 
quainted with  many  members  of  the  staff. 
His  personal  encouragement  as  well  as  his 
generous  sponsorship  endeared  him  to  those 
to  whom  was  entrusted  the  responsibility 
of  bringing  the  institution  to  the  front  rank 
among  scientific  institutions  of  its  kind. 

His  interest  in  the  Museum  employees  as 
individuals  made  him  one  of  the  proponents 
of  the  Museum's  pension  plan  that  was 
established  in  1939.  Some  years  earlier,  his 
benefactions  had  restored  full  salaries  to  the 
employees,  after  the  depression  of  1929  had 
forced  a  reduction  in  salaries  as  well  as  in 
all  other  phases  of  operation. 

He  will  always  be  remembered  by  the 
members  of  the  Museum  staff  as  a  genial 
visitor  with  an  unusual  appreciation  of  their 
work  and  a  personal  interest  in  their  pro- 
gress and  welfare. 

— C.C.G. 


STAFF  NOTES 


D.  Dwight  Davis,  Curator  of  Vertebrate 
Anatomy,  recently  gave  an  illustrated  lec- 
ture at  North  Central  College  on  the 
Museum's  Seventeen-year  Cicada  Project 
....  Dr.  Robert  H.  Denison,  Curator  of 
Fossil  Fishes,  and  Bruce  Erickson,  Pre- 
parator  of  Fossils,  are  working  on  a  collection 
of  fossil  fishes  they  recently  brought  from 
Columbus,  Ohio.  The  collection  is  a  gift 
from  J.  Ernest  Carmen,  Professor  Emeritus 
of  Geology  at  Ohio  State  University  .... 
Dr.  Julian  A.  Steyermark,  Curator  of  the 
Phanerogamic  Herbarium,  recently  lectured 
before  the  University  Club  of  Waukegan  on 
the  lost  world  of  Venezuela  and  before  the 
Chicago  Horticultural  Society  on  wild 
flowers  ....  Roland  W.  Force,  Curator  of 
Oceanic  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  recently 
spoke  on  aspects  of  Pacific  ethnology  before 
seminars  at  Northwestern  University  and 
the  University  of  Chicago  ....  George  I. 
Quimby,  Curator  of  North  American 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  recently  con- 
sulted collections  in  the  Milwaukee  Public 
Museum  in  connection  with  his  Great  Lakes 
area  archaeological  project ....  Mrs.  Meta 
P.  Howell,  Librarian,  Mrs.  M.  Eileen 
Rocourt,  Associate  Librarian,  and  Miss 
Marjorie  A.  West,  Assistant  to  the  Li- 
brarian, attended  the  recent  meeting  of  the 
Special  Libraries  Association  in  Chicago. 


THIS  MONTH'S  COVER- 


Marshall  Field,  Trustee  and 
First  Vice-President  of  the  Mu- 
seum who  died  November  8,  was 
one  of  the  outstanding  Benefac- 
tors of  the  Museum.  Many  ex- 
hibits now  in  the  Museum  re- 
sulted from  contributions  of  Mr. 
Field  and  from  expeditions  he 
sponsored.  Two  pages  of  this 
Bulletin  (4  and  5)  are  devoted  to 
pictures  of  a  selection  of  these. 
Mr.  Field  also  added  vastly  to  the 
research  resources  of  the  Mu- 
seum's study  collections.  The 
cover  portrait  is  from  a  photo- 
graph by  the  Halsman  Studio  of 
New  York. 


GIFTS  TO  THE  MUSEUM 

Following  is  a  list  of  principal  gifts  re- 
ceived during  the  past  month: 

Department  of  Zoology: 

From:  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor 
— 2  land-shells,  Aneitum,  New  Hebrides; 
Sister  Adrian  Marie  O.  P.,  Notre  Dame, 
Ind. — 2  stained  fish-specimens,  Minnesota 
and  Ohio;  Dr.  Harold  Trapido,  Poona, 
India — 471  reptiles  and  amphibians,  mam- 
mal, Panama;  U.  S.  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service,  Seattle — 3  fishes,  North  Pacific; 
Fraser  Walsh,  Formosa — 2  birdskins;  Maidi 
Wiebe,  Maywood,  111. — 2  lots  of  fresh- 
water mollusks,  Wisconsin;  Nancy  Traylor, 
Winnetka,  111.— 2  fishes;  U.  S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service,  Pascagoula,  Miss. — 66 
fishes,  Atlantic  Ocean,  off  Florida;  Fraser 
Walsh,  Formosa — 7  butterflies,  26  insects, 
2  birdskins;  Dr.  Wolfgang  Weyrauch,  Lima, 
Peru — a  collection  of  Peruvian  shells;  Louis 
O.  Williams,  Tegucigalpa,  Honduras — 
salamander,  Costa  Rica;  Alex  K.  Wyatt, 
Chicago — 50  butterflies  and  moths,  Mexico; 
Seymour  H.  Levy,  Tucson,  Ariz. — lizard, 
Illinois;  Mrs.  R.  J.  Rogers,  Chicago — species 
of  land-shell,  Miyoko  Island,  Ryukyu 
Islands;  U.  S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 
161  fishes,  5  lots  of  marine  invertebrates, 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Atlantic  Ocean;  Art 
Institute  of  Chicago — 22  bronze  animal 
figures;  Dr.  William  S.  Bullock,  Angol,  Chile 
— £  salamanders,  16  frogs,  20  lizards;  Ray- 
mond Grow,  Gary,  Ind. — birdskin;  N.  L.  H. 
Krauss,  Honolulu,  2  frogs,  Mexico 

Library: 

Books  from:  Archie  F.  Wilson,  Short  Hills, 
N.  J.;  Dr.  Paul  D.  Voth,  Chicago;  Dr.  Austin 
L.  Rand,  Chesterton,  Ind.;  Dr.  Richard  N. 
Wegner,  Greifswald,  Germany;  Alexander 
Lindsay,  Oak  Park,  111. 


