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AND CONTENTS OF THE MUSEUM

OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

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NOTES CONCERNING THE HISTORY ^-
AND CONTENTS OF THE MUSEUM
OF COMPARATR'E ZOOLOGY

BY

MEMBERS OF THE STAFF

1936

THE TERCENTENNIAL OF THE FOUNDING

OF HARVARD COLLEGE

CONTENTS

Introduction, by Thomas Barbour . 5

The History of the M. C. Z., by George Russell Agassiz . 16

Entomology at Harvard University, by William Morton

Wheeler 22

The Exhibition Collections, by Thomas Barbour .... 33

The Research Collections, by Thomas Barbour 47

A Resume of the Research Collections:

The Mammal Collection, by Glover M. Allen 49

The Bird Collection, by James L. Peters 50

The Reptile-Amphibian Collection, by Arthur Loveridge . 53

The Ichthyological Collection, by Nicholas A. Borodin . . 57

The Entomological Collection, by Nathan Banks 60

The Crustacea Collection, by Fenner Chace 63

The Collection of Echinoderms, by H. L. Clark 64

The Collection of Fossil Echinoderms, by R. T. Jackson . . 66

The Collection of Mollusks, by W. J. Clench 69

The Collection of Vermes, by J. H. Sandground 73

The Collection of Parasitic Worms, by J. H. Sandground . 74

The Collection of Coelenterates, by H. B. Bigelow .... 76

The Collection of Sponges, by Elisabeth Deichmann ... 78

The Fossil Mammal Collection, by H. C. Stetson 79

The Fossil Fish Collection, by H. C. Stetson 81

The Fossil Reptile and Amphibian Collection, by H. C.

Stetson ^3

The Invertebrate Fossil Collection, by P. E. Raymond . . 84

Library, by Eleanor S. Peters 88.

INTRODUCTION

BY

THOMAS BARBOUR

I HAVE put together these rambhng and disjointed notes for the
simple reason that what I have to say does not easily lend itself to a
connected narrative. But information concerning the origin of the
Museum and the beginnings of teaching and research in the several
branches of natural history may, perhaps, be read with interest at the
next centennial celebration of the University.

My friend. Professor Samuel Eliot Morison, who has been prepar-
ing the official history of Harvard College, for the Tercentenary
celebration this year, has provided me with the earliest record con-
cerning the Museum and suggested my examining the early records
of Harvard College published by the Colonial Society of Massa-
chusetts (volume 31, 1935). This is a veritable treasury of informa-
tion.

The first reference which Professor Morison has found is in the
account of the visit of Francis Goelet to "The Repositerry of Curi-
osity." The name Museum was not used at this date, October 25,
1750. Goelet lists a number of curiosities which included "a piece
of tanned negro hide, horns and bones, fishes, skins and other ob-
jects." This was the sort of material which found its way into most
of the early collections.

In 1764 the "Repositerry of Curiosities" burned along with the
library, in the fire which consumed Harvard Hall. Shortly after the
fire a contemporary poem contained the following stanza:

Why could ye not, the fani'd Museum spare,
Unrival'd in Columbia, where my Sons
Beheld, unveil'd by Winthrop's artful Hand,
The Face of Nature, beaudful and fair?

Professor John Winthrop, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and
Natural Philosophy, was evidently the first custodian.

By August I, 1769 the "Musaeum" was assigned a new home,
by vote of the President and Fellows, "That the Apartment on the

5

6 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

North side of the entrance to the Philosophy Chamber be a Musaeum
for the reception of Curiosities belonging to the College," and later,
on March 7, 1771, the Corporation added a new statute, XXIV, to
the existing " College Laws and Customs." This was enacted to read
as follows:

The Librarian shall be keeper of the Museum & shall have a list of the
several articles in it. No person shall go into the Museum without the Li-
brarian or his Substitute unless by the Direction of the President & Tutors,
& none but such as are in the Government of the College shall take down any
of the Articles out of their places, but when any Stranger desires to take a
particular view of any article, the Librarian shall take it down and shew
it him. No Candle or Lamp shall be ever used in it. The Committee of
the Overseers and Corporation who make a visitation and Inspection of the
Library shall on the same day make also a Visitation and Inspection of the
Museum to see that the several articles are in their places & in good order,
and shall make report of the state of it, at the same time as they do of the
Library, that if any article be missing or injured, proper measures may be
taken to procure reparation from the person who did the damage.

On February 11, 1 772, the Corporation thanked John Hancock for
"a curious Corraline on its natural bed," a specimen which I sus-
pect we still have, although the record is far from clear.

On the 20th of May, 1789, the University paid £8 for 80
"crystal bottles with brass tops for the use of the Museum," a drain
upon our resources which, starting as this tiny rill, has since increased
to a swiftly flowing river.

General George Washington visited the Museum in 1 789.

An old diary in the possession of Dr. James Lincoln Huntington
and preserved in the old Phelps-Huntington house at Hadley,
Massachusetts, described a visit to the College at Hanover, New
Hampshire, made by some of Dr. Huntington's forebears in part to
see the "curiosities" owned by the College. This journey, which
took seven days to accomplish, began on the 20th day of January,
I 788, and it is by no means improbable that other of the early New
England institutions of learning had cabinets of natural history of
considerable importance by about this time.

Our University Museum was, therefore, the first to be founded in
North America. The Museum of Charleston, South Carolina, began
in I 773, that of Salem in 1 799, and the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia in 181 2.

INTRODUCTION 7

Professor Benjamin Waterhouse showed the Museum to the
Venezuelan patriot Miranda in 1784. Miranda, in his diary, re-
porting the visit, remarks that the collections were ill arranged and
somewhat neglected in appearance.

The collections were finally removed from Harvard Hall, and
migrated to various storage places for many years. For a while they
were kept in Holden Chapel. Later the objects were moved to
Boylston Hall, and we read in Dr. O. W. Holmes' memoir of Pro-
fessor Jeffries Wyman (Atlantic Monthly, November, 1874) the
following:

We enter the modest edifice known as Boylston Hall, and going up a
flight of stairs find a door at the right, through which we pass into a hall ex-
tending the whole depth of the building. The tables in the centre of the
floor, the cases surrounding the apartment, and the similar cases in the gal-
lery over these, are chiefly devoted to comparative anatomy. Above the
first gallery is a second, devoted to the archaeological and ethnological ob-
jects which make up the Peabody Museum.

The fine effect of the hall and its arrangements will at once strike the ob-
server. In the centre of the floor stands the huge skeleton of a mastodon
found in Warren County, New Jersey, in 1 844. Full-sized casts of the " fight-
ing gladiator," as it was formerly called, and the Venus of Milo stand at the
two extremities of the hall, and one of the Venus de Medici opposite the
door. Stretched out at length in glass cases are the anatomical wax figures,
male and female, which used of old to be so wondered over by the awe-
struck visitors who had gained admission into little Holden Chapel. The
skeletons of a large alligator, and of an overgrown ant-eater; a rattlesnake of
fearful size and aspect, and a youthful saw-fish, both in alcohol; a slab with
fossil foot-prints from the Connecticut River valley, and cases of separate
bones from the four animal kingdoms, are the other principal objects
grouped about the mastodon.

In the cases around the room are great numbers of fine skeletons, of man
and of various animals, — among them of the jaguar, the ostrich, the boa-
constrictor, and of immense sea-turdes. Most interesting of all are the skull
and other bones of a mightly gorilla . His head and pelvis are far from human
in their aspect, but his arm-bone is so like that of his cousin Darwinian,
that it looks as if it might have belonged to Goliath of Oath, or Og, king of
Bashan. The skeleton of a young chimpanzee, by the side of that of a child,
has a strongly marked effect of similar significance. There are also whole
series of special preparations to show the parts of the skeleton concerned in
locomotion in different classes of animals.

The cases in the gallery contain a vast number of wet and dry prepara-
tions, of which a very few may be indicated. One of Professor Wyman's last
labors was to refill the jars of the wet preparations with alcohol, and they are

8 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

in excellent condition. Among these are many careful dissections of the
nervous centres and the organs of sense, and a series of embryological speci-
mens which cannot fail to arrest the most careless observer. There are the
Surinam toads with their ova on their backs, like potatoes in their hills;
there are the strange fishes with their mouths full of eggs; there is the infant
skate with a broad laugh on his face as if he thought it a good joke to have
been hatched, and forthwith drowned in proof-spirit, like Clarence in his
butt of malmsey. Then come monstrosities of various kind and degree,
wonders and nothing more to the vulgar, keys to some of nature's deepest
secrets to the man of science. We pass next to the nests of wasps and hornets,
and the combs of bees, with casts of the cells, from some of which, it may be
mentioned, Professor Wyman took impressions directly upon paper, thus
insuring that accuracy for which he was almost unrivalled. The nests of the
great ants will next attract the eyes of the curious, and near these, the won-
derful carpentry of the beavers, as shown in the sticks they have cut into
lengths as if with tools of human workmanship. The great chissels of the
rodents, those enamel-faced incisors which are so contrived as to keep their
sharp bevel by the mere wear of use, grin in the crania ranged in rows above.
And so we might go on through almost innumerable specimens filling the
shelves, not with the rubbish of cheap collections, but with objects each of
which has an idea behind it, and each important series of which has been
illustrated by a paper well known to the scientific world.

Later Professor Louis Agassiz segregated the zoological material,
and the subsequent history of the zoological museum as apart from
geology, mineralogy, archaeology and ethnology is told in the chapter
next following this one. So much for the beginnings of the Museum.

Benjamin Waterhouse was made Hersey Professor of the Theory
and Practice of Physic in 1 783, having taken his Doctor's degree at
Leyden in 1780. He died in 181 2, but as long as he lived he con-
tinued to interest himself considerably in mineralogy as well as other
topics, but it was not until much later that the collections in geology
and mineralogy, and the teaching and research in these fields, be-
came really significant.

This was not by any means true in the biological sciences. Pro-
fessor William Dandridge Peck (i 763-1822), who became Massa-
chusetts Professor of Natural History in 1805, was a versatile genius,
unfortunately and rather shamefully forgotten. He was not only an
accomplished botanist but was an entomologist of real distinction,
and some of his papers on economic entomology, published in the
Proceedings of the American Academy in Boston as far back as i 796,
would be well worthy of publication today in the same Proceedings

INTRODUCTION 9

were the work which was covered still to be done. Peck travelled
abroad, met the great Europeans of the day, and some of his fishes,
curiously split and dried like herbarium specimens of plants, are still
in existence in the Museum, accurately named, although this was
done, in some cases, as early as i 785. Peck's manuscript notes of his
lectures are models of clarity and show thoughtful consideration of
the topics discussed and a wide range of reading. His remarkable
library is now in part preserved in the Boston Society of Natural
History's Museum.

The Botanical Garden was started during Peck's term of service
(1807), and in 1825, but three years after Peck's death, Nuttall be-
came its distinguished director, a man remembered today by the
fact that he published a charming book on New England Orni-
thology which has been reprinted time and again and is still widely
read by many students of birds. There is no evidence to show that
the early teaching in natural history was much different from what
it was in Europe at that time. It was teaching from textbooks and
from lectures, with probably a few objects used in demonstration but
carefully guarded from handling by the students. The teaching cen-
tered about the spoken and the printed word. It is interesting to
note, however, that first-class research began before first-class teach-
ing, and while this brought kudos to the University it did not really
extend the influence of the University, inasmuch as few, if any,
investigators were produced.

Professor Wheeler describes hereafter the remarkable story of
the history of entomology at Harvard, and this fascinating chapter
speaks for itself.

I think it is fair to say that the natural sciences had sailed well into
the doldrums by the time Asa Gray became Fisher Professor of
Natural History in 1842 and until Agassiz was made a Professor in
the Lawrence Scientific School in 1847. These two men comple-
mented one another peculiarly: Gray, gentle, reserved, an investi-
gator first and foremost; Agassiz, enthusiastic, fanatical, almost, in his
desire to revolutionize the teaching of natural history in this country,
and not only to train teachers and investigators, but to carry his ad-
vanced methods of teaching from the specimen, and not from the
books, into the secondary schools. Louis Agassiz trained a host of
men who became the principal naturalists of the next generation.

10 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

All now have passed away, but many great names remain: Verrill
went to Yale; Packard to Brown; Edward S. Morse to Japan and
then to Salem; David Starr Jordan to Indiana and then to Leland
Stanford, first as Professor and then as President; B. G. Wilder to
Cornell; J. A. Allen to the American Museum in New York; and
many other names could be added to this list. While Agassiz
travelled about the country lecturing and collecting for the Museum
and acting part time as Professor in Charleston, South Carolina
(where he is said to have been better paid than in Cambridge), Gray
began building up the great herbarium which today bears his name.
With the opening up of the West, Government expeditions made
great botanical collections. These were sent to Gray for study. He it
was who first pointed out the relations of our Eastern flora to that of
temperate China and who first thought out the explanation of this
phenomenon. All this time he was carrying on his correspondence
with Darwin, and Darwin, in an unpublished letter, speaks of him as
a most sympathetic and valued critic. Gray championed evolution
during those diflficult days when many stood on the other side while
Agassiz could not quite see eye to eye with Gray in this matter.

But the pictures of Darwin and Huxley hang on the wall of the
Director's Room in the Museum to this day alongside those of
Agassiz's old friend and patron, Humboldt, of his admirer Owen,
and many other equally distinguished European contemporaries.

Agassiz began his investigations in Europe and continued to draw
not only inspiration but prodigious masses of material which laid the
foundations for the great collections in natural history which enrich
our Museum today, making it the most evenly developed and, in
many departments, the richest of any University Museum and un-
questionably in a class with the great governmental museums of the
Old World. The resources of the Museum in its several departments
are set forth in pages that follow these. The story of the acquisition
of the many components which go to make up our Museum at the
present time is a very absorbing one.

Jeffries Wyman became Hersey Professor of Anatomy in 1847,
after his name had become widely known because of his brilliant
and versatile contributions to anatomy, comparative anatomy and
zoology. He first described the gorilla and later curious creatures
procured during his trips to South America with his friend George

INTRODUCTION I I

Augustus Peabody. VVyman was a shy, retiring man of frailest health
for years. But while he was writing brilliantly and with extraor-
dinary patience and accuracy on many topics he was aiding in
bringing together the collection which formed the Peabody Museum
of Archaeology and Ethnology. When the endowment for the be-
ginning of this institution came in 1866 he became curator of the
Museum, and held the position until his death in 1874, less than a
year after the death of Agassiz.

F. W. Putnam, another of Agassiz's students, took charge of the
Peabody Museum the year after Wyman's death and continued as
Peabody Professor and Curator until 191 3, when he became Emeri-
tus; he died two years later. Putnam got a passion for accumulating
material straight from Agassiz. He realized that primitive man was
disappearing all over the world, and where he was not disappearing
he was ceasing to make and to do the things which his forefathers had
done. Putnam was by no means a collector alone. His students
went far and wide over the country to become curators of new mu-
seums and to teach archaeology from coast to coast. His students in
the Peabody Museum today continue to enlarge its collections and to
train teachers and investigators, and this department holds an almost
unique record among all the departments of the University for the
extraordinary proportion of anthropological positions held through-
out the country by Harvard men. The Peabody publications have
gone far and wide describing the discoveries made in the Mu-
seum and in the field by men from this section of the University
Museum.

The Mineralogical and Geological Museums, also sections of the
University Museum, grew under J. P. Cooke and later with the aid
from Wolff, Sayles, Holden and other friends of the department.
N. S. Shaler, who died in 1906, continued to the last to fill
Sanders Theatre with a throng of young men who came to hear
him first out of curiosity, and who remained to be enthralled with the
manner in which he depicted the great events of geological history.

It is not my desire here to discuss the work of living men, nor am I
qualified to do so, and as Geology at Harvard is at the peak of its
most effective period of both teaching and research at the present
time there seems to be little more to do than to state this fact and to
rejoice to be able so to do.

12 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

The science of Palaeontology has had its ups and downs. The in-
vertebrate field has been extraordinarily well represented and the
invertebrate collections have been used both for instruction and re-
search most effectively. These collections are vast and derived from
all parts of the world.

After Louis Agassiz's death his son Alexander took charge of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology as Curator, as the head of the
Institution was then called. Later he became Director of the Uni-
versity Museum, of which the Museum of Comparative Zoology, now
better known as the Agassiz Museum, is also a part. He disliked
teaching as much as his father enjoyed it. He closed the Museum to
all but advanced research workers, and the Museum came to be less
and less known in America, though more and more famous abroad.
Alexander Agassiz, who was as shy and retiring as his father had
been genial and expansive, was, nevertheless, a person of extraordi-
nary charm of manner and tenderness of heart. Concerning this I
speak at first hand. His unrivalled knowledge of marine life acquired
during the seaside studies made in his early years, supplemented by
extensive reading, led him for many years to collect assiduously in
New England and to undertake zoological exploration abroad. The
results he frequently worked up himself.

These results make up his great classical contributions to science.
During his later years he explored widely and made great collections
which were distributed to specialists while he himself, turning aside
from general zoology, began to accumulate data and observations
concerning the coral reefs. These studies have provided information
in the form of charts and photographs of importance to geologists
and others interested in the coral reef problem. Unfortunately,
Mr. Agassiz did not write any general conclusions as the result of
the years which he devoted to his survey of coral reefs, to the ex-
clusion of those zoological investigations which, by training and
early experience, he was better fitted to pursue. Nevertheless his re-
ports afford some general ideas of what he thought upon the sub-
ject. To his death he kept up his interest in the Echini and was
the authority concerning this group.

To keep his section of the University Museum progressing he was
forced to spend a large part of his time securing the wherewithal so
to do. The romantic story of his development of the Calumet mine

INTRODUCTION 1 3

needs no telling here. He saw clearly the importance of organizing
expeditions to keep the Museum growing and sent out many field
parties and later went on long trips himself. Thus Garman went to
the Bad Lands of the West, in the Indian days, and brought back the
collections of vertebrate fossils later described by Scott and Osborn.
Alexander's father had already raised the money to buy the great
Lesquereau collection of fossil plants which still remains the most
important in America. After a while Charles Eastman came to be
Vertebrate Palaeontologist in the Museum, but he never taught and
was in time called elsewhere. Still, the collections have continued to
grow, and Harvard now has its own fossil fields in Wyoming where
students work every summer and whence they bring back many
beautiful and significant specimens.

Alexander Agassiz during his younger years was probably the
foremost Marine Zoologist in the world. He continued through life
his interest in the Echinoderms. As I have said, he was a sensitive,
shy, retiring man, impatient of crowds and of publicity, at times al-
most violently so. It would not be fair, however, to say that he was
not essentially a teacher as well as an investigator, though in an en-
tirely different way from his father. During all of his later years he
took several young men upon his deep sea expeditions or while he was
studying coral reefs, who have become distinguished teachers and
investigators today and who still recall with a thrill their recollections
of seeing Agassiz brought on deck on a mattress, limp from seasick-
ness, to spot, with uncanny accuracy, the specimens as they came
from the deep sea dredge, setting aside one by one the creatures
which were well known from those which were new and worthy of
special study, and which should be turned over to the artists of the
expedition. The life of Alexander Agassiz has been as well told by
his son George as was his father's life history told by Mrs. Louis
Agassiz.

It has been a great pleasure to receive, from the hand of my friend,
Mr. George Russell Agassiz, Alexander's eldest son, the introductory
chapter which follows this disjointed little historical preface and
which gives an account of the organization and development of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology as a distinct scientific institution
apart from the other "cabinets of natural history."

Circumstances which are difficult to understand clearly at this late

14 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

date brought about an unfortunate separation between the Museum
and its staff and the zoological laboratory, also housed in the Mu-
seum building with its own distinguished group of teachers who
trained men in the modern technique of zoological research just
coming out of Germany. The rise of new aspects of Zoology such as
Cytology, Spermatogenesis and Organogenesis, the phenomena of
regeneration, and other topics fashionable, so to speak, at the time,
involved the use of the microtome and the microscope, and for one
reason or another a real schism arose, between those who studied the
animal as a whole and those who observed its parts. This was per-
haps natural enough, but the cleavage of interests became far too
wide and too deep. It must be remembered, moreover, that these
were the years when few, if any, foresaw the interdigitation of the
sciences as we see it today. Botany was either cryptogamic botany,
headed at Harvard by the great names of Farlow and Thaxter, or it
was systematic botany up at the Gray Herbarium, or it was physio-
logical botany at Dr. Goodale's laboratory in the Botanical Museum,
or it was dendrology, with a great leader, Charles Sargent, at the
Arnold Arboretum. No one would have dreamt twenty years ago
that there was no way of really subdividing botany in any funda-
mental way. The fact that all living creatures are subject to the same
natural laws and that they react to them in essentially similar ways,
and that the boundaries between the natural sciences really break
down, and that now without discussion or rancor it is universally
agreed that the curators in the museums teach if they want to, would
have been unthinkable a few years ago. Thus many hold positions in
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Professors from the labora-
tory draw freely upon the museums for material of all sorts, even to
be cut up and destroyed; physiology finds a place in this company
and indeed leads the biological sciences into contact with the sciences
of chemistry and physics. Palaeontology is geology on one side and
historical zoology on the other. Anthropology is sociology on one
side and applied zoology on the other. So it goes.

The laboratories to teach the natural sciences are now housed and
endowed as never before. Everyone is sincerely respectful of the in-
terests of all colleagues, hatchets are buried. We try to turn out only
the very best men, trained to maintain the standards which Professor
E. L. Mark and Professor George H. Parker maintained during their

INTRODUCTION 1 5

years as Directors of the Zoological Laboratory. When a young man
finished his training under these men a position was assured, and the
number of graduates who are among the leaders in teaching and re-
search throughout the United States today is probably somewhere in
the vicinity of three hundred. Methods of research have changed
and the topics which most excited men have varied from year to
year like Paris fashions. At times the emphasis has been on a study
which like a sponge may soon be wrung dry; at others wide doors
into deep caves of learning have been opened where exploration still
continues. I believe this is inevitable.

Wendell Holmes once said, that life is painting a picture, not doing
a sum, and many artists looking from the same window would each
paint a different picture of what each one saw. So it is with our
sciences. We each paint the picture as we see it and like all else in
life our pictures are not equally good. I believe, however, it is fair to
say that the Harvard gallery would at least have on its walls pictures
more diversified and as likely to endure as those painted through
the last hundred years by the teachers and students of any other
institution.

THE HISTORY OF THE M. C. Z.

BY

GEORGE RUSSELL AGASSIZ

Chairman of the Visiling Committee and Member oj the Faculty

The Museum of Comparative Zoology originated in the specimens
already owned by the University and those that Louis Agassiz stored
when he came to this country in 1847, in a little shanty built on piles
on the banks of the Charles River, close to the bridge that now leads
to the Harvard Stadium. In 1850 the collections had outgrown this
primitive shelter and were removed to a wooden building where the
old gymnasium now stands. By 1852 the care of the collection had
grown to be more than the very modest means of the Professor could
meet, and a fund of twelve thousand dollars was raised by private
subscription to purchase his share of it for the College. The expense
of its charge, however, still remained in his hands, and he devoted
untiring enthusiasm to increasing and maintaining the specimens.

In 1858 the Corporation of Harvard College made a small allow-
ance for the care of the collections, and during the same year a fund
of fifty thousand dollars, left by Mr. Francis C. Gray, was placed at
the disposal of Louis Agassiz for the purchase of specimens, under the
condition that the institution so aided should be called "The Mu-
seum of Comparative Zoology." Thus it happens that this Museum
is saddled with a cumbersome and inappropriate name. Accus-
tomed to the European method of seeking government aid, Agassiz
went to the State Legislature, and to everyone's amazement, ex-
tracted one hundred thousand dollars from those hard-headed New
Englanders, while at the same time a further fund of seventy-one
thousand dollars was raised by private subscription. With these re-
sources he built what was then intended to be, and now is, the East
portion of the North wing of the University Museum. This first bit
of the building consisted of four rooms on a floor, was five stories
high, and was completed in i860. Thus was housed the first of the
large University Museums in the New World. Many of the early

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HISTORY 1 7

assistants were later placed in charge of museums, which were after-
wards established all over the country. Most of the prominent
naturalists of that generation were men who had worked under Louis
Agassiz.

The Museum was not originally directly under the control of the
University, which gave the land. It was administered from its own
funds, and under the direction of a Board of Trustees, representing
the Commonwealth and the University. Further grants from the
legislature and private subscriptions, as well as the results of his own
expeditions, and material gathered by exchange, enabled Louis
Agassiz rapidly to build up the Museum collections. He made spe-
cial efforts to maintain the growth of the Museum during the war of
the Rebellion, " that when our troubles are over it may appear that
even civil wars cannot cripple the onward progress of science in the
New World." Indeed Louis Agassiz pushed the development with
such zest as to seriously cripple his own slender means. To put the
family fortunes on its feet, Mrs. Agassiz organized a girls' school,
famous in its day, where among other teachers were Louis Agassiz
and two of his children.

By 1867 the first portion of the wing, begun in 1859, was inade-
quate for the accumulating mass of material that poured in from all
sides. The lecture rooms were invaded, until it was almost impos-
sible to move about in them. In 1868 the collection of fishes had
already become one of the first in the world, and the marine in-
vertebrates were probably without a rival among other museums.
Oceanography has always been one of the chief interests of the
Museum since Louis Agassiz's early days in the United States, when
he explored the waters of Florida in the "Bibb," under the auspices
of the Coast Survey.

Louis Agassiz's most important expedition was to Brazil in 1865-
66, financed by Nathaniel Thayer. Dom Pedro II, a patron of
science, welcomed the expedition when it arrived in Brazil. Its mem-
bers were guests of the nation. Steamers were placed at their dis-
posal to take them up the Amazon. The Governors of the various
states supplied men, means, and material to assist them in every
possible way. The collections sent back form some of the most im-
portant of the Museum; especially that of the fishes from the
Amazon and its tributaries.

I 8 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

By the beginning of the eighteen-seventies failing health affected
Agassiz's usual activities. In 1871-72 he made a voyage on the
Coast Survey steamer " Hassler" to California, hoping to come home
with renewed vigor and supervise the rearrangement of the Mu-
seum collections in the new part of the wing, then under construc-
tion. Defects in the apparatus limited the results of the expedition.
Nevertheless, Agassiz on his return wrote to one of his assistants in
Europe — "The collections made during the Hassler Expedition are
simply splendid. We have brought home 265 barrels, or boxes of
specimens; averaging nearly one per day of our working time."

The death of Agassiz in 1873 found four-fifths of the wing of the
Museum completed. It was crowded beyond belief, and had an in-
come of only Si 0,000. The future of the institution did not seem
bright; it looked as if it might share the fate of so many great under-
takings and perish with its founder. But his son Alexander Agassiz,
to whom the management fell, thought otherwise. The latter was
not only a man of science, but also, unlike his father, an unusually
able executive and successful mining man. Through filial affection
he put his shoulder to the wheel to preserve the Museum, and for the
rest of his life devoted much of his energies, and a good slice of his
fortune, towards its development. He collected an endowment fund,
to which he subscribed liberally, besides from year to year making
good any deficiency in the running expenses.

In 1876 it was found advisable to discontinue the joint control of
the Commonwealth and the College in the affairs of the Museum.
By legislative act it was turned over to the University and its man-
agement rested in a Faculty of five, including the President of the
College and the Director of the Museum.

Alexander Agassiz completed the Museum of Comparative
Zoology as it now stands. In 1B77 he built the remainder of the
North wing; in 1883-84, the Northwest corner-piece; and in 1890-91
a further continuation of the facade.

He made nearly a score of oceanographic expeditions to many dis-
tant seas, and brought back vast quantities of material which greatly
enriched the Museum collections. Among the most important of
these explorations were: three cruises of the "Blake," 1877-80, in the
Atlantic and Caribbean; three cruises of the "Albatross," 1891,
1 899-1 900, 1904-05, covering vast regions of the Pacific; an ex-

HISTORY 1 9

ploration of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia in the steamship
"Croyden" in 1896; and an expedition to the Maldive Islands in the
Indian Ocean in the "Amra," 1901-02.

In 1898 Agassiz resigned the directorship of the Museum, but
retained his quarters there, giving it his financial support, and con-
tinuing to enrich it with the results of his scientific expeditions.

After his resignation, the Museum was managed for a short time
by Dr. W. McM. Woodworth, one of the younger Agassiz's assist-
ants in various of his expeditions. Dr. Woodworth was succeeded by
Mr. Samuel Henshaw, who had been on the staff of the Museum
since 1892. After Alexander Agassiz's death in 1910, without the
stimulus of his interest or his financial support, the management of
the Museum became a trying and discouraging matter. But Hen-
shaw with a whole-hearted and unwavering enthusiasm, and an
almost unparalleled devotion, gave his entire existence to furthering
the welfare of the Museum, to upholding its traditions and maintain-
ing the high level of its scientific output. This he was the better
able to do from his wide range of accurate knowledge, an invaluable
asset in editing the reports of the specialists on the collections of
Alexander Agassiz's expeditions, which were still coming in to swell
the Museum publications. These, from its earliest history, have
given the institution a distinguished international position among
its peers, and include today 73 octavo and 53 quarto volumes, which
are in quality and quantity fully equal to the publications of scientific
societies of the first rank. On the completion of his thirty-fifth year
as a member of the staff, Henshaw resigned his directorship on No-
vember I, 1927. He was succeeded by Dr. Thomas Barbour, who
has been connected with the Museum ever since his graduation from
Harvard.