Museum  to  be  Closed 
on  Two  Holidays 

The  Museum  will  be  closed  on  Christmas 
and  New  Year's  Day  so  that  its  employees 
may  remain  with  their  families.  These  are 
the  only  two  days  in  the  year  when  the 
Museum  is  not  open  to  visitors. 


December,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  S 


SONGLESS   PERCHING    BIRDS    HAVE    CHARM    OF    DIVERSITY 


By  EMMET  R.  BLAKE 

CURATOR   OF   BIRDS 

A  "SONGBIRD"  that  resembles  a 
pheasant,  a  handsome  red-and-black 
bird  remarkable  for  its  courtship  dance, 
a  colorful  tropical  American  species  with 
a  bill  of  grotesque  dimensions,  and  a  drab 
thrush-like  bird  whose  explosive  call  is  as 


MANAKIN5 


iBWM—j.  - 


'Perching  Birds'  in  New  Exhibit 

startling  as  the  whistle  of  a  Michigan 
Avenue  traffic  officer  are  among  the 
scores  of  interesting  birds  that  comprise 
a  new  exhibit  recently  added  to  the  Syn- 
optic Series  in  Boardman  Conover  Hall 
(Hall  21). 

The  twenty-two  bird  families  of  the  latest 
exhibit  both  complete  our  display  of  the 
world's  "perching  birds"  (Passeriformes) 
and  introduce  several  related  families,  the 
woodpeckers  and  their  allies  (Piciformes). 
Although  the  distinction  between  these 
great  Orders  of  birds  is  not  at  once  apparent, 
being  of  an  anatomical  nature,  their  juxta- 
position in  a  single  exhibit  brings  together 
birds  of  remarkable  diversity,  as  reflected 
in  their  size,  form,  color,  habits,  and  distri- 
bution. As  in  earlier  exhibits  of  this  series, 
the  characteristics  of  each  family  are 
emphasized  by  placing  them  on  individual 
plaques,  these  being  arranged  on  a  large 
panel  in  a  manner  that  suggests  the  relation- 
ships of  the  several  groups.  A  series  of 
maps  shows  the  distribution  of  each  family. 

AUSTRALIA'S   LYRE-BIRD 

The  largest  and,  in  many  respects,  the 
most  remarkable  bird  in  this  display  is  the 
lyre-bird  of  Australia.  Much  like  a  pheasant 
in  appearance,  and  with  a  long  lyre-shaped 


tail  from  which  is  derived  the  English  name, 
it  is  an  extraordinary  mimic  and  has  a  reper- 
toire of  loud  liquid  calls  that  places  it 
among  the  foremost  of  Australian  songsters. 
Lyre-birds,  solitary  and  notably  shy,  live 
in  the  undergrowth  of  wild,  rough  country. 
Recent  studies  have  shown  that  the  unique 
lyriform  tail  of  the  adult  male,  possessed  by 
only  one  of  the  two 
known  species,  is  not 
acquired  before  the 
seventh  or  eighth  year 
of  age.  The  sixteen 
feathers  of  the  tail  are 
molted  annually  there- 
after  and  require 
about  four  months  for 
replacement. 

Birds  of  brilliant 
plumage  and  others 
with  subdued  coloring 
often  are  members  of 
a  single  family.  Di- 
versity of  plumage  is 
especially  conspicu- 
ous among  cotingas, 
a  characteristic  tropi- 
cal American  family  of 
which  one  species 
(Xantus's  Becard)  oc- 
curs locally  in  south- 
ern Arizona.  One  of 
the  most  colorful  co- 
tingas is  the  cock-of- 
the-rock,  a  native  of 
northern  South  Amer- 
ica. The  two  species,  one  orange-and-black, 
the  other  red-and-black,  suggest  miniature 
domestic  fowls,  the  resemblance  being  en- 
hanced by  their  crests  of  unusual  form. 
Females  are  drab  brownish  and  lack  special 
adornments.  Both  species  frequent  humid 
forests  and  prefer  ravines  choked  with 
boulders  and  undergrowth.  In  spring  the 
males  clear  arenas  on  the  forest  floor  where, 
watched  by  females,  they  strut  and  posture 
in  a  nuptial  dance. 

ONE   HAS  A    'POMPADOUR' 

Other  well-known  cotingas  are  the  bell- 
birds,  with  their  ringing  metallic  calls;  the 
umbrella-bird,  largest  of  all,  with  a  remark- 
able pompadour  of  feathers;  the  capuchin- 
bird,  bare  of  head,  with  a  call  suggesting 
the  bawling  of  a  lost  calf;  the  fruit-crows; 
and  the  screaming  piha.  The  latter,  a  gray 
robin-sized  bird,  lives  in  the  lowland 
forests  of  South  America.  Its  shrill  whistle 
has  a  ventriloquial  quality  and  is  surprisingly 
loud  for  so  small  a  creature.  Several  in- 
dividuals sometimes  sing  alternately,  the 
jungle  ringing  with  their  calls.  One  of  my 
earliest  and  most  vivid  recollections  of  the 
Amazonian  forest  is  the  occasion  when  I 
became  badly  lost  while  attempting  to 
locate  what  I  thought  to  be  a  single  bird. 