Since Dr. Barbour's appointment, the Museum has been enriched,
not only by collections made on expeditions of his own, to the East
and West Indies, and many portions of Central and South America,
but also from numerous expeditions of the staff, and by purchase,
and exchange. The Museum collections are now, without exaggera-
tion, of inestimable value.

As the study collections and opportunities for exploration and re-
search are the chief desiderata of a university museum, it was de-
cided to curtail the space devoted to the exhibitions open to the pub-

20 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

lie. The standard exhibition rooms were originally furnished with a
gallery; these have been floored over, creating virtually a new story
for the research department, so that, with the removal of most of the
student laboratories to the Biological Institute, now built on the
other side of Divinity Avenue, ample provision has now been made
for expansion for a number of years. The rearrangement of the ex-
hibition rooms, now seen by the public, represents a great amount of
thought, work, and the devotion of all the staff at the cost of unselfish
sacrifice of much of their own scientific work.

In the days of the elder Agassiz, he and his assistants, in addition
to their museum work, gave a certain amount of instruction to
graduates, undergraduates, and special students. The younger
Agassiz disliked to teach, and never did so, except for the occasional
supervision of the work of a few advanced students. Under his
regime the teaching of Zoology was made a separate department
under the control of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. But it con-
tinued to have its headquarters at the Museum, where it made use of
the collections, laboratories, and lecture rooms. Recently, in order
to facilitate the training of young men to be Museum Curators and
to enable them to obtain advanced degrees, several of the Curators
have received appointments as Members of the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, and instruct, at their pleasure, a few mature students.

In conclusion, a few words from an address delivered by Alexander
Agassiz on the completion of the University Museum in 1902, will
best indicate the purposes of the Museum of Comparative Zoology:

"About one-sixth of the floor space is devoted to exhibition pur-
poses. It is not simply an agglomeration of room after room, of case
after case, filled with specimens which to the uninitiated mean
nothing; but it is a Museum which has been intelligently arranged.
Each room means something; each room is there for a purpose, each
case is there for a purpose, and each specimen should be there for
some reason.

"But what is shown to the public is by far the smallest part of the
Museum. Above and below the exhibition floor are many stories
and a basement in which are stored, as it were, the archives of the
Museum, to say nothing of the library, the lecture rooms and labora-
tories, which are used by the professors and their assistants, who con-
tribute so great a share in the development of the Museum. In these

HISTORY 2 1

Other rooms are stored collections which have been made during the
explorations and expeditions of the professors and their assistants (as
well as in other ways) ; collections without which it is impossible for a
teacher or professor in natural history to exist. All questions, for in-
stance, which relate to geographical distribution on land and sea, to
variations, to systematic zoology, and to the history of the human
race, can only be solved by immense collections, carefully made, and
which can be studied with ample room. Those are the conditions
which a university must aim to give to its professors.

" It is of the greatest importance that a university museum should
not attempt to do what larger museums can do with impunity. Our
object is not to make vast collections, simply for the sake of having
vast collections. Our object should be to make collections in such a
way that they may be used to illustrate certain points, or used to
carry on certain lines of investigation. That is really the function of
a university museum."

ENTOMOLOGY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BY

WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER

Entomology is, of course, only one of a number of branches of
zoology, which in turn was originally a branch of a larger and more
vaguely defined department of human knowledge known as " natural
history." As early as the latter part of the eighteenth century, ento-
mology had acquired the status of an independent science. This was
due, no doubt, to the extraordinary number, variety and beauty of
the objects with which it dealt and the ease with which large collec-
tions of them could be made, perfectly preserved and compactly
stored. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the museum and
even the taxonomic technique of the entomologist were nearly as
highly developed as at the present time. For this development we
are largely indebted to such great pioneer amateurs as Linnaeus,
Degeer, Latreille and Fabricius. Although Reaumur and his imme-
diate successors emphasized the important bearing of the study of in-
sects on human welfare, applied entomology, as a serious branch of
the science, has proved to be a much more recent development.
Hence even in Europe entomology was very slow in acquiring recog-
nition as a fit subject for instruction and research in schools and uni-
versities. This statement, however, does not apply to Harvard Uni-
versity, because it has had a nearly continuous tradition of teaching
and research in the science and, interestingly enough, even in applied
entomology, since the end of the eighteenth century. Indeed, since
1 795 there has probably been in some department of the University
at least one competent entomologist to whom the interested student
could turn for encouragement and guidance, and these teachers were
not merely competent, but several of them attained lasting fame not
only as contributors to entomological science but also as unusually
inspiring personalities. The fact that few of them delivered or cared
to deliver formal courses of lectures had its advantages, for it enabled
them to enter into more intimate and more helpful relations to their

22

HISTORY 23

students. Most of these teachers evidently resembled Mark Hop-
kins in their preference for very small classes, but instead of sitting on
a log and exchanging abstractions with a student, they preferred
setting to work with him and investigating the insect fauna of the log.^
The growth and differentiation of entomological science at Har-
vard, during more than a century, naturally led to the pursuit of the

1 Some of those who have recently attempted to write the history of ento-
mology in the United States seem to have been led astray by a failure to appre-
ciate the pedagogical importance of such companionate research. Professor
Escherich, to mention only one example, in his history of applied entomology in
the United States ("Die angewandte Entomologie in den Vereinigten Staaten,"
1 91 3, p. 68 nota), after remarking that "the first professor of Entomology at an
American University was our countryman Dr. H. A. Hagen," quotes the follow-
ing passage from a paper by the late Professor J. H. Comstock ("The Present
Methods of Teaching Entomology," Journ. Econ. Entom., 4, 191 1, pp. 53-67):
" Although Dr. Hagen came to the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1870, his
first course of lectures was given in the summer of 1873, and his class consisted of
a single student, the writer of this paper. That was a course of lectures never to
be forgotten by the one who heard it. It was a very hot summer, and Dr. Hagen
suffered with the heat. About nine o'clock each morning he would come into
the laboratory, say a cheery good morning, take off his coat and hang it back of
the door, take off his vest and put it with his coat, take a seat by a small table,
light a German pipe with a very long flexible stem, place the bowl of the pipe on
the floor behind him, take a few puffs, and then say, ' Come and I will tell you
some dings what I know.' The student would then take a seat on the opposite
side of the table, and the professor, with sheets of paper before him, which served
the purpose of a blackboard, would take up the subject where it had been
dropped the previous morning." Since Comstock later became a great teacher
of entomology at Cornell and trained many entomologists, including Dr. L. O.
Howard, for many years the head of our Federal Bureau of Entomology, the
casual reader might infer from Escherich's remarks that Hagen's German in-
fluence on entomology and especially on economic entomology in America was
profound. But those of us who knew Professor Comstock intimately are ac-
quainted with another of his anecdotes which proves that before he went to
Cornell and later to Harvard he had been inspired to take up the study of in-
sects by reading Thaddeus Harris' famous work on "Some Insects Injurious to
Vegetation," first published in 1841 and after various editions issued in its final
form in 1862, with beautiful wood-cuts and colored steel-engravings executed
under the supervision of Louis Agassiz. Now Harris, while acting as librarian of
Harvard College, is known to have given a private course in entomology as early
as 1837 to 1842, and had been a student of William Peck, our first native born
American entomologist and first professor of natural history at Harvard (from
1805 to 1822: vide infra). To regard Hagen, therefore, as the first professor of
entomology in the United States means merely that even by the middle of the
nineteenth century the science had become so vast and intricate as to require
all an investigator's time and energies. Previously, as above stated, entomology
had been a branch of natural history, but this does not imply that the subject had
not been taught at Harvard.

24 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

subject in more than one department. The actual teaching was
eventually carried on in Cambridge in connection with the other
biological sciences, the research connected with its applications to
agronomy and forestry was assigned to the Bussey Institution at
Forest Hills, its applications to tropical medicine and comparative
pathology to the Harvard Medical School and its taxonomic study
to the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Since large collections of
carefully identified insects are absolutely essential to the develop-
ment of study and research in all fields of entomology, this Museum,
since its building by Louis Agassiz in 1 859, and the Museum of the
Boston Society of Natural History, since its foundation in 1831, have
been necessarily the permanent centers about which the activities of
all the academic and non-academic entomologists of Boston and its
vicinity have revolved in closer or more remote orbits.

That there was some interest among the early colonists in the
natural history of insects as early as the seventeenth century is shown
by a portion of a letter from Benjamin BuUivant, of Boston, recording
some casual observations on fireflies, butterfly pupae and grasshop-
pers, addressed to James Pitiver of the Royal Society of London, and
published in the Transactions of the Society for 1698. The scientific
study of insects at Harvard, however, begins with William Dandridge
Peck (i 763-1 822), who, born in Boston as the son of a noted naval
architect, graduated from the Institution in 1782 and became its
first Professor of Natural History in 1805. It is said that he became
interested in natural history by reading a copy of Linnaeus' " Sys-
tema Naturae," cast up by a ship wrecked near his home at Kittery
Point, Maine. '^ As early as 1794 he published the first systematic
paper on zoology in America, a description of four remarkable fishes
taken near Piscataqua in New Hampshire. Soon afterwards he be-
came much interested in economic entomology and, between 1 795
and 1 81 9, published at least seven excellent studies of some of our
common insect pests, including the canker-worm, slug-worm, pine-
weevil, locust-borer, etc. The tradition in economic entomology,
however, was continued by one of Peck's students, Thaddeus Harris
(i 795-1856). He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and gradu-
ated in 181 5. Although he became a practising physician, he gave up
his practice in 1831, when he was appointed Librarian of Harvard

1 E. O. Essig, "A History of Entomology," 1931, p. 730.

HISTORY 25

College, a position which he retained during the remainder of his
life. While thus engaged, he gave a private course or what we should
now call a "seminar" in entomology, at which attendance was vol-
untary.^ Like Peck he was greatly interested in the applied aspects of
entomology, and published a long series of important papers on in-
sect pests. This work culminated in his classical "Treatise of Some of
the Insects Injurious to Vegetation," to which I have referred.
Though Dr. L. O. Howard, in his very entertaining "History of Ap-
plied Entomology," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 1930,
gives the impression of having no great enthusiasm for Harvard en-
tomologists, he could not refrain from paying the following tribute to
Thaddeus Harris: "Harris was a learned scholar, a man of good
birth and sound breeding, a lover of nature, and one of the best ex-
amples of a high type that New England produced a hundred years
or more ago. Quite the most beautiful appreciation of his character
and of his work that has been published was done by A. R. Grote in
his paper entitled 'The Rise of Practical Entomology in America,'
published in the Twentieth Annual Report of the Entomological
Society of Ontario in 1899. It is so beautiful a bit of writing that it
deserves a place in literature, and it is so high an appreciation of
Harris that it should be read by every entomologist. The Memoir of
Harris, by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, which prefaces
Scudder's 'Entomological Correspondence of Thaddeus William
Harris, M.D.,' should be read in connection with Grote's charming
paper. No one who reads these two papers will ever think of Harris
except with admiration, deep respect, and affection.

"From Colonel Higginson's account it appears that, while per-

1 According to Dow ("The Work and Times of Dr. Harris," Bull. Brooklyn
Entom. Soc, VHI, 1913, p. 108). "For five years from 1837 Dr. Harris filled a
vacancy in the Chair of Natural History, giving a course of lectures twice a week
to the senior class. Not satisfied with this, he organized an evening class for
voluntary attendance, which was, in fact, something like the Entomological
Societies of today, with one speaker having the floor most of the time. John W.
Randall, a senior from Maine, attended these meetings. He turned to beetles
which were also Harris' favorites, and collected near Cambridge during the
academic season and in Maine during vacation. Two papers were the result of
his efforts, in which 87 new species were described. Randall became a physician
but never reappeared as a coleopterist. Years later his papers were edited by
P. S. Sprague and E. P. Austin, who reidentified the species, of which 47 are
saved from synonymy."

26 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

forming the Librarian's duties at Cambridge, Harris formed a pri-
vate class in entomology which met on one evening in every week;
and it appears also that he had apparently expected and hoped to be
made full professor of natural history in the College. These hopes,
however, were not fulfilled, and Dr. Asa Gray was chosen for the
post in 1842. Of course, Gray's claims were very high, and it was
necessary, apparently, to appoint a botanist of the highest attain-
ments who should have charge of the botanical garden. Harris' dis-
appointment was never voiced, and he continued his work in his
quiet, efficient way, all the time contributing articles on entomology
and horticulture to scientific and agricultural journals. He was an
excellent botanist and this fact helped to make his entomological
work broader and sounder. American entomologists of today may
well think with pride of the man who was really the founder of ap-
plied entomology in this country."

Soon after coming to Cambridge in 1847, Louis Agassiz began to
amass a collection of zoological, palaeontological and other speci-
mens, which were added to those already possessed by the University
and later moved to the Museum of Comparative Zoology as soon as a
portion of its building had been completed in 1 859. His interest in all
fields of zoology was so intense and well-balanced that collections of
insects were not neglected, and his solicitude for the care and study
of these collections was shown in his wise selection of curators and
their assistants in this department of the Museum.

During 1862 Samuel Scudder (1837-1911) had charge of the in-
sect collections. He was assistant to Agassiz and custodian of the
Boston Society of Natural History until 1870 and Assistant Librarian
of Harvard College, 1879-82. Besides aiding in founding the Cam-
bridge Entomological Society in 1874 and publishing the journal
" Psyche," two ventures which have survived to the present time and
have aided greatly in the cooperation of the entomologists in New
England, Scudder, in his researches, covered a wide field and greatly
increased our knowledge of entomology. His work on the Orthop-
tera and butterflies of North America is still of great value. As palae-
ontologist of the United States Geological Survey, 1886-92, he laid
the foundations of the study of insect palaeontology in our country.
He described more than one thousand species of fossil insects and
published a catalogue of the known fossil species of the world. His

HISTORY 2 7

extraordinary industry is attested by the fact that his bibHography
runs to nearly eight hundred scientific papers. That even his work as
Assistant Librarian yielded a rich harvest is shown by his "Nomen-
clator Zoologicus," published in 1882 and containing a catalogue of
all the generic names employed by zoologists up to that time.^

Though undoubtedly the most learned entomologist of his genera-
tion, Scudder was far more. As Mayor says, "few men of science
have endeared themselves to those around them as did he, endowed
as he was with an innate quality of kindliness that, seemingly un-
known to him, graced his every word and act. One recalls his tall,
handsome form and the strong, interesting features so wonderfully
relieved by the happy soul that seemed ever ready to burst forth in a
bright flash of interest over any and all things of that manifold na-
ture to the observation of which his life had been devoted."