Toucans,  of  which  three  species  are  shown  > 
are  spectacular  chiefly  because  of  their  out- 
sized  bills  and  grotesque  appearance.  All 
are  restricted  to  tropical  America  and  most 
live  in  the  humid  lowlands.  Toucans'  bills, 
despite  their  size,  are  quite  light  by  reason 
of  their  cellular  structure.  In  some  species 
the  bill  is  tinted  with  yellow,  green,  blue,  or 
red.  Toucans  feed  on  fruit  and  berries,  and, 
at  certain  seasons,  flocks  of  several  species 
may  gather  in  favored  trees. 

Familiar  birds  as  well  as  the  rare  and 
strange  have  a  place  in  the  exhibit,  for  it  is 
designed  to  show  a  cross-section  of  birdlife. 
A  pileated  and  a  golden-fronted  woodpecker, 
both  well-known  in  the  United  States, 
compete  for  attention  with  a  European 
wryneck,  Asiatic  crimson-backed  wood- 
pecker, and  others  on  the  woodpecker  panel. 
Local  birdwatchers  may  be  surprised  by  the 
range  of  size  to  be  found  in  this  family 
alone,  as  illustrated  by  a  piculet  measuring 
some  three  inches  in  length  and  by  a  Mexi- 
can imperial  ivory-billed  woodpecker  that 
exceeds  a  raven  in  size.  Jacamar,  puffbird, 
honeyguide,  woodhewer,  tapaculo,  pitta, 
asities,  and  manakin  are  a  few  of  the  family 
names  that  become  alive  and  meaningful 
when  associated  with  the  examples  now  on 
exhibit  in  Hall  21. 

The  exhibit  was  designed  by  the  Division 
of  Birds.    Taxidermy  is  by  Carl  W.  Cotton. 


BIRDS  OF  VENEZUELA 
IN  WATER  COLORS 

A  special  exhibit  of  water-color  paintings 
of  64  of  the  best-known  birds  of  Venezuela 
is  scheduled  for  showing  in  Stanley  Field 
Hall  from  December  24  to  January  27 
inclusive.  The  paintings  are  the  work  of 
Kathleen  Deery  de  Phelps  (Mrs.  William  H. 
de  Phelps,  Jr.),  who  is  a  resident  of  Caracas, 
where  her  husband  is  connected  with  the 
Natural  History  Museum.  Large  photo- 
graphs of  Venezuelan  scenes  will  be  inter- 
spersed with  the  paintings  in  the  exhibit. 

Mrs.  Phelp's  bird  pictures,  the  originals 
of  which  will  be  shown  here,  have  been 
reproduced  as  illustrations  in  a  handbook 
on  South  American  birds  published  by  the 
Creole  Petroleum  Company. 


Daily  Guide-Lectures 

Free  guide-lecture  tours  are  offered  daily 
except  Sundays  under  the  title  "Highlights 
of  the  Exhibits."  These  tours  are  designed 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  entire  Museum 
and  its  scope  of  activities.  They  begin  at 
2  p.m.  on  Monday  through  Friday  and  at 
2:30  P.M.  on  Saturday. 

Special  tours  on  subjects  within  the  range 
of  the  Museum  exhibits  are  available  Mon- 
days through  Fridays  for  parties  of  ten  or 
more  persons  by  advance  request. 


MARSHALL  FIELD  Gl 


o 


Jade  figurine, 
Colombia 


Temple  gateway  from  Babylonia  as  restored  in  Hall  K 


MARSHALL  FIELD 
49  expeditions  for  Ch 
ral  History  Museum — pro 
than  any  other  man  has  < 
written  anywhere.  These  t 
covered  a  vast  geograp 
""tA    V   3Sl    J  Scores  of  scientists  were  ser 

^L;_^mj?r\        regions  of  Africa,  Madagasc 
\  1  m~^S$E-       East,  Asia,  and  both  Ame: 

SHt  A       JB         nents.   They  collected  mod 

and  fossils  of  creatures 
hundreds  of  millions  of  years.  Their  archaeological 
bared  civilizations  of  centuries  ago.  They  collected  ( 
materials  representing  many  primitive  peoples.  Th 
specimens  of  exotic  plant  life.  Mr.  Field  himself  cc 
expedition  to  Africa  that  resulted  in  a  habitat  gro 
On  these  pages  are  shown  only  a  few  of  the  addil 
exhibits  made  possible  by  Marshall  Field  expe< 
contributions.    Research  collections  also  were  expa 


Habitat  group  of  crocodiles,  Hall  18 


South  American  tapirs.  Hall  16 


collected  by  Marshall  Field,  Hall  22 


Megatherium — giant  ground  sloth  of  Bolivia,  H 


Page  A 


S  TO  CHICAGO 


Gold  figurine, 
Colombia 


Azilian  boar-hunt  diorama,  Hall  C 


;        ■ 


Glyptodon,  from  Argentina,  Pleistocene  epoch 

Page  5 


Page  6 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


December,  1956 


COLLECTING    FOSSILS 
IN  WASHAKIE  BASIN 

Bv  WILLIAM  D.  TURNBULL 

ASSISTANT  CURATOR  OF  FOSSIL  MAMMALS 

THE  Washakie  Basin  of  southwestern 
Wyoming — locale  of  the  Museum's  1956 
Paleontological  Expedition — is  one  of  the 
largest  areas  within  the  United  States  to 
retain  a  character  of  extreme  isolation.  It 
is  a  high  and  very  arid  intermontane  basin 
nestled  among  several  ranges  of  the  Rockies, 
including  the  Uinta  and  Medicine  Bow 
mountains.  The  drainage  is  largely  inter- 
mittent: the  beds  of  the  major  streams  lie 
at  an  elevation  of  about  6,500  feet  at  their 
lowest  reaches  within  the  basin.  Badlands 
are  extensively  developed  in  parts  of  the 
basin.  Although  the  uplands  seldom  reach 
heights  of  8,500  feet  and  thus  do  not  present 
the    phenomenal    topographic    relief    often 