Two other eminent entomologists followed Scudder as curators of
entomology. Alpheus Spring Packard (i 839-1 905) was engaged to
look after the collections in 1 864 and Phillip Reese Uhler(i 835-1 91 3)
from 1864 to 1867. Both men made notable contributions to our knowl-
edge of American insects and the former especially was interested in
every aspect of insect life. At Brown University Packard was later
professor of entomology and zoology, while Uhler became America's
leading authority on the Hemiptera and Homoptera, while acting as
librarian and later as provost of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore.

Hermann August Hagen (1817-93), curator in the Museum of
Comparative Zoology from 1867 and also professor of entomology
from 1870-90, was born in Kdnigsberg, East Prussia. After graduat-
ing from the gymnasium, he studied medicine at the university of his
native city, where both his father and grandfather had been pro-
fessors. He was fortunate in having three remarkable teachers. Von
Baer, Rathke and Von Siebold. His thesis, presented for the degree
of Doctor of Medicine (i 840), was on the synonymy of the European
dragon flies. It is said that his attention had been attracted to the
Odonata " because by chance the first specimen he caught proved to
be an unidentified insect of that order." - After studying till 1843 ^^

' The motto of this work was taken from Pope's "Dunciad":
"... index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail."
2 S. Henshaw, "Hermann August Hagen," Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci., 19,
1904, PP- 419-423, portrait.

28 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

the universities of Berlin, Vienna and Paris, Hagen settled in Konigs-
berg as a practising physician and surgeon. This did not prevent
him from diligently pursuing his entomological studies, at first on the
dragon flies and later on the Neuroptera, at that time a heterogeneous
complex embracing also our modern orders Corrodentia, Plecop-
tera, Mecoptera and Trichoptera, and the fossil insects of the Baltic
Amber. During 1855 to i860 he published a masterly monograph on
Termites, in 1861 his well-known "Synopsis of North American
Neuroptera," which was prepared at the special request of the
Smithsonian Institution, and in 1862 and 1863 his "Bibliotheca
Entomologica" (2 volumes). Owing to its completeness and great
accuracy, this monumental work, which contains a bibliography of
all the entomological literature from the earliest times, is one of the
most useful in the entomologist's library.

After settling in Cambridge, Hagen devoted his energies to build-
ing up and caring for the Museum collections and in teaching. Mr.
Samuel Henshaw, who was one of his most intimate friends, gives us
the following account of these activities: "Dr. Hagen entered upon
his duties at the Museum with great zeal; and his detailed plan for
the arrangement of the collections, though somewhat modified, is,
and is likely to remain, the basis for the future. Deeply interested in
everything relating to museum work, as his appreciation of series of
specimens, his care for their preservation and for the accuracy of
their localities, and many minor details, clearly indicate, it is in this
collection as well as in his writings that his contributions to science
are to be found. Here alone we can fully realize the extent of his
discoveries, the keenness of his insight, his skill at preparation and
dissection and with the pencil. His devotion to the Museum knew
no bounds; all personal interests were secondary. In 1876 he refused
a most flattering and urgent invitation to take charge of the great
entomological collections of the Konigliches Museum fiir Natur-
kunde in Berlin, and the time that might have been given to original
work was lavished upon the care and arrangement of the collections
which grew rapidly both in size and value. The biological collection,
or that illustrating the life history of the species, is a prominent spe-
cialty of the Cambridge Museum. In this are preserved specimens
showing every condition of an insect's life, the eggs, larvae in all
stages from those just hatched to those full grown, their burrows,

HISTORY 29

nests, partially devoured leaves, etc., the work of both larvae and
adults, the frass or excrements often of great importance, pupal
stages, adults of both sexes, and the parasitic and predacious
enemies also in all stages of development. Dr. Hagen's influence
upon the formation of such biological collections has been very
great; few were in existence at the time when, almost unaided, he
created that at Cambridge, and the care and elaborateness with
which the whole is labelled makes it not only a worthy model, but
most truly a monument to persistent and well directed industry. His
lectures, given at rare intervals to advanced students, contained
much genuine and exact knowledge, and his many acts of kindness
and words of wise counsel will not soon be forgotten by those who
enjoyed the facilities of the department under his charge." ^

Among Hagen's assistants and preparators, three are worthy of
mention, because they either gave him valuable aid in his curatorial
labors or actively increased the collections: Jacob Boll (1828-80), a
well-known Swiss naturalist, made important collections of insects
and other animals in the Southwest and worked at the Museum,
1871-72; 2 George Robert Crotch (1842-74), a British student of the
Coleoptera and author of a very useful list of North American species
of the order published in 1873; and Eugene Amandus Schwarz (1844
-1928), a German who devoted his long life to the study of the North
American Coleoptera. From 1878 to the time of his death, Dr.
Schwarz was one of the most competent and genial entomologists of
the United States Bureau of Entomology. In this connection, men-
tion should also be made of Baron Osten-Sacken, who, though an
independent diplomat and savant, spent two winters (1873-75) in-
corporating his own extensive collection of Diptera and that of Loew
with the previously existing collections of these insects in the Mu-
seum.

1 Some of Hagen's wise counsel was rather humorous. Thus he advised Pro-
fessor E. L. Mark, who as a young instructor in 1877 was giving a course on in-
sects and mollusks: "When you finish your lecture, be sure you at once withdraw
and do not allow the students to question you ! " (E. L. Mark in S. E. Morison's
"The Development of Harvard University Since the Inauguration of President
EHot, 1 869-1 929," 1930, p. 385.)

•' See S. W. Geiser, "Naturalists of the Frontier," Southwest Review, 1929,
pp. 184-198, and " Professor Jacob Boll and the Natural History of the South
West," American Midland Naturalist, 11, 1929, pp. 435-452.

30 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

In 1890 Samuel Henshaw (1852-) took over the care of the
entomological collections, and later (1899) of the Library of the
Museum. In 1903 he became the Institution's Curator, a title
which was changed to "Director" in 191 1. Until 1916, when
Nathan Banks was appointed Curator of Entomology, Henshaw
evinced a keen interest in the subject. He is well known among ento-
mologists as the author in 1885 of a complete list of the known North
American Coleoptera, a work to which he added supplements in
1886, 1889 and 1895. He is also the author of a very useful bibliog-
raphy of economic entomology in 5 parts, four of which were issued
by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1890, the fifth in
1896.

Since Thomas Barbour succeeded Henshaw as Director of the
Museum in 1927, the collections, under Banks' curatorship, have
been moved into much more commodious quarters and have been
increased to such an extent that three assistant curators have been
added to the staff: Dr. P. J. Darlington has taken charge of the
Coleoptera, Dr. M. Bates of the Lepidoptera and Dr. F. M. Car-
penter of the fossil insects, while Miss E. B. Bryant has charge of the
great aggregation of Arachnids.

Turning to the Bussey Institution at Forest Hills, we find that, as
early as 1871-72, the first year of its existence as an undergraduate
school of agriculture and horticulture, there was an instructorship of
entomology, which was held by Francis G. Sanborn. This instruc-
torship was permitted to lapse, however, in 1872, because much of
the income of the Institution had been lost as a result of the great
Boston fire. In 1879 the position was revived and given to Edward
Burgess (1848-91), who taught till 1882 and again from 1883 to
1884. Burgess' services to the Boston Society of Natural History as its
secretary, as an insect morphologist and subsequently as a naval ar-
chitect were noteworthy.' Scudder seems to have aroused his interest
in insect anatomy, which is the theme of most of the 22 papers he
published. His most important contribution deals with the anatomy
of our common milkweed butterfly (1880). He also edited (1875) the
writings of the pioneer arachnologist and entomologist, Nicholas
Marcellus Hentz (i 795-1 856).

' S. Scudder, "The Services of Edward Burgess to Natural Science," Proc.
Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 25, 1891, pp. 358-364.

HISTORY 3 1

When the Bussey Institution was reorganized in igo8 for graduate
work and research, I was appointed professor of entomology. A year
later Charles Thomas Brues was added to the staff as instructor.
During the following years, till 1929, when the Bussey Institution was
merged with the Arnold Arboretum and we joined the Zoological
Department and Museum in Cambridge, a considerable amount of
research, especially on Hymenoptera (the Parasitica by Brues and
the social Aculeata by myself), was undertaken and a number of
young investigators trained as teachers and as economic entomolo-
gists. We also conducted during the second semester of each year,
in Cambridge, general entomological courses designed primarily for
graduate students.

The importance of entomology has been recognized in the develop-
ment of the School of Public Health at the Harvard Medical School
by the appointment of two assistant professors. For some years
courses on insects as vectors of human and animal diseases were
given by Professor Brues at the Bussey Institution, but in 1923 Dr.
Joseph Bequaert took over this instruction as a member of Dr. Rich-
ard Strong's Department of Tropical Medicine, and more recently
Dr. Marshall Hertig has been giving similar instruction on the insect
parasites of domestic animals in Dr. Ernest Tyzzer's Department of
Comparative Pathology. Dr. Bequaert, who has contributed much
to our knowledge of the Vespoid Hymenoptera, Diptera and other
insects, is also an active member of both the Zoological and Museum
staffs.

The preceding brief historical sketch shows that there has been at
Harvard University not only an uninterrupted occupation with
entomological teaching and research since the close of the eighteenth
century, but also a continuous increase in these activities commen-
surate with those in other departments of zoology and all other
natural sciences. In other words, the importance of entomology has
been fully recognized without the undue exaggeration that has at-
tended its development in some other American universities. Owing
to the extraordinary number and variety of insect forms, entomolo-
gists have often shown a tendency, especially as occupants of profes-
sorial or official positions, to exaggerate the significance of insects as
distinguished from the many other existing and extinct animal types.
Not only has this tendency been noticeably absent among the teach-

32 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

ers of entomology at Harvard University, but there has been a very
evident desire on their part to remain in close, sympathetic rapport
with their colleagues in the other departments of biology. This de-
sire, which has always been fostered by the continuously and har-
moniously developing Museum of Comparative Zoology, has re-
cently been increased by the housing in its immediate vicinity of
nearly all the other biological departments in a single building.

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THE EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS

BY

THOMAS BARBOUR

This little guide is intended to aid in answering questions which are
constantly being asked concerning the specimens which have been
placed on exhibition in this Museum, and it is intended likewise to
serve as a brief description of the wealth of material available to re-
search workers within its walls.

Louis Agassiz, who founded the institution as it is now organized,
conceived a wholly novel and original plan, when he decided that
part of the exhibits should be in their nature faunistic, representing
the animals of the various zoogeographical regions, while the other
rooms were to be in their nature systematic — or, perhaps better, in
view of their inevitable limitation in scope, synoptic. In other words
these halls are intended to give an idea of some of the varying inter-
related types which make up each group of the animal kingdom.
During the Museum's early days its collections were small, and the
methods of preparation, especially of taxidermy, were primitive and
undeveloped. The result was that masses of specimens were placed
on exhibition often because there was no other convenient place to
put them, and also because, through ignorance of the art of preserva-
tion, no one realized how inherently hideous some of these old speci-
mens really were. A few of them still remain because of the difficulty
or high cost of replacing them, but most have gone. Today our Mu-
seum serves a different purpose than that of the other great museums
of the country. It is primarily a research institution, but by virtue
of the articles of agreement made between the original trustees of the
once semi-independent Museum of Comparative Zoology and the
Corporation of Harvard University when it became a part of that in-
stitution, some exhibits must always be open to the public. In order
that these exhibitions might be more instructive, they have been re-
cently, to a large degree, rearranged, much new material added, and
many old specimens discarded, although Louis Agassiz's original
plan of geographical and systematic rooms has been retained.

33

34 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

One may enter the exhibition room of the Zoological Section of
the University Museum (i. e. The Museum of Comparative Zoology)
from two directions. Many visitors pass directly from the exhibit of
Economic Botany to the Marine Mammal Room or to that in which
the North American birds are shown. Many other visitors enter the
Main Door facing the Quadrangle on Divinity Avenue. The guide
book is arranged as if all visitors entered in this way. Other visitors
may easily orient themselves by observing the numbers on the doors
of the rooms and seeking the corresponding number in this guide.

On entering the ground floor of the main entrance one finds, in an
alcove immediately at one's right hand, an immense slab of the re-
mains of many individuals of the fossil Rhinoceros (Diceratherium)
from Agate Springs, Nebraska. This slab, the largest of its kind ever
collected, was taken from the side of a butte rising several hundred
feet over the layer bearing the bony remains. The area is one where
great herds of animals perished in quicksand which were probably
later redeposited by river action. The bones will be observed to lie in
extraordinary confusion. With the increasing drying up of the
country, deposition of sand took place on a large scale. After long
ages erosion cut away a large portion of this extensive deposition and
exposed the bony-bearing layer. Descriptive and illustrative labels
and pictures help explain this exhibit.

The four Alaskan Moose heads show noteworthy horn develop-
ment; the one just to the left of the door being unusually massive.

In the alcove to the left is a slab of Climactichnites from northern
New York. These tracks represent the resting impressions and the
trails of a problematical animal which lived in very early geological
times. Opinions differ as to whether these were the tracks of a
mollusc, a crustacean or some creature as yet unknown to science.

In the hall beyond the stairway are portraits of Louis Agassiz and
Alexander Agassiz and busts of Alexander Agassiz and Francis C.
Gray, the Museum's first benefactor. On the wall opposite the por-
traits is the partially restored fossil skeleton of a giant flying reptile
(Pteranodon). Great creatures of this nature flew, probably while
fishing, over the ancient Cretaceous seas of Kansas, and falling into
the shallow water were occasionally preserved in the ooze of the bot-
tom — now a dry chalky deposit.

On an adjoining wall is a very fine skeleton of the primitive Trias-

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 35

sic Dinosaur, Plateosaurus, from Germany. This is the first specimen
of this genus to be mounted in this country, and the mount is pe-
culiarly graceful as well as scientifically convincing in all its details.
Near this mount is shown the skull of a magnificent horned Dinosaur,
geologically the most recent Triceratops ever found.

Room 156

Fossil Invertebrates

This room has been arranged as an aid to the teaching of inverte-
brate palaeontology. The visitor will find synoptic exhibits of the
various groups of invertebrate fossils, well labelled, and with restora-
tions to show the way the animals appeared in life. Many of these
individual specimens are too small and apparently inconspicuous to
attract attention, at first, but a careful examination will reveal a
host of specimens of great beauty and perfection of preservation.
The Museum is most fortunate in having had great stores of material
from which these exhibits have been chosen. The fossil insects, the
trilobites, and the echinoderms are especially noteworthy.

Room i 54
Fossil Vertebrates

In this room are shown some of the primitive fish and fish-like
vertebrates. The great head of Dinichthys is one of the finest ever
found. This creature was probably not unlike a giant catfish in ap-
pearance. The bony head coverings are shown, the rest of the skele-
ton being of cartilage. It must be emphasized that Dinichthys was
not a true fish — let alone a catfish. Its exact zoological position is
uncertain.

The large, sluggish, mollusc-feeding, lizard-like Diadectes is note-
worthy as being a rare find from the Permian of Texas. It represents
a group of very primitive reptiles called the Cotylosauria.

The fossil tortoises are good, as are also the small flying lizards in
the case by the window. The Ichthyosaurs on the wall were porpoise-
like reptiles which swarmed in the Triassic Seas. In this room, as in
the other rooms devoted to vertebrate fossils, extensive changes are
planned as specimens now in the Museum are, one by one, mounted

36 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

for exhibition. The skull of Boettneria in the pedestal case is that of
an early Amphibian and is marvellously preserved. It was taken
from out of a very hard and refractory rock and required many
months of the most skillful work to remove. Several skulls repre-
senting groups of extinct reptiles are very unusually perfect.

Room 155

Fossil Vertebrates

The central group are Pliocene types from the Pampean forma-
tions of Argentina. These specimens were collected for Alexander
Agassiz by Professor H. A. Ward and represent, unfortunately, but
part of the collection secured, a large part having been lost when an-
other ship bringing them north foundered off Fire Island, New York.
The Panochthus, a Giant Armadillo-like animal, is very fine, and
the Toxodon almost uniquely complete. The three genera of sloths
are likewise noteworthy.

In this room there are also exhibited fossil birds. The skeleton of
the great flightless Aepyornis of Madagascar, which is supposed to
have given rise to the legend of the Roc, is shown near the similar but
somewhat distantly related Moas of New Zealand. The remains of
the Dodo from Mauritius and the Solitaire of Rodriquez Island, in
the Indian Ocean, represent giant flightless pigeons. Two impor-
tant and unique types of fossil birds are Palaeospiza and Gallinu-
loides. These are wonderfully preserved and are among the great
treasures of the Museum. In this room the fossil fishes form a con-
tinuous systematic sequence with those in room 154. This exhibit of
fossil fish is the most important representation of any vertebrate
group possessed by the Museum. It is supplemented by the material
in the study collections, but since fossils do not usually deteriorate,
many of the finest specimens have been placed on public exhibition.
This policy is not generally pursued in other departments of this
Museum.

Room 153
Fossil Vertebrates

In the center of the room is a group of mastodon remains —
classics of their sort, for these are some of the specimens studied by
Dr. John C. Warren and Professor Jeffries Wyman some eighty years

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 37

ago. These fossils were illustrated in Dr. Warren's famous memoir,
published in Boston in 1852.

In the late summer of 1844 a drought dried up many ponds and
marshes in the neighborhood of Hackettstown, New Jersey. In a
small swamp on his farm, Mr. Abraham Ayers uncovered the re-
mains of five mastodons — four adults and a calf. Very evidently
the animals had been bogged, for three of them were buried standing
upright; inclosed by the ribs of a couple of them Mr. Ayers found
what he described as "coarse chopped straw" — remnants of the
last meal.

Only one of these skeletons has come down to us in anything like
its entirety; from ignorance and lack of proper care most of the bones
of the others crumbled to dust soon after being exhumed, while
other small parts were lost through carelessness. It was not till
1846 that a number of gentlemen of Boston, Cambridge, and Salem
donated what was left to Harvard College.

The first attempt at setting up the skeleton was scarcely successful,
as is obvious from the figure given by Dr. Warren. He was soon
commissioned to improve upon it. With his assistant, Mr. Ogden, he
made careful comparisons with a modern elephant and his own fa-
mous mastodon (now in the American Museum in New York), and
mounted it just as it now stands, even to supplying, in cork, the miss-
ing foot bones. " The skeleton thus restored was transferred to Cam-
bridge; and, in the latter part of the autumn of 1850, presented to the
President of the University, the late Governor Everett, Professors
Agassiz and Wyman, and the members of the Scientific School."

Except for a number of teeth and a few odd bones in storage, the
skulls and jaws surrounding the mounted skeleton are all that re-
mains of the other four mastodons. They are arranged to show the
changes in dentition as the animal grows older. The small pair of
jaws in the glass case is the youngest of the series. Next to it is an
older stage, and at the opposite (front) end of the skeleton is a still
older one. The skull of the second stage has been sawed in half to
show the form of the brain case, as well as the great thickness of the
covering bones, which are nearly as extremely developed as in a
modern elephant.

On opposite sides of the skeleton are a shoulder blade and three
dorsal vertebrae of an imperial elephant from Florida. Large as was

38 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

the mastodon, the imperial elephant was far larger — in fact, the
largest elephant known.

In general this room is only partially installed, and will in time be
largely rearranged. Noteworthy specimens are the sabre tooth tigers,
the evolutionary series of the fossil horses to show their increase in
size and the reduction of the number of digits, the well-preserved
three-toed horses, Mesohippus, the Scott and Osborn types of Titano-
theres. The Moropus represents a group of mammals known as the
Chalicotheres, which showed some relationship with existing her-
bivorous animals, and which had great claws instead of hooves, for
what purpose is unknown. The two fine Irish Elk skulls, one on the
wall and one with its complete skeleton, are impressive remains of the
largest deer known.

Upper Entry Hall
This hall contains the Phillips Collection of Antlers and Horns.
Here are not only many record heads, but a series, finely chosen, to
enable one to appreciate the extraordinary diversity shown among
the wild cattle, sheep, goats, deer and antelopes.

Main Hall
This hall contains a synoptic collection of Mammals. Attention is
called to the charts on the walls which show the interrelationship of
the various mammalian groups and the location of these groups in
the cases. The specimens to which the visitor's attention is particu-
larly directed are: the splendid Mountain Gorilla; the Pere David's
deer, extinct in a wild state; the Javan Rhinoceros, the rarest of all
living allied species; the Okapi, the first ever brought to America;
the Giant Giraff"e and the European Bison, also on the verge of extinc-
tion. The Pygmy Hippopotamus from Liberia is a rare species and is
shown with its skeleton, while the Zebra represents a race which is
now extinct and which formerly inhabited the southern portion of
the Cape Province, South Africa.

The Gallery of Birds
Surrounding the three great whale skeletons is the new synoptic
collection of birds. This shows skeletons and mounted representa-
tives of all of the principal families of the birds of the world.

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 39

Room 352

The Alexander Agassiz Memorial Room

The exhibits in this room are built about the two Curtis Models of
Coral Islands, which Alexander Agassiz had made for the Museum.
The models, made from photographic surveys, give a most beautiful
and vivid impression of Borabora and Funafuti in the Pacific Ocean.
The former is a high mountainous island with a surrounding barrier
reef, while the other is one of the most perfect atolls known.

The wall cases show some of the coral reef animals — the sort of
creatures which a visitor collecting in, or indeed looking into, the
limpid waters of the lagoons would find or see. The fishes of gaudy
colors, the sponges, the lacy alcyonarian or horny corals are very
beautiful. The encrusting hydroids are especially fine. Characteris-
tic stony corals, molluscs, echinoderms and Crustacea of the reefs are
also shown. From the center of the ceiling hangs the life size model
of a large octopus, and among the molluscs the giant clams, each
valve weighing over one hundred pounds, are most impressive. The
room is dedicated to commemorate Alexander Agassiz's great in-
terest in the study of coral reefs.

Room 354

Synoptic Collection of Invertebrates

This room is an abridged text book of elementary zoology. It was
installed in 1928 by several specialists in the Museum. It shows the
progressive complication of animal types from the protozoa or single
celled animals to the immediate forerunners of the vertebrates.
Many of the more delicate invertebrates, sea anemones, medusae or
jelly fishes, some of the worms and naked molluscs, are shown in
Blaschka glass models. These were made by the first member of the
family who made the beautiful glass flowers shown in the Botanical
Museum. The collection of insects is probably the most comprehen-
sive of any on public exhibition. Special attention is called to the
model of the giant squid and to the very large piece of precious coral
which Mr. Agassiz secured many years ago in Naples. In the central
cases some interesting examples of insect architecture are shown.

40 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Room 355

A Synopsis of the Fishes

The central cases show the most primitive of living fishes, the hag-
fishes, lampreys (Myxinoids) as well as the higher sharks and skates,
and also the most primitive of the bony fishes.

The wall cases beginning on the Northwest wall (just beyond the
door to the reptile room) and continuing all the way around the wall
cases to the door from the invertebrate synopsis contain a series
showing the principal families of bony fishes ending with the Aus-
tralian mudfish. This, one of the Dipnoi or Lung fishes, is allied to
forms which gave rise to the Amphibia. Fish are difficult creatures to
exhibit satisfactorily. The skinning, mounting and coloring require
the highest skill, and it is only with great difficulty that so many well-
mounted specimens have been assembled as are shown here. Some
forms are so soft-bodied that it is necessary to show models in place of
the actual specimens.

Room 353

Synopsis of Amphibia and Reptiles

In the Northeast corner wall case will be found a few amphibians,
the group represented by frogs, toads, the newts, salamanders and the
legless Caecilians. This exhibit is admittedly inadequate, but shows a
number of interesting forms and some illustrations of the develop-
ment from larva (tadpole) to adult, as well as their methods of caring
for their young. The curious meringue-like nest of Chiromantis, an
African tree frog, is made of slime from the creatures body beaten up
into a froth with its feet. While this is soft the eggs are laid therein.
The mass hardens and forms a sort of cocoon in which they are pro-
tected until they hatch.

The central cases show almost all the species of crocodiles and alli-
gators. The great skull from the Philippine Islands is the largest ever
recorded, and the whole history of its capture is a fascinating ro-
mance (see label). What is probably the record skull of the Florida
Alligator is shown nearby also. The large monitor lizard from
Komodo Island is a handsome recent accession. Near this is a fine

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 4 1

suite of giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands and the Islands of
the Indian Ocean.

The wall cases contain many fine tortoises and turtles, among these
the historic type specimens from which two of the species were
originally described. The venomous cobras, the great bushmaster
and the rattlesnakes are remarkable examples of taxidermy and
were mounted in the Museum by Mr. George Nelson, who for many
years has been its highly skilled chief preparator. It is impossible to
show all of the groups of reptiles and amphibia in a small synoptic
collection, but the most renowned snakes are shown, as well as many
beautifully mounted lizards.

Room 306

Holarctic Birds and Aiammals

The birds shown in this room are in general Old World represen-
tatives of birds which occur in our own country, and which may be
seen in Room 302. In the case of the mammals, however, the collec-
tion is designed to show the homogeneity of the holarctic area —
comprising northern North America, Europe and Siberia. Here may
be seen, for instance, the European Red Deer and the American
Wapiti — representative of the same stock. So also badgers from
Japan, England and Montana show how closely alike are these re-
lated forms. As a Zoological Region this great area is a single entity.
It is known now that many of the mammals of North America are
comparatively recent arrivals on this continent. They came from
Northern Asia, when Northeastern Siberia and Alaska were con-
nected by one or perhaps successive "land bridges." Reciprocal
migration apparently also took place in the reverse direction.

Room 304

African Birds and Mammals

The birds shown are some of the peculiar forms which are char-
acteristic of the Ethiopian region. The whale-headed stork from the
high Upper Nile is perhaps the most interesting as well as the rarest
of these. While the collection is not a large one, it is sufficient to
show how varied and extraordinary is the African avifauna.

42 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

The rest of the room contains some fine, if, perforce, somewhat
crowded, examples of the mammals of Africa. The giant sable ante-
lope from Angola is by far the finest specimen in the room, but the
hippopotamus is also a fine mount. Some of the other antelopes are
recently acquired, and are perfect examples of modern taxidermy.

In a special case may be found some of the characteristic birds and
mammals of Madagascar. The highly characteristic lemurs, the
peculiar insectivores and the very anomalous pig are among them.

Room 313
South American Room

Next to the Holarctic Room, and entered also from the main hall,
is the space devoted to showing some of the birds and mammals, as
well as some of the shells and insects of the Neotropical region. The
beautiful set of humming birds is very complete and has been newly
installed to display their metallic colors to the best advantage.
Among the mammals, the set of camel-like animals, i. e. the llama,
alpaca, guanaco and vicuna, are worthy of note, as also the fine
Huemul deer mounted by Carl Akeley and the big jaguar by James
Clark. The West Indian seal is almost, if not quite, extinct, and the
peculiar maned wolf of Paraguay is very rare in collections. There is
also a small representation of some of the characteristic creatures of
the Antilles and the Galapagos Islands.

Room 311
Indo-Asiatic Birds and Mammals

The two tigers, one from tropical India and one from Mongolia,
emphasize the wide distribution of the species and show the differ-
ence in the geographic races or subspecies inhabiting, one a frigid,
and the other a torrid part of the species range. The giant Indian
elephant was a famous rogue killed in Mysore by W. T. Hornaday,
in 1884. The mount was considered a masterpiece of taxidermy
forty years ago ! The great gaur was killed by Hornaday in southern
India at the same time. The Sumatran rhinoceros is rare, as is also
the tiny Salvin's pig of India. The other mammals and birds are
some of those specially characteristic of Southeastern Asia.

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 43

Main Hall

In the hallway are a number of significant special exhibits. Along
one side is the series of birds' nests showing the progressive elabora-
tion in avian architecture. Here are nests from the most simple to
the most complicated and curious. In the flat table case are ex-
amples of "mimicry" in insects and a set of the gorgeous tree snails
of the genus Liguus to show the range of variation within one com-
pact and closely related group of species. A bronze plaque, a photo-
graph and some exquisite drawing commemorate the work of M.
Jacques Burkhardt, for long years the unrivalled artist who illus-
trated the Museum publications and who lived as a member of Louis
Agassiz's household. On another wall is a long panel of a group of
white herons rising from a forest pool. This is the greatest artistic
treasure belonging to the Museum and was given to it by its creator,
Frank W. Benson. Several portraits hang near it. One is Professor
■E. L. Mark, Hersey Professor of Anatomy from 1885 to 1921. The
portrait of Humboldt formerly belonged to Agassiz. That of Agassiz
was given by Captain C. H. Davis, U. S. N. Professor J. D. Whitney
was long Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the days when that
chair was held in this Museum.