COLLECTING  REQUIRES  PERSISTENCE 
Orville  L.  Gilpin,  Chief  Preparator  of  Fossils,  is 
busy  on  the  tough  job  of  working  a  fossil  rhinoceros 
jaw  out  of  its  sandstone  channel  matrix  on  Wyoming 
expedition.  The  pebble-strewn  sandstone  surfaces 
and  crevasses  40  feet  deep  add  to  difficulties. 

seen  in  "true"  mountains  with  granitic  cores, 
they  do  form  striking  scarp  "mountains." 
These  become  the  more  impressive  when  one 
considers  that  they  are  but  erosional 
features — the  remnants  of  what  once 
were  far  more  extensive  flood-plain  and 
lake-bed  sedimentary  deposits  that  were 
stacked  like  plates,  one  above  the  other, 
and  that  have  since  been  dissected  and 
partly  weathered  away  by  the  slow  but 
effective  action  of  the  wind  and  water. 

Rainfall  amounts  to  only  a  few  inches 
a  year:  the  winter  snows  contribute  the 
bulk  of  the  annual  precipitation.  Permanent 
human  habitation  is  virtually  limited  to  the 
extreme  periphery  of  the  basin.  Sage  hens, 
lizards,  antelopes,  cotton-tail  rabbits,  and 
small  rodents  abound,  and  bobcats,  "wild" 
horses,  and  deer  are  seen  occasionally. 
Historically,  this  is  the  country  of  the  pony 
express,  the  overland  stage  coach,  and  later 
of  Jesse  James. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  country  selected 
for  this  year's  fossil  mammal  search.    Choice 


of  the  area  was  governed  by  several  con- 
siderations. In  the  first  place,  the  Mu- 
seum's study  collection  of  fossil  mammals 
of  middle  and  late  Eocene  age  (about  50 
million  years  ago)  needed  bolstering  and, 
since  many  of  the  Washakie  Basin  sedi- 
ments were  deposited  during  the  latter  part 
of  this  epoch,  it  was  satisfactory  from  this 
standpoint.  A  further  consideration  was 
the  likelihood  that  more  knowledge  and 
finds  of  greater  significance  would  be  apt 
to  result  from  working  this  isolated,  hence 
more  neglected,  basin  than  from  working 
one  of  the  better-known  basins  with  well- 
known  faunas. 

Results  of  this  year's  two-month  collect- 
ing trip  are  quite  gratifying.  The  Museum 
now  has  an  excellent  start  toward  the 
assemblage  of  a  middle  Eocene  fauna  from 
this  locality — a  fauna  comprised  of  early 
members  of  most  of  the  modern  mammalian 
groups  including  representatives  of  some  of 
their  aberrant  side  branches,  as  well 
as  a  few  archaic  mammals,  carry-overs 
from  earlier  times.  The  perissodactyls, 
represented  by  rhinoceroses  and  titano- 
theres,  are  the  most  common  members  of 
the  fauna.  Horses  also  were  present,  and 
small  artiodactyls,  rodents,  and  carnivores 
occur  in  numbers.  Of  the  aberrant  and 
archaic  forms,  uintatheres,  condylarths,  and 
pantodonts  were  found.  In  all,  close  to 
a  ton  of  fossils  in  the  rock  was  shipped  or 
carried  home  from  the  field,  enough  to 
provide  an  occasional  happy  diversion  from 
dinosaurs  for  the  preparation  staff,  and 
fascinating  material  for  study. 

I  was  accompanied  in  the  field  by  Orville 
L.  Gilpin,  Chief  Preparator  of  Fossils.  We 
enjoyed  the  security  of  a  new  field  vehicle, 
complete  with  four-wheel  drive  and  a  power 
winch,  which  provided  us  with  the  best  and 
most  reliable  transportation  we  have  ever 
had  for  field  work.  The  vast  uninhabited 
distances  found  in  that  part  of  the  country 
make  it  imperative  not  only  that  reliable 
equipment  be  used  but  also  that  adequate 
emergency  supplies  of  food,  water,  and 
gasoline  be  constantly  available.  The  new 
vehicle  quite  literally  made  accessible  areas 
that  otherwise  could  have  been  reached  only 
by  pack  trips  that  would  have  been  pro- 
hibitively time-consuming.  It  permitted  us 
to  begin  a  systematic  prospecting  of  all 
faunal  levels  and  to  collect  in  any  area  of 
the  basin. 


Boys    and    Girls    of    4-H    Clubs 
Make  Annual  Museum  Tours 

In  accordance  with  the  tradition  of  many 
years,  the  Museum  was  host  on  November 
27  to  about  1,300  farm  boys  and  girls  from 
almost  every  state  and  from  Canada  as  well. 
These  young  people  were  \vinners  of  awards 
for  excellence  of  achievement  and  came  to 
Chicago  as  delegates  to  the  National  Con- 
gress of  4-H  Clubs,  which  is  held  each  year 


simultaneously  with  the  International  Live- 
stock Exposition.  The  group  was  about 
equally  divided  between  boys  and  girls. 
The  entire  staff  of  the  Raymond  Foundation 
and  other  staff  members  assisted  the  visitors 
in  touring  those  sections  of  the  Museum 
exhibits  that  conformed  with  individual 
interests. 