From the ceiling hang two skeletons, one that of the narwhal, the
other one of the Museum's most valued possessions. It is the skeleton
of Steller's sea cow, perhaps the most perfect known, collected by Dr.
L. Stejneger, at Behring Island, 1882-83. The animal has been ex-
tinct over 100 years. In the stair well hang three pictures. One is a
portrait of Audubon, from the estate of the late William Brewster,
after, or perhaps in part by, Healey. The others, Audubon's two
greatest masterpieces, were given by John Eliot Thayer to the Mu-
seum but shortly before his death. Their history is set forth on the
tablets beneath them designed by C. Howard Walker, who also de-
signed the Burkhardt tablet, and the one in the Agassiz Coral Reef
Room.

Passing from the Main Hall one enters two more of the rooms de-
voted to zoogeography.

44 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Room 309

Insular Faunae
Here are some characteristic mammals and birds from Australia,
New Zealand and the Papuasian area. The egg-laying mammals,
Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, are important as well as the fine
Emu and Cassowary. There is no part of the world where the parrots
and pigeons are so abundant, both in species and individuals, and no
part of the world where they are so beautiful in color as in Papua and
Australia. Many of these are shown here. There are no native land
mammals in New Zealand, except bats. The birds, however, are
noteworthy for the number of peculiar endemic genera. Some of the
most remarkable of these are shown, including several which are
rapidly approaching extinction, such as the Huia, the Kiwi and the
peculiar duck.

Room 307
Marine Faunal Associations
In the case to the left of the door by which one enters from the
Main Hall are shown characteristic pelagic organisms such as are
found in the Gulf Stream. Here, again, are some fine Blaschka glass
models. In the alcove in front of this case (on both sides) are some
typical deep sea invertebrates. The giant crabs from Japan and the
lovely siliceous sponges are well worth careful examination. Facing
the center of the room are two exhibits, one of the common tidepool
invertebrates of our own coasts, i. e. the types referred to in the
American Text Books of Zoology, and those seen by students on
their excursions to Nahant. The gigantic lobster claws are striking.
Opposite are the common species similarly familiar to those going to
the British or French (Northern) marine laboratories. The central
cases contain Blaschka models of tropical invertebrates, chiefly
holothurians or sea cucumbers. About the outer walls of the room
are invertebrates of many classes from the shallow waters of tropical
seas, the most interesting specimens being the giant corals from the
Great Barrier Reef of Australia. In one corner case an exhibit has
been arranged to show apparatus used in deep sea exploration.
Many of the individual objects are of historical interest, having been
the first of their kind to be made or used on historic expeditions.

EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 45

Room 305

Domesticated Animals

The contents of this room illustrate variation under domestication
(notice the races of chickens and dogs), domesticated animals not
used in America, and such matters as hybridism, albinism, and
melanism. There is also an exhibit to show Mendelian inheritance.

Room 301

Marine Mammals

(N.B. The Zoological Museum may also be entered through this
room from the Botanical Museum.)

This room illustrates the manner in which four mammalian stocks
have become modified for marine life; viz. the Sirenia or manatees
and dugongs; the Cetacea or whales and porpoises; the Pinnepedia
or sea elephants, seals and sea lions, and the sea otter. The unique
series of sketches, mostly made from life studies or ample notes from
fresh material, is by Mr. J. Henry Blake. Being the work of an artist,
trained by Louis Agassiz, they are remarkably accurate. Mr. Blake
was artist during the voyage of the S.S. Hassler, and through his long
life has always been interested in whales and whaling, and had many
unusual chances to sketch from life. His father-in-law Capt. Na-
thaniel E. Atwood of Provincetown collected many cetacea for the
Museum.

The narwhal in this room is of especial interest since it is not only
the first one ever to be mounted for exhibition in America, but it
came from Newfoundland where it is now extinct. It was not so
many years ago a uniform dull black, and continued to exude and
to drip grease even fifty or more years after it was prepared. This
has all finally been cleaned off and removed and the skin found to
be in perfect condition. It was then repainted, from notes furnished
by a member of the staff" who once lived in Greenland, and who was
perfectly familiar with the animal in life.

46 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Room 302

The Thayer Room

(N.B. The Zoological Museum is also often entered via this room
which, with Room 301, connects with the Botanical Museum.)

This room contains the birds of North America. The superb col-
lection of beautifully mounted individuals is a monument to the
discriminating pertinacity of John Eliot Thayer, a benefactor of the
Museum all his life. He made this collection and left it to the Mu-
seum at his death. Here the bird lover who observes afield may
solve his problems of bird identification. The birds in this room
might well have been shown in connection with those of the Hol-
arctic Room, number 306, did the arrangement of the building
permit.

Adjoining the Thayer Room, as one enters the Main Hall from
this direction, there is an important case of extinct and vanishing
birds. This includes two great auks, which are among the finest in
existence; George Washington's pheasants, among the oldest
mounted birds in America and some of Alexander Wilson's original
mounts — from which he drew the plates for his American Orni-
thology. Among other objects of interest is the last net for taking
Passenger Pigeons which was used in New England.

THE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS

BY

THOMAS BARBOUR

The research collections of the Museum stand in the same relation to
the student of systematic zoology, of evolution, of comparative
anatomy or of geographical distribution that the library does to the
student of law or history. Mr. John Stephenson of England, in 1 928,
defined systematic zoology in a singularly succinct and yet complete
paragraph: as follows.

"The value of Systematic Zoology is generally understood, though
perhaps still occasionally liable to deprecation. The first requisite
in zoological work of any kind — morphological, economic, or any
other — is to know what one is dealing with; before we can so much
as begin on any other problem, we must know what our animals are
— must have them described, named, and classified; and Systematic
Zoology, which does this, is thus the bed-rock on which all other
zoological research ultimately rests. Such work stands for all time;
the first adequate description of a new animal is something which
can never be duplicated, never repeated; it is there, once for all, as
something to be appealed to, something that cannot, by the rules
under which the systematist works, be superseded. It may seem to
be of little interest at the moment; it may not be recalled for years;
but it will be required, and will come into its own when much work
in other branches has become obsolete through change of fashion or
improved technique, or has been shown to be useless for any further
advance."

The Annual Report of the Museum for the year 1930-31 con-
tained these remarks which emphasize and perhaps in some degree
paraphrase what has been said before, and it may be recalled that
emphasis is often gained by repetition. " The realization grows that
in no way can so wide a grasp be gained of many aspects of animal
life, such as a variation, of adaptation to environment, of distribution
in time and space, and, above all, in the appreciation of the proc-

47

aQ museum of comparative zoology

esses of evolution, as by working in a Museum in daily intimacy
with its great collections. The Museum is no mere storehouse of
dead and dusty trash, but is a living and vital center offermg the
same fascinating opportunity for, and incentive to investigation
which comes to the student of history as he steps into one of the
world's great libraries of books and manuscripts. The Museum's
place in present-day biology grows more, not less, important as its
collections grow and as it leads more men both to the cabinet and
into the field and to consider the study of the life histories of animals
as much a part of its natural activity as the study of those which are

preserved."

A collection is, in some degree at least, valuable as it contains
"types" or the original specimens from which species are described
or specimens compared directly with types. So also specimens which
have been figured in classical works and specimens which supple-
ment fragmentary types, "plesiotypes" as they are called, are of the
highest value. A fossil elephant may be described from a single tooth,
but when the first perfect skull is found it becomes as important as
the type, or perhaps more important. As the reader will observe in
reading this account of the study collections, our Museum has been
greatly blessed in that vast numbers of specimens to which natural-
ists will always want to refer have fallen into its care. If I were to
be asked which are the most noteworthy types in the Museum, I
should answer with a thrill, "The insects from Linn6's cabinet, which
came with Dr. Hagen's collection, and the Hawaiian bird Drepams
paafica, described by Lesson and collected by Captain Cook's Expe-
dition " It is from this sort of bird, the Mamo, now wholly extinct
that the feathers were taken to make the gorgeous royal robe of
Kamehameha the Great. On second thought I should add "the
type of the gorilla."

A Resume of the Research Collections

THE MAMMAL COLLECTION

BY

GLOVER M. ALLEN

The study collection of mammals, housed on the fifth floor of the
Museum, ranks, in point of numbers and importance, about third
or fourth among those in American Museums. Although its ultimate
aim is to comprise a representation of the living species of mammals
of the glove, this ideal is naturally still very far from being realized.
Nevertheless, there is really an excellent series of North American
species, including most of the genera and a good proportion of the
described forms of living mammals. The mammals of the West
Indies are well represented, and include such rare species as the two
solenodons and all the known forms of Capromys and Geocapromys.
South America, except Brazil, is still rather scantily represented; our
collections from Europe and Northern Asia are better, and from parts
of Southern, Eastern, and Western Africa better still, and very com-
plete as relating to Kenya and Tanganyika Territory.

At present the collection contains about 35,000 skins and skulls, or
more or less nearly complete skeletons of living species, and repre-
sents about 1800 species.

There are about 300 type specimens upon which names have been
based. A large part of these are contained in the well known Bangs
Collection of North American Mammals.

Other important collections are: the Loveridge and Schwab col-
lections of African mammals, the large Australian and Chinese col-
lections, as well as many others of greater or less extent added
through frequent exchange, purchase, or gift, as well as through the
work of field expeditions of the Museum.

A card index, by species, forms a ready guide to the material here
available for study, and the collection itself is readily accessible for
the use of properly qualified persons wishing to consult it.

49

THE BIRD COLLECTION

BY

JAMES L. PETERS

The study collection of birds, amounting to some 250,000 specimens,
is located on the fifth floor of the North wing of the building. The
synoptic collections in the public halls consist of mounted birds.
The study collection, on the other hand, is in the form of "skins,"
that is, instead of being mounted in a more or less life-like attitude
and fastened to a wooden stand, the birds are stuffed with a little
cotton and laid on their backs in an attitude suggesting that of a
dead bird. The skins are stored in trays in air-tight, light-proof cases
and are available to scientists of standing and to accredited students
for study. Whereas the exhibition collection contains one or more
representatives of each family of birds, there is no practical advan-
tage to be gained by endeavoring to display one of each of the 3000
genera or 25,000 species of birds known today. This is properly the
function of the study collection, which contains nearly all the genera
and nearly seventy per cent of the recognized forms.

This collection of bird skins was begun under the direction of Pro-
fessor Louis Agassiz in 1859. It consisted at that time chiefly of local
birds, and its growth for the first forty years was gradual. During
that period the larger part of its acquisitions was by purchase or gift,
though the Thayer Expedition in Brazil in 1865 and the Expedition
to the Rocky Mountains in 1871 added many specimens. The
Bryant Collection of North American and West Indian birds
amounting to about 8000 skins was received in 1899. It was the first
really large collection to be received by the Museum. The Bangs
collection, received in 1909, added 25,000 birds from North America,
Central and northern South America, including about 150 types
and many rare and desirable species. Since the beginning of the
present century the growth of the collection has been much more
rapid and less haphazard. Efforts have been made to secure as
many species and genera as possible from all parts of the world. The

50

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 5 I

John E. Thayer Expedition to China in 1907-09 yielded over 3000
birds, and was the first large collection of Chinese birds to come to
this country. The following year 2000 skins, collected by F. B. Arm-
strong, in northeastern Mexico, were received from John C. Phil-
lips. Since then several large collections from Mexico have been
made by W. W. Brown. Underwood and Stadelman in Honduras
have sent many thousands of birds to the Museum from both moun-
tains and lowlands of that country. Expeditions to the West Indies,
Central and South America, Africa, Asia and the East Indies have
increased the representation from these regions. Exchanges with
museums, both in this country and abroad, have added rare species
not obtained on the museum expeditions. The collection of William
Brewster, containing 40,000 skins from North America and Mexico,
was received by bequest in 191 8. The LaTouche collection of
Chinese birds, which has been received by purchase, and the great
collections made by Rock give the museum an essentially complete
representation of the birds of China. Another valuable accession
during the last few years is the Swann collection of hawks. The
collection of Baron de Lafresnaye, celebrated French ornithologist of
the middle of the nineteenth century, was turned over by the Boston
Society of Natural History in 1920. In 1923 Mr. Homer L. Bigelow
presented his collection of about 3000 skins of North American birds,
all beautifully prepared. The Thayer collection of 28,000 skins was
received in 1932.

The study collection contains, at present, about 1350 type speci-
mens. In importance the collection ranks high among the great in-
stitutions of a similar nature in the world. In this country it is ex-
ceeded in actual number of skins only by those of the National
Museum in Washington and the American Museum in New York.
It is probably more complete than the former, while the latter is the
largest and most complete in the world, and the next only to the
British Museum in importance. Abroad our collection is exceeded
only by some of the very much older bird collections such as those at
London, and perhaps Paris and Leningrad. The collection of
Chinese birds here is one of the finest in the world, and the same
probably holds true of the birds of the West Indies. The representa-
tion of hawks is virtually complete.

In 1926 Mr. A. C. Bent, of Taunton, Massachusetts, deposited his

52 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

collection of North American birds, amounting, at that time, to
about 12,000 specimens, and in the same year Mr. F. H. Kennard
also deposited his collection of around 5000 specimens. Both of
these collections are kept separate from the main collection, and
while they will eventually become a part of the corpus of the collec-
tion, they are at present under the control of their respective owners,
who are actively engaged in adding to, and improving, them. To
these Mr. C. F. Batchelder, in 1933, added his collection of over
7000 skins, as a gift.

Since the foregoing pages were written the Harvard Australian
Expedition has returned with many birds from Australia not pre-
viously in our series and with a good collection from Papua as well.
Large collections have recently been received from central and
southern Brazil.

The skins are all arranged in a single systematic series and form
the most accessibly arranged large collection in existence.

There is a rather large and almost completely catalogued collec-
tion of birds' eggs and nests. There is much historical material, eggs
taken by Audubon, and other early naturalists, but the collection
has a long way to go before it can be called really representative.
Under the care of the Department of Birds there is also a very valu-
able collection of skeletal material and a few important alcoholic
specimens. This part of the collection owes much to Dr. G. M.
Allen's industrv and interest.

THE REPTILE-AMPHIBIAN COLLECTION

BY

ARTHUR LOVERIDGE

The reserve study collections of reptiles and amphibians in the Mu-
seum of Comparative Zoology are probably only excelled in variety
of species by those in the British Museum.

The actual number of specimens is difficult to ascertain, as in
former times one registration number was given to a series from one
locality; latterly only up to twenty-five representative specimens
from a large series have been entered. The rapid growth in the col-
lections dates from 1903, a point easily verified by consulting the
registers which were commenced in 1875. If we divide the fifty-six
years covered by the registers we find that: in the 28 years covering
1875-1902, 9046 entries were made; in the 28 years covering 1903-
30, 36,087 entries were made, and the entries tend to increase annu-
ally. It is probable that an estimate of 400,000 would give a fair idea
of the total number of specimens in the collection.

At the last census taken (September, 1932) there were 5,147 dis-
tinct species or races represented in the collection.

At the present time there are holotypes or paratypes of about 1,500
species; a number which is continually being augmented.

In early days A. A. Dumeril furnished the Museum with a selec-
tion of the material which had been used by his father, together with
his colleague Bibron, in the publication of their standard work on the
reptiles and amphibians. Many of Cope's types are in the Museum,
for he reported on several of the earlier collections.

The collection is so uniformly representative that it is difficult to
single out groups which are particularly good; it is easier to treat the
collection from a geographical standpoint. There are, however, a
few groups so nearly complete that they may be mentioned here;
these are the Crocodylia; Chelonia; the sea snakes (Malcolm Smith
collection) among the Ophidia; the Anoles (Barbour collection)
among the Lacertilia; the Rhiptoglossa (A. Loveridge collections)-
and the Caudata among Amphibia.

53

54 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Europe. While the majority of the species and races are repre-
sented, the collection cannot be considered rich in European ma-
terial, and as comparatively little work is done here on European
herpetology, there seems little purpose in duplicating series which
may be consulted in the national collections of Europe. Collections
of outstanding importance from the regions are those from Germany
(W. Kukenthal), Austria (VV. Wolterstorff), and Spain (F. Z.
Cervera).

Asia. By exchanges with the Leningrad Museum a representative
series of Northern Asiatic species has been secured, and of India
from the Indian Museum. From the latter region R. H. Beddome
contributed specimens, and M. M. Carlton made extensive donations
of reptiles from the Kulu Valley. From China we have the collec-
tions of F. R. VVulsin and J. Graham, with J. T. Wright's perfectly
preserved material from Indo-China and Annam. A. Owston's col-
lectors worked in Formosa, on behalf of Dr. Barbour, who presented
the resulting material and the types based upon it. From Siam,
Celebes and Timor, collections were received from Dr. Malcolm
Smith, and several fine consignments from the interior of Sarawak
from Harrison W. Smith; from Borneo, small collections by W. T.
Hornaday and E. Mjoberg. Edward Taylor's third Philippine col-
lection, exceptionally rich in types, was presented by a friend of the
department, as w^ell as his own extensive East Indian collections, and
a portion of the Douglas Burden-Emmett Dunn material from the
same regions, so that it may be truly said that the Museum has a fine
and representative selection of species occurring in this region.

Africa. The Franz Werner expedition, of 1928, rounded off" the
already almost complete series of the North African fauna, of the
Mediterranean littoral. From the Liberian region was received the
very fine collection made by G. M. Allen and his associates, who
accompanied Dr. R. P. Strong on the Harvard Medical School Ex-
pedition. Over a long series of years G. Schwab has been contribut-
ing reptiles and amphibians from the Cameroons. The Belgian
Congo series was enriched by some of the Herbert Lang-James
Chapin material received from the American Museum of Natural
History and more recently by specimens obtained by J. Bequaert.
In 1 925, W. S. Brooks visited South Africa, and the resulting material,
when added to the old Layard collection, and to numerous speci-

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 55

mens received in exchange from the South African museums, gives
us over two-thirds of the species known from the South of the Zam-
besi. From the East coast came the A. Loveridge collection of 191 5-
23, and later ones resulting from the expeditions of 1926 and 1929-
30 and 1933, so that the Museum only lacks about thirty species
from the whole region lying between the Tana and the Rovuma
Rivers. From Somaliland and Ethiopia there is little material, and
from the Sudan only a moderate-sized collection, made by Dr. J. C.
Phillips and Dr. G. M. Allen. The collection made by F. R. Wulsin,
in Madagascar, is a noteworthy one, and other material has been
purchased, from time to time, but a lesser proportion of this rich
fauna is in hand as compared with that from Africa.

North America. Since it is one of the objects of the National Mu-
seum to build up an extensive collection of North American forms,
the Museum of Comparative Zoology has attempted to avoid any
rivalry or overlapping in this direction, and has confined its scope to
collecting but a small representative series of each race or species, but
it has gratefully accepted, as gifts, series from the several faunal areas.
North American Salamanders, largely E. R. Dunn's collecting, are
well represented, and many of L. M. Klauber's beautifully preserved
specimens will be found among the series of Californian reptiles;
equally noteworthy are W. W. Brown's material from Arizona and
Texas.

Central America and West Indies. The Museum has such extensive
Antillean collections that only a few can receive mention. A large
number of types resulted from S. Carman's collecting in this region,
and in recent years Dr. Barbour has contributed quantities of ma-
terial, not only from the Isthmus and West Indian Islands proper,
but particularly from Cuba where he has collected on innumerable
occasions. From the latter locality C. T. Ramsden also has sent
many choice things. Some of the major collections were received
from Mexico (W. W. Brow^n; E. R. Dunn; J. L. Peters; J. E. Thayer),
Yucatan (L.J. Cole; E. Thompson), Guatemala (W. B. Richardson;
A. E. Anthony), Costa Rica (H. S. Blair; E. R. Dunn), Panama
(E. R. Dunn; J. B. Shropshire; J. Zetek). Haiti (G. M. Allen; W.J.
Everdam; W. M. Mann; J. L. Peters and T. Barbour). The latter
has collected on most of the West Indian Islands at one time and an-
other and gathered much valuable material. Other collections that

56 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

might be mentioned are Swan Island (G. Nelson), Guadeloups and
other islands (G. K. Noble), Porto Rico (G. M. Allen), Bahamas
(C.J. Maynard and T. Barbour), Jamaica (T. Barbour; E. R. Dunn;
G. Wright). Grenada and Trinidad (R. Thaxter).

South America. In Colombia the Museum has had numerous
helpers, principal among whom are Hno. Niceforo Maria, P. J.
Darlington, and Dr. W. H. White. In 1872 the famous Hassler
Expedition visited the Galapagos Islands, and reaped a rich harvest,
providing many types. In recent times W. S. Brooks secured a small
collection on the islands which filled certain gaps in the earlier series.
Whymper's collections from Ecuador and G. K. Noble's from Peru
likewise proved valuable. Carman's material from the Titicaca re-
gion is historic. In Chile, J. L. Peters and Carlos Reed collected; the
former also spent some time in the Argentine. Most of our Bolivian
collection was made by J. S. Steinbach and received in exchange
from the University of Michigan Museum. Barbour, however, col-
lected the types of a few interesting species in 1908. The Thayer
Expedition to Brazil brought back vast quantities of reptile and
amphibian life, and in recent years, through the instrumentality of
Drs. Vital Brazil, Alipio de Miranda Ribero, Adolopho Lutz, and
above all of Dr. Afranio do Amaral, the Brazilian snake collection
has been made almost complete, with long series of well preserved
specimens.

Australia. The first collections of consequence from this area were
taken by Alexander Agassiz's expedition to the Great Barrier Reef.
Latterly two members of the staff — Messrs. W. S. Brooks and
Hubert L. Clark — have visited Australia and added to that collec-
tion, which has, however, been augmented from time to time by ex-
changes, carried out with the Australian Museums. Latterly the
Harvard Australian Expedition, with Drs. Wheeler, Clark, Allen,
Darlington and Dixson, as well as Messrs. Schevill and Ellis, have
given this Museum one of the most complete, if not the most com-
plete, representation from Australia in any museum.

THE ICHTHYOLOGICAL COLLECTION

BY

NICHOLAS A. BORODIN

The study collection of fishes of the Museum of Comparative Zoology
comprises about 35,000 registered and catalogued units.' Besides
that there are some unidentified and unregistered fishes, collected in
the past by various expeditions and private persons, and a large col-
lection of African fishes (about 600 specimens), collected recently for
the Museum by A. Loveridge.

Within the last few years a considerable collection of fish skele-
tons, some 300 in number, has been added to the study collection of
fishes.

The collection occupies five rooms of the basement and is placed in
36 cases with 410 sections; in each section are from five to nineteen
trays.

Most of the fishes ate in bottles, but some of the larger fish are in
116 copper containers, and still larger specimens are in two large
tanks which serve especially for sharks, skates, sturgeon, etc.

During the last two years the whole collection has been revised,
poorly preserved specimens destroyed, good ones rearranged and a
locative card catalogue prepared.

The collection is not as rich in number of specimens as the collec-
tion of the United States National Museum, and probably not as
large as the great collection at the University of Michigan, but the
Museum of Comparative Zoology collection surely excels all other
collections in America in the number of South American, Asiatic
and European fishes.

The famous "Thayer" expedition to Brazil in 1866 resulted in
bringing to the Museum of Comparative Zoology over 12,000 speci-
mens of South American fishes. This huge collection has been used
as the principal material for volumes of the ichthyological works by

^ "Unit" means a single specimen or several specimens in the same container,
bearing a separate number, under which it is entered in the catalogue. Some-
times it includes a dozen, or even a hundred fishes.

57

58 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Drs. Steindachner, Eigenmann and others, and it is not yet ex-
hausted: there are still many trays with Characin fishes unidentified
and waiting for study. A considerable number of the South Ameri-
can fishes in the Museum were brought by the "Hassler" expedition
of 1872.

The Museum possesses the collection of fishes made by the "Alba-
tross" expeditions of 1890-01 and 1910, and about 500 specimens
from the survey made by the steamer "Blake" in 1878-80. These
collections were worked on by Dr. S. Garman and by Goode and
Bean. Both include a great many deep sea fishes, in which the Mu-
seum might also be considered very rich, especially from the point of
view of diversity of species. The collection of deep sea fishes has been
greatly enlarged during the last two years. Two fine, recent collec-
tions were made by Mr. C. O'D. Iselin. Besides the sources men-
tioned above the study series includes many smaller suites of speci-
mens from the " Anticosti" and "Fiji" expeditions, Professor Agassiz
(Lake Superior), N. Pike (Mauritius), Poey (Cuba), Putnam (North
America), L. P. Ward (Penang), Cooke (Zanzibar), T. Barbour
(Celebes, Bermuda, Cuba, Bahamas), and C. Eigenmann (South and
Central America). The Poey collection contains many of his types.

Many distinguished European scientists and the principal Euro-
pean museums, thanks to Professor L. Agassiz, contributed largely
to the richness of the Museum of Comparative Zoology collection of
European fishes; namely. Professor Haeckel, Dr. Klunzinger, Dr.
Fr. Day, Stuttgard Museum, Lyons Museum, Museum of Got-
tingen. Museum of Milan, Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg
(three considerable lots in 1885 and 1930), Riks-Museum of Stock-
holm, Museum of Natural History of Paris, British Museum, and the
Pacific Scientific Fishery Research Station of Vladivostok, Russia.

The Museum of Comparative Zoology is one of the richest mu-
seums in types: all types of S. Garman (deep sea fishes, particularly
Brotulids, Stomiatids, Macrurids, Nemichtids and Plagiostomia) ; a
great many of Eigenmann (Characins and Siluroids); many of L,
Agassiz (Cyprinids and Percoids), Poey (Cuban fishes), Goode and
Bean (deep sea fishes), Franz Steindachner (Characins and Silu-
roids), Tate Regan (Cichids), Cope (Cyprinids), Borodin (Chara-
cins and deep sea fishes), and some others.

The whole number of the types and cotypes in the Museum of

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 59

Comparative Zoology collection might be estimated at over 1000,
but the task of searching these out and listing them is still very far
from being finished.

TUNICATES

The collection of tunicates is entirely unidentified, and even un-
sorted. It consists of alcoholic material in jars and bottles, in many
cases mixed with bryosoa, sponges and other invertebrates. It is im-
possible to say how many species are represented, of the approxi-
mately 1500 known, but a reasonable estimate would be about 200.
As the collection has never been studied or catalogued, there is no
type material. A large part of the collection came from the "Hass-
ler" Expedition.

THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTION

BY

NATHAN BANKS

The collection today is the second in America; in several groups it
stands first. The Coleoptera lead; our Museum containing the
Leconte, Melsheimer, Ziegler, Dietz, Hayward, Blanchard, Double-
day Harris and Carnochan collections, a set of the Biologia Centrali
Americana and a set of the Bishop Hawaiian material and an im-
mense number from various other sources. There are types of prob-
ably over 14,000 species, about one-half yet to be catalogued. A new
Nearctic collection, based on the old, with the Bowditch, Dietz,
Hayward and miscellaneous accessions added, is in progress of ar-
rangement by Dr. Darlington. When this is done and the exotic
material is more completely arranged we shall have a collection of
which we may well be proud. The Chrysomelidae of Bowditch and
the Cicindelidae of Harris are particularly valuable; the Ceramby-
cidae and Curculionidae also contain a vast number of determined
species. The recent Darlington collections from Australia add thou-
sands of species to the collection.

Among the Lepidoptera the most valuable parts are the great
collections of world-wide scope made by, and bequeathed by, An-
drew J. Weeks and that made by C. T. Paine and given by Mrs.
Richard T. Fisher; the S. E. Cassino collection with many types; the
Geometridae (of Packard and Swett), the Microlepidoptera (largely
Chambers and Dietz) and the Scudder butterflies. There are a num-
ber of exotic butterflies still unmounted, but a vast number of speci-
mens have been pinned during the last few years. There are types of
fully 1500 species, almost all of them catalogued. Mr. Cassino's gift
of much of the Doll collection and the receipt of the great collection
made by Stevens in New Guinea are among the most useful recent
accessions, together with the enormous collections made by Bates and
Darlington in the West Indies and by Bates in Panama and Hon-
duras. The latter collection alone numbers perhaps 45,000 specimens.

The Diptera collection is especially valuable, containing the
American material of Loew, Osten Sacken and Johnson. There are

60

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 6 I

types of about 2800 species, all catalogued, except those of the John-
son collection. There is not much recent material from the western
states, and the exotic collection is very weak and undetermined ex-
cept for recent Australian material, while the Antillean series is the
best. There is a good European collection.

In the Hymenoptera we have a fair proportion of the larger
species, but the collection of micro- and parasitic Hymenoptera is
very weak, with the exception of the Cynipidae. Thanks to Dr.
Wheeler, we have the best collection of ants in existence, and the
Psammocharidae and Philanthidae are good and increasing in value.
The Pavil Herbst collection of Chilian Hymenoptera gives us a fine
series from that country, otherwise the collection of exotic Hymenop-
tera, except for the ants, is not much better than the Diptera. There
are fully 1200 types nearly all catalogued.

The Hemiptera is the weakest (of the large orders) in typical ma-
terial, there being hardly more than 200 types. There is a con-
siderable amount of United States material, largely of Banks and
Morse collecting. For the exotics there is a large amount of ma-
terial, mostly unstudied. The Meyer-Diir European collection is
very good and has some types.