GIGANTIC  TASK  ENDS, 
AND  BEGINS  AGAIN 

Two  and  one-half  years  of  nearly  con- 
tinuous work  in  splitting  tons  of  shale  from 
a  Mecca  (Indiana)  quarry  in  search  of  tiny 
fossils  came  to  an  end  in  the  paleontological 
laboratories  last  month,  but  the  curators 
involved — Dr.  Rainer  Zangerl  (Fossil  Rep- 
tiles) and  Dr.  Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr. 
(Fossil  Invertebrates) — found  themselves 
only  at  a  new  beginning  of  a  task  that  will 
require  many  more  years  to  complete.  They 
are  now  faced  with  the  interpretation  of  the 
vast  quantity  of  data  assembled  in  the 
gigantic  rock-breaking  job  they  have  come 
through.  From  their  investigations  they 
expect  to  reconstruct  the  story  of  the  life 
in  this  part  of  the  Middle  West  some 
240,000,000  years  ago  when  forests  were 
drowned  in  the  sweep  of  a  sea  across  the 


area.  In  the  photograph  Dr.  Clifford  C. 
Gregg  (left),  Director  of  the  Museum, 
temporarily  assuming  the  role  of  an  honor- 
ary curator,  has  just  split  the  last  piece  of 
shale  and  is  pointing  to  a  detail  on  one 
of  the  slabs.  Characteristically,  Dr.  Zangerl 
(center)  and  Dr.  Richardson  (right)  display 
no  unhappiness  over  the  formidable  research 
task  now  confronting  them.  At  least,  their 
many  weeks  of  back-tiring  work  with  pickax 
to  dislodge  the  shale  from  the  quarry  floor 
and  to  load  fifteen  truckloads  of  it  for 
transport  to  Chicago  are  behind  them. 


The  history  and  culture  of  the  Indians  of 
North,  Central,  and  South  America  are 
broadly  covered  in  exhibits  occupying  seven 
halls  of  the  Department  of  Anthropology 
(Halls  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  and  10). 


December,  1956 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


Page  7 


BURIED  TREASURE'  LEFT 
BY  ANCIENT  INDIANS 

By  JOHN  B.  RINALDO 

ASSISTANT   CURATOR    OF   ARCHAEOLOGY 

ONE  OF  THE  MOST  enjoyable  experi- 
ences in  archaeology  is  the  discovery  of 
a  cache  or  secret  hoard.  Much  of  what  is 
found  in  excavating  ruined  dwellings  is 
trivial — small  fragments  of  various  pottery 
vessels,  tiny  flint  chips,  and  unworked 
animal  bone  that  have  been  scattered  at 
random  through  the  trash  and  rubble  of 
fallen  walls. 

But  when  broken  cooking  pots  are  found 
still  in  place  where  they  were  left,  standing 
by  the  fire,  or  the  milling  stones  still  where 
they  were  laid  carefully  side  by  side  after 
grinding  was  done,  the  archaeologist  derives 
a  certain  satisfaction  in  seeing  how  these 
things  were  actually  used.  From  the  posi- 
tion of  these  things  something  more  specific 
and  intimate  is  learned  about  these  ancient 
peoples  than  that  this  or  that  pottery-type 
or  scraper-type  was  prevalent  during  sev- 
eral generations.  Consequently  this  satis- 
faction is  even  greater  when  the  archaeolo- 
gist is  so  fortunate  as  to  discover  a  group  of 
objects  hidden  away  in  a  secret  hoard  that 
certainly  has  remained  undisturbed  since  it 
was  sealed  up  by  someone  long  ago.  Here 
he  derives  not  only  the  archaeologist's  satis- 
faction of  finding  a  direct  personal  link 
between  himself  and  that  individual  human 
being  of  long  ago  and  the  things  valued  and 
used  in  ritual  or  craft  activities  but  also  the 
fascination  of  discovering  the  secret  loca- 
tion and  contents  of  buried  "treasure" — 
although  the  value  of  the  "treasure"  may  be 
negligible  from  our  point  of  view. 

THRILL   OF   DISCOVERY 

I  cannot  adequately  convey  the  emo- 
tional charge  of  such  an  experience.  The  first 
such  cache  that  I  remember  finding  was 
discovered  in  the  course  of  clearing  the  floor 
of  a  ceremonial  room  in  a  small  ruin  in 
western  New  Mexico.  While  scraping  along 
the  wall  with  a  trowel  I  noticed  a  soft  place 
filled  with  ashy  earth — the  evidence  of  a  pit 
that,  instead  of  being  located  in  the  usual 
manner  out  in  the  room,  ran  underneath  the 
wall.  On  probing  and  digging  this  out  far- 
ther with  the  trowel,  we  struck  into  a  hollow- 
place  that  yielded  in  succession  the  skeleton 
of  a  turkey,  two  medium-size  bowls  with 
burnished  black  interior,  a  small  narrow- 
mouthed  jar,  a  cut-shell  bracelet,  and  frag- 
ments of  turquoise.  These  were  obviously 
objects  of  considerable  ritual  value  that  had 
been  placed  together  in  this  hoard  after 
some  ceremony. 

A  second  series  of  such  caches  was  better 
concealed  but  contained  less  spectacular 
objects.  These  caches  were  discovered 
while  we  were  excavating  a  cliff-dwelling 
located  in  a  cave  in  the  mountains  of  the 
same  area.  It  was  our  practice  in  this  ruin 
to  scrape  off  the  adobe  plaster  with  which 


ISLAND    HOMES    PROVIDE    SECURITY    TO    BIRDS 


BY  AUSTIN  L.  RAND 

CHIEF  CURATOR  OF  ZOOLOGY 

MODERN  MEN  have  written  escapist 
literature  about  their  experiences  in 
"Island  Solitude,"  or  "How  We  Found 
an  Island  Home,"  and  back  in  medieval 
times  many  a  baron's  castle  was  turned  into 
an  artificial  island  by  a  moat  encircling  it. 
But  long  before  that,  birds  had  taken  ad- 
vantage of  the  seclusion  and  freedom  from 
intrusion  and  attack  provided  by  islands. 

The  great  "bird  cities"  of  Bering  Sea 
where  auklets  swirl  up  in  countless  swarms 
from  their  nests,  the  great  colonies  of  gan- 
nets  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
tern  colonies  of  the  Carolina  and  Texas 
coasts  with  birds  by  tens  of  thousands, 
the  noddy  and  sooty 
terns'  nesting-grounds 
in  the  Dry  Tortugas, 
and  the  rookeries  of 
the  murres  off  our  west 
coast  where  the  star- 
tled birds  pour  from  a 
ledge  like  a  waterfall 
— these  colonies  all  are 
on  islands  where  raids 
by  fox,  cat,  weasel,  and 
raccoon  are  unlikely. 

This  island  nesting 
is  especially  important 
for  ground-nesting 
colonial  birds,  where 
a  predator,  finding  one 
nest,  finds  all.  But 
some  solitary  nesters 
favor  islands,  too. 

The  loons,  whose  loud  wails  and  screams 
are  such  thrilling  sounds  in  the  vacationland 
of  the  north  woods,  nest  on  islands  in  lakes 
when  they  can.  Their  distant  relatives,  the 
grebes,  also  like  to  have  their  nests  sur- 
rounded by  water  when  they  can.  Scorning 
the  limitations  of  islands  formed  by  geo- 
logical processes,  grebes  make  their  own 
castles  out  in  the  water.  They  dive  and 
bring  up  water-weed  that  they  pile  in  one 


place,  making  a  sodden  heap.  Sometimes 
the  weeds  form  an  island  and  sometimes 
a  raft,  depending  on  the  depth  of  the  water, 
and  in  the  top  of  this  mound  the  grebe 
makes  a  hollow  for  its  eggs. 

Most  coots,  which  are  aberrant  swimming 
rails,  make  a  floating  nest  like  that  of 
a  grebe,  but  from  South  America  Dr.  S. 
Dillon  Ripley,  of  Yale  University,  brings 
back  a  story  of  a  horned  coot  that  makes  an 
island  of  stones  for  its  nest. 

The  horned  coot,  one  of  the  rarest  of  birds, 
lives  only  on  lakes  high  in  the  Andes.  There 
vegetation  is  scarce  and  the  horned  coots 
bring  pebbles  to  a  selected  site  in  shallow 
water  and  pile  them  up  until  a  low  mound 
appears  above  the  surface.  In  the  top  of  this 


the  coot  lines  a  hollow  with  algae  for  its 
eggs.  The  mound  may  be  as  much  as  three 
feet  high,  and  the  weight  of  one  nest  has 
been  estimated  at  one  and  one-half  tons. 
This  making  of  a  rock  island  for  a  nest  site 
seems  unique  in  the  bird  world,  and  the 
weight  of  the  nest  would  vie  with  that  of 
the  great  heaps  of  earth  that  the  mound 
builders  of  the  Australian  area  scrape  to- 
gether for  their  nests. 


floors  of  the  rooms  were  coated.  In  the 
approximate  center  of  one  of  the  rear  rooms 
this  process  revealed  a  small  cup-like  cavity 
in  which  had  been  placed  a  carved  prayer 
stick  and  some  ears  of  corn  wrapped  up 
carefully  in  a  fragment  of  reed  mat.  Cer- 
tainly these  were  ritual  offerings  to  some 
ancestral  god  of  the  Pueblo  Indians. 

In  this  same  room  a  large  corn  storage-pit 
was  partitioned  off  into  two  bell-shaped 
sections,  one  of  which  extended  under  the 
wall.  In  this  latter  section,  back  under- 
neath the  wall  in  the  pitch  darkness,  I  felt 
a  plug  of  adobe.  I  worked  this  loose  and 
found  behind  it  a  small  cubbyhole  contain- 
ing a  number  of  ears  of  corn,  possibly  seed 
corn,  that  somebody  had  taken  special  pre- 
cautions to  secrete. 


In  yet  another  room,  located  at  the  front 
of  the  cave,  while  examining  the  wall  plaster 
I  noted  a  peculiar  circular  bump  situated 
about  half-way  up  the  back  wall.  I  scraped 
around  this  with  my  knife  and  trowel  and 
thus  revealed  another  adobe  plug.  In  the 
niche  behind  this  seal  were  two  lumps  of 
azurite — a  bright  blue  mineral  highly  prized 
for  pigment  by  contemporary  Pueblo 
Indians.  Furthermore,  the  two  lumps  fitted 
nicely  together  into  what  had  been  a  single 
piece. 

Such  discoveries  are  not  the  usual  ex- 
perience of  archaeologists,  but  we  go  out 
each  field-season  with  the  hope  of  adding 
by  such  means  to  a  more  intimate  know- 
ledge of  how  people  lived  in  the  past.  Such 
knowledge  offers  lessons  for  the  present. 


Page  8 


CHICAGO  NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  BULLETIN 


December,  1956 


EARLY  ENTRIES  URGED 
IN  PHOTO  CONTEST 

The  photographs  you  most  cherish  from 
a  recent  vacation  may  prove  of  interest  to 
others,  too,  and  may  merit  exhibition  and 
possibly  a  prize  in  the  forthcoming  Twelfth 
Chicago  International  Exhibition  of  Nature 
Photography.  The  exhibition  will  be  held 
during  February  in  Stanley  Field  Hall  of  the 
Museum  under  the  sponsorship  of  the 
Nature  Camera  Club  of  Chicago. 

Among  contests  limited  exclusively  to 
subjects  in  nature  this  contest  is  the  world's 
largest.  It  is  also  one  of  the  largest  photo 
contests  of  any  kind. 

Early  entries  are  solicited  to  facilitate  the 
task  of  classifying  the  photographs  in  pre- 
paration for  their  ultimate  judging.  The 
deadline  for  entries  is  January  14. 

The  judges  appointed  by  the  Chicago 
Nature  Camera  Club  are:  Russel  Kriete, 
photographer;  Dr.  Jay  Webb  Lowell,  phy- 
sician and  photographer;  Barbara  Palser, 
of  the  University  of  Chicago's  Department 
of  Botany;  Dr.  Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr., 
Curator  of  Fossil  Invertebrates  at  the  Mu- 
seum; and  Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Jr.,  Assistant 
Curator  of  Birds  at  the  Museum. 

As  usual,  entries  will  be  in  two  divisions 
— prints  and  color  slides.  Prints  may  be 
either  in  color  or  black-and-white.  Those 
selected  by  the  judges  will  be  displayed  in 
Stanley  Field  Hall.  The  successful  color- 
slide  entries  will  be  projected  on  the  screen 
of  the  James  Simpson  Theatre  on  two 
Sunday  afternoons  during  February. 

To  be  eligible,  entries  in  both  the  print 
and  slide  divisions  must  qualify  under  three 
subclassifications:  (1)  Animal  Life,  (2) 
Plant  Life,  or  (3)  General.  Scenic  views,  geo- 
logical formations,  clouds,  and  other  natural 
phenomena  that  do  not  fit  into  either  the 
animal  or  plant-life  sections  will  be  included 
in  the  General  classification.  In  each  classi- 
fication of  prints  and  slides,  medals  and 
ribbons  will  be  awarded  by  the  Nature 
Camera  Club  of  Chicago.  In  addition,  the 
Photographic  Society  of  America  will  award 
special  prizes. 

Contestants  are  permitted  to  submit  up 
to  four  entries  in  each  division.  Photo- 
graphs should  be  sent  to  the  Museum. 
Entry  forms  containing  complete  informa- 
tion on  the  rules  may  be  obtained  by  request 
to  the  Museum. 


CHIEF  CURATOR  ROY  BACK 

FROM  VOLCANIC  STUDIES 

Dr.  Sharat  K.  Roy,  Chief  Curator  of 
Geology,  has  returned  from  two  and  one- 
half  months  of  volcanic  studies  in  Mexico, 
Guatemala,  and  El  Salvador.  In  Mexico 
his  field  work  was  confined  to  Mesozoic  and 
Cenozoic  volcanoes;  in  Guatemala  he  visited 
Agua,  Fuego,  Acatenango,  and  Santa  Maria 
volcanoes,  and  in  El  Salvador  the  volcanoes 
of  San  Miguel,  San  Vicente,  San  Salvador, 


Ilopango,  Santa  Ana,  and  Izalco,  and  the 
cinder  cones  of  Metapan. 

The  most  important  observation  of 
volcanism  made  by  Dr.  Roy  was  at  Volcan 
Izalco  in  El  Salvador.  Last  year,  on 
February  28,  Izalco  had  the  most  violent 
eruption  in  its  history,  during  which  it 
literally  "blew  its  top"  and  split  its  northeast 
flank,  pouring  forth  a  vast  flow  of  lava, 
ashes,  and  cinders.  This  year,  in  September, 
Dr.  Roy  found  the  volcano  appearing  as 
though  nothing  had  happened.  It  has  re- 
gained its  original  shape  and  height  by 
pouring  ashes  and  cinders  over  the  damaged 
area.  Dr.  Roy  believes  that  Izalco's  action 
typifies  that  of  all  other  volcanoes  of  its 
kind — that  damages  caused  by  eruptions 
are  soon  repaired. 


CHRISTMAS  SHOPPING 
EASY  VIA  MUSEUM 

The  Museum  offers  two  unique 
special  services  that  make  Christmas 
shopping  easy.  If  you  use  them  you 
don't  have  to  leave  your  home,  you 
stay  away  from  crowds,  and  you  don't 
have  to  wrap  packages.  Everything 
you  need  to  do  can  be  done  at  your 
own  desk. 

First,  there  is  the  plan  for  giving 
Museum  Memberships  as  Christmas 
gifts.  This  is  completely  described  in 
a  separate  leaflet  enclosed  with  this 
Bulletin. 

Second,  there  is  the  Museum  BOOK 
SHOP,  which  handles  orders  by  mail 
or  telephone  (WAbash  2-9410).  It 
has  a  fine  selection  of  books  for  both 
adults  and  children,  all  endorsed  by 
members  of  the  Museum  scientific 
staff.  It  offers  unusual  art  objects, 
notably  authentic  native  wood-carv- 
ings recently  received  from  Africa. 
There  are  also  novelties,  toys,  and 
items  for  juvenile  collectors.  The 
BOOK  SHOP  will  handle  all  details 
of  wrapping  and  mailing  gift  purchases 
to  recipients,  together  with  such  per- 
sonal greetings  as  the  purchaser  may 
specify,  charging  only  postal  costs. 


Ancestors  Are  Influential 
In  African  Cameroon 

Ancestor  worship  in  the  Cameroon  region 
of  West  Africa  involves  a  special  dance  in 
which  ancestral  skulls  are  placed  in  a  se- 
cluded spot  near  their  wooden  effigies. 
Proximity  to  the  skulls,  it  is  believed,  imbues 
the  images  with  the  spirits  of  the  ancestors, 
after  which  the  effigies  are  kept  in  a  dwelling 
house  and  fed,  treated  with  respect,  and 
consulted  about  the  future.  Other  habits 
and  customs  of  the  people  of  West  and 
Central  Africa  are  illustrated  in  Hall  D. 


EIGHTH  JOURNEY  OFFERS 
HOLIDAY  ANIMAL  HUNT 

Beginning  this  month,  and  continuing 
daily  through  January,  girls  and  boys  are 
offered  an  entertaining  way  to  learn  more 
about  the  meaning  of  the  holiday  season 
when  "Holiday  Animal  Hunt" — Museum 
Journey  No.  8 — is  held  at  the  Museum. 

Animals  associated  with  holiday  stories 
and  legends — from  Rudolph  the  Rednosed 
Reindeer  (whose  other  name  is  the  Alaskan 
caribou)  to  the  dove,  a  symbol  of  peace  and 
the  spirit  of  the  holiday  season — will  be 
waiting  in  the  Museum's  halls  to  be  recog- 
nized and  identified.  A  questionnaire  and 
instruction  sheet  will  be  available  at  the 
Museum's  north  and  south  entrances  for 
children  who  wish  to  participate. 

Girls  and  boys  who  complete  four  Mu- 
seum Journeys  successfully  can  become 
Museum  Travelers;  those  who  complete 
eight  are  Museum  Adventurers  and  the 
recipients  of  special  awards.  Youngsters 
may  take  the  Journeys  at  any  time  during 
regular  Museum  visiting  hours  (9  A.M.  to 
4  P.M.). 


NEW  MEMBERS 

(October  16  to  November  15) 

Associate  Members 

Arthur  S.  Bowes,  Dr.  Harley  E.  Cluxton, 
Jr.,  Theodore  A.  Criel,  Jr.,  Mrs.  Robert  F. 
Dick,  Norman  E.  Johnson,  Dr.  Fiske  Jones, 
Paul  C.  Kimball,  William  C.  Kraus,  William 
H.  Miller,  Mrs.  Langdon  Pearse,  Philip  S. 
Rinaldo,  Jr.,  Dr.  Armin  F.  Schick,  Frederick 
J.  Slater,  Mrs.  M.  B.  Trimble 

Sustaining   Member 

David  H.  Betts 

Annual   Members 

Burton  R.  Abrams,  Irving  S.  Abrams, 
James  Ross  Abrams,  Francis  M.  Anderson, 
Mrs.  H.  D.  Arneson,  Bruce  Baker,  John  E. 
Benz,  Fred  G.  Billings,  R.  M.  Brockett, 
Dave  Chapman,  John  W.  Christensen,  Miss 
Lorena  Clarke,  Dr.  Maurice  H.  Cottle, 
Edwin  E.  Dato,  D.  E.  Davidson,  James  M. 
Doss,  Arthur  Filerman,  E.  S.  Files,  E.  E. 
Foulks,  Mrs.  Silvia  Freudenfeld,  Howard 
S.  Gold,  Fred  L.  Goldsby,  Raymond  J. 
Graham,  Horace  C.  Hime,  Donald  G.  Hodg- 
don,  Walter  P.  Hooper,  Robert  A.  Kellberg, 
Dr.  Joseph  L.  Koczur,  Adolph  Krause,  Mrs. 
Ross  Llewellyn,  Mrs.  Ernest  G.  Loeb,  Roy 
F.  Melchior,  Arthur  J.  Miller,  Jr.,  Henry 
E.  Miller,  Joseph  L.  Mullin,  Mrs.  Arnold 
C.  Nelson,  Jr.,  Paul  K.  Newberg,  Kenneth 
R.  Nixon,  Mark  L.  Patterson,  Lindell  Peter- 
son, Chester  L.  Posey,  Howard  C.  Reeder, 
Jerry  R.  Scandiff,  Miss  Helen  M.  Seelmayer, 
Harry  G.  Shaffer,  Dr.  Sidney  V.  Soanes, 
Lawrence  F.  Stern,  Paul  M.  Stokes,  Merle 
Stone,  Robert  E.  Sutton,  Richard  Wessling, 
Jack  M.  Whitney  II,  Alexander  M.  Wood 


A  stone  age  type  of  culture  that  has  per- 
sisted in  the  modern  world  is  represented  by 
exhibits  in  Hall  A-l  illustrating  the  life  and 
customs  of  Australian  aboriginals. 


PRINTED  BY  CHICAGO   NATURAL  HISTORY  MUSEUM  PR3SS