In the Orthoptera there are the rich collections of Scudder and
Morse, about 1000 types. The exotic forms are numerous but mostly
unnamed and unarranged. There is a generic card index for the
Nearctic portion.

In Neuroptera there are the Hagen and Banks collections, now
joined and forming probably the finest collection in the world, in-
cluding about 2500 types. This is in numbered boxes and there is a
generic card index. In the exotic Odonata there is quite a lot of un-
named material. The collection is growing steadily by original work
as well as by exchanges and gifts.

In the smaller orders the collections of Thysanura and CoUembola
have the types of Packard and Banks and some of Folsom and Mac-
Gillivray. It is doubtless as good as any museum collection in the
country. In the Anoplura, Mallophaga, Siphonaptera, and Thy-
sanoptera, our collections are poor, as in most museums.

The Arachnida is the best collection in America, with about 2700
types. It contains the Emerton, Peckham, Bryant and Banks collec-
tions and many of Chamberlin's types. The spiders are in numbered

62 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

trays with a generic card index. The Opihones have been arranged
in the new trays, but the other groups are largely as they have been
for some years. There is a vast amount of exotic material, much
undetermined.

The collection of Myriopoda also contains much valuable ma-
terial, largely of Chamberlin and Attems, probably about 700 or 800
types. The vials have been arranged in numbered trays and there is
a generic card index to the named material. There is a large amount
yet unstudied.

The collection of fossil insects has grown enormously through the
recent efforts of Dr. Carpenter, and much of the identified material
is catalogued, but the work is not yet finished. Most of the Scudder
types are here, in all about 1500, while new forms are constantly
appearing in the new collections.

The exotic insects came largely from expeditions, such as the
Thayer Brazilian Expedition; the Uhler trip to Haiti; the Hassler
voyage; the Barbour East and West Indian journeys; the several
collections of Brooks in Bermuda, Jamaica, Trinidad, Falkland
Islands, South Africa and West Australia; the numerous collections
of W. M. Wheeler in Cuba, Panama, Costa Rice, Guatemala, Brit-
ish Guiana, New Zealand, Morocco, Hawaii, and especially Aus-
tralia; the W. M. Mann material from the Solomons, Fiji, Mexico,
Haiti and Brazil; the Davis Argentine collection; the Brues Grenada
and Jamaica material; the Wight collection from Jamaica; the
Banks Panama collection; the Allen and the Loveridge collections
from East Africa; the Wulsin collections from China, West Africa
and Madagascar; and particularly the great series of specimens
gathered or purchased by Dr. Thaxter; and many smaller lots from
others.

The insect collection is now in about 5000 drawers, except that the
Blanchard, Bowditch Chrysomelidae and Harris Cicindelidae are in
Schmitt type boxes; part also of the Hymenoptera are in Schmitt
boxes, but they are being transferred. The Johnson collection is still
in the original boxes, and so is much of the Bowditch general collec-
tion. There are still several hundred storage boxes with good ma-
terial as yet unsorted. The collection of galls and the duplicate
Orthoptera are also in storage boxes. The Arachnida, Myriopoda
and many of the alcoholic insects are in upright vials arranged in trays.

THE CRUSTACEA COLLECTION

BY

FENNER CHACE

The collections of Crustacea consist of a considerable amount of dried
material, chiefly crabs, shrimps and barnacles, and a very large series
in alcohol of all the various subclasses and orders. The bulk of the
material consists of marine species collected by the "Blake" and
"Albatross," but there is a considerable amount collected in the
Pacific by the "Hassler," A. Garrett, Rev. B. G. Snow, and A.
Agassiz. An important lot of Mediterranean material was purchased
from the Naples Zoological Station. Smaller collections have come
from various collectors connected with the Museum. The land and
freshwater crustaceans have, for the most part, been accumulated in
small lots by purchase, exchange, gift and collecting by members of
the Museum staff".

The decapod crustaceans make up the bulk and most important
part of the collection. The Macrura have been only partially worked
up, so that much of the material is not even identified. The most
important section is the notable series of Crayfish (Cambarus and its
allies) upon which Faxon's great monograph of the group is based.
This contains more than one hundred species and varieties of which
more than one-third are represented by type material. The Bra-
chyura (Crabs) are the most satisfactorily identified part of the
crustacean collections. Although the cataloguing is quite incomplete,
it is safe to say that there are more than looo species in this section,
and more than loo are represented by type material. Stomatopods,
Schizopods, Amphipods, and Isopods are all present in large num-
bers, but almost nothing has been done with reference to their iden-
tification, except that a good start has been made on the labelling
and arrangement of the Isopods. All orders of Entomostraca are well
represented, but as no attempt has yet been made to arrange or even
sort them, it is not possible to give any reliable estimate as to the
number of species in the collection. Taken as a whole, however, it
seems probable that the crustacean collection contains more than
3000 species.

63

THE COLLECTION OF ECHINODERMS

BY

H. L. CLARK

In its collection of echinoderms the Museum of Comparative Zoology
is probably first among the museums of the world, not only in num-
ber of species represented but also in the large series of specimens and
in the large amount of type material gathered here. While the
crinoid collection of the National Museum surpasses ours and is un-
doubtedly the greatest in the world, in the other classes it is not
probable that our collections are equalled. There are approximately
5000 known species of echinoderms, and of these about one-half are
represented in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Nearly 11 00
are represented by type material. The Museum collection dates
back to the earlier days of the institution, for Louis Agassiz's interest
in sea-urchins led him to make a collection of them and their allies
before the present Museum was built. Securing the cooperation
of men like Garrett, Captain Putnam, and Snow in the tropical
Pacific, Cooke at Zanzibar and Pike at Mauritius, he added large
numbers of specimens of many species to the collection, and in-
terest in the group being continued by Alexander Agassiz and
Hubert Lyman Clark, the series have never ceased to grow. Through
the collection of the Coast Survey and Fish Commission steamers,
especially the "Blake" and "Albatross," and the notable "Hassler"
expedition, our accumulation of material has gone steadily on. Col-
lections adding thousands of specimens and many new species to the
Museum have been made in the West Indies, New Guinea and espe-
cially on several expeditions to Lord Howe Island and all parts of
Australia. This has been done by members of the Museum staff.
Exchanges with European, Australian, Indian and South African
museums have also added much to our store. In recent years, a large
amount of valuable material has been received in return for identify-
ing collections for other museums.

The collection of crinoids now contains more than 4000 specimens

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RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 65

of possibly 175 species (of some 700 known), including more than 50
types. Of asteroids, we have 16000 specimens, representing nearly 600
of the 1200 known species, of which 175 are types. Of ophiurans,
there are more than 27000 specimens, of more than 800 species (of
1600 known), with more than 500 types. The collection of echini is
the most complete, with more than 45,000 specimens, of over 500
species (about 600 known), of which 225 or more are represented by
types. Of the approximately 1000 species of holothurians known we
have some 350, about one-third of which (120) are represented by
type material.

THE COLLECTION OF FOSSIL ECHINODERMS

BY

R. T. JACKSON

The collection of fossil echinoderms in the Museum is a very exten-
sive one and is important in that it includes so many species, both
American and European. It is also important from the fact that it
contains numerous types and figured specimens as the result of the
studies of many investigators who have made use of it in earlier or
later years.

It is practically impossible to make even an estimate of the num-
ber of specimens in the several groups of echinoderms, but with the
exception of what is on exhibition, the collection is all stored in
wooden trays which measure 26 i /2" X 1 7" inside measure. The
trays, with few exceptions, are nearly or quite filled, so that the
number of trays occupied gives some adequate measure of the
amount of material therein contained.

The main large collections, of which the Museum collection is
made up, are as follows: the Louis Agassiz collection, mainly Euro-
pean; the Gustave Cotteau collection, mainly European echini; the
Charles Wachsmuth and the William Barris collections, both
mainly from the lower carboniferous of the western states; the first
C. D. Walcott collection from New York State; the L. G. de Koninck
collection from various formations in Belgium and other European
countries; the L. Schultze collection from the Devonian of Germany.
These important collections were all received during the administra-
tion of Louis Agassiz. Of other collections received, the second C. D.
Walcott collection, mainly from the Ordovician of New York State;
the C. B. Dyer collection, mainly from the Ordovician of Ohio; the
F. H. Day collection, mainly Silurian of Wisconsin; the Schary col-
lection from the Palaeozoic of Bohemia and the Haeberlein collec-
tion from the lithographic slates of Solenhofen, were all the gift of
Alexander Agassiz. Recently much fine material was received from

66

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 67

the Boston Society of Natural History as the result of the changed
plan of administration of that institution. These several collections
noted mostly consist of fossils of various groups of animals of which
the fossil echinoderms comprised only a portion. The Wachsmuth
collection, as an exception, consisted mainly of crinoids.

Of investigators whose echinoderm studies were based to a greater
or less extent on the material now in the Museum, may be men-
tioned Wachsmuth and Springer, later Springer alone, Schultze,
James Hall, Meek and Worthen, C. D. Walcott. Charles Schuchert
and particularly Robert T. Jackson.

Of the cystoids there are 56 trays. In this material there are a
number of types and figured specimens, some 26 as recorded. Of
blastoids there are 14 trays, including some 20 types and figured
specimens.

The collection of crinoids is extensive, filling some 430 trays. This
collection includes much very choice material from the Wachsmuth,
Barris, Dyer and Walcott collections from America and the Schultze,
de Koninck and Schary collections from Europe. There are 764
species and varieties of crinoids as recorded in the systematic card
catalogue. This includes some 168 types and in addition 108 figured
specimens.

Of the Stelleroidea, including both starfishes and ophiurans, there
are 14 trays of specimens, which is a relatively large number for such
rare fossils as is this group. There are some 22 types or figured speci-
mens. Twelve of the specimens are figured in Dr. Charles Schu-
chert's recent revision of the Palaeozoic Stelleroidea.

The fossil echini may, for convenience, be considered under
Palaeozoic and Post-Palaeozoic formations. Of Palaeozoic echini
there are 45 trays. Some 138 valid species of Palaeozoic echini are
recognized. Of these there are in the Museum collection specimens
representing 50 species, of which 1 7 species are represented by type
material. Some 57 of the Museum's specimens have served as the
originals of published figures. Besides species represented by speci-
mens seventeen additional Palaeozoic species are represented by
casts, largely of the types.

Of Post-Palaeozoic fossil echini there are: of the Cidaroidea 21
trays; Centrechinoida 34 trays; Holectypina 15 trays; Clypeastrina
23 trays; and Spatangina 103 trays. This material includes many

68 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

choice specimens, especially from Jamaica and Cuba, and many
type and figured specimens, including the Arnold and Clark types.
In the collection of Post-Palaeozoic fossil echini there are many
casts that Louis Agassiz had made at Neuchatel. A catalogue of
these casts was published by Agassiz in 1870, and they are also
recorded in Desor's "Synopsis des echinides fossiles," and in other
publications. While not usually of much value for detailed study,
these casts have a distinct historic interest and represent many species
which are otherwise non-existent in the collection. Besides the
Agassiz casts there are in the collection many casts of Post-Palaeozoic
echini received from Cotteau.

THE COLLECTION OF MOLLUSKS

BY

W. J. CLENCH

The first report of this department appeared in the Museum's annual
report for 1863. At this time A. S. Bickmore was in charge of the
mollusks. But long prior to this date a vast number of shells had been
brought together to make the nucleus of the collections which form
what is now the department of mollusks.

The growth of the collection has not always been constant. Dur-
ing Mr. Anthony's term of office the collection developed to a re-
markable degree. Mr. Anthony's industry and interest instituted a
large correspondence with malacologists in all parts of the world and
through them he obtained a vast amount of very important ma-
terial. His recognition of the value of type specimens led him to
exchange for material of this sort, which has resulted in a collection
of considerable historical value. His chief interest was in freshwater
mollusks, and he built up a series of American freshwater forms that
for its time was superior to any collection in this country.

His successor, Mr. Hamlin, divided his time between recent and
fossil species and as a consequence the collection did not advance
with the same rapidity.

From the death of Mr. Anthony in 1877 until 1898 there was very
little growth in the department. Dr. Walter Faxon's chief interest
was in crustaceans, and little was added until the acquisition of the
R. E. Call collection. At this time Faxon started the first catalogue
of the shells. From the date of receipt of the Call material until
1923 the department's growth has been very rapid. Several very
large collections were obtained and incorporated into the main body
of material.

Mr. Clapp (191 1-22) revised the collection and a vast amount of
work was accomplished by him.

In 1926 William J. Clench took charge, and a very large amount of
material has since been added.

69

/O MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

There are probably 5000 species of mollusks of which we have some
sort of type material. With few exceptions, all of the collections ob-
tained during the past thirty-five years have contained some type
specimens; before that the proportion of type material was much
greater.

When fully catalogued there will be more than 160,000 lots, rep-
resenting about 30,000 species and subspecies.

Many persons have gathered rich material during their explora-
tions, among them T. Barbour,' who has made about thirty foreign
collecting journeys; W. S. Brooks, who has collected shells for the
Museum on most of his trips; W. M. Mann, who has enriched the
collection with species from the Solomon and Fiji Islands of his own
taking; and the Honorable W. C. Forbes, who donated an exceed-
ingly large series of Philippine mollusks, largely collected for him by
C. M. Weber, while Forbes was Governor General of the Philippine
Islands.

Important additions have been received from H. L. Clark from
the West Indies and Australia; Arthur Loveridge, mainly from
Africa; Jack Sandground, from Africa; W. S. Schroeder from the
deep water areas off New England; Joseph Bequaert from Yucatan
and Africa; A. F. Archer from New England and Cuba. The many
journeys by W. J. Clench with friends of the Department and former
members of the staff" have also yielded rich material, especially from
the Bahama Islands. The Mu.seum has also recently received the
great collection of Cuban Mollusks, given by Dr. Pedro Bermudez.

Earlier records show the accession of material from Gulick, Ben-
son, Bland, Binney, Cisneros, Cooke, Dohrn, Garrett, Godman,
Morelet, Hirase, Pike, Prime, Putnam, Wright, Yates, and a host of
other naturalists who in their time carried on extensive exchanges
w'ith the Museum.

The past few years have again seen increased activity in the line of
exchanging with many of the present day naturalists.

Expeditions such as the Hassler and Thayer, and explorations by
the vessels "Albatross" and "Blake," have contributed largely in the

• Many of the very large West Indian collections made by Dr. Barbour, the
members of his family and other associates were made possible only because of
the transport facilities offered by Mr. Allison V. Armour's Research Yacht
Utowana. The Museum is very greatly in Mr. Armour's debt.

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 7 I

field of marine mollusks. The types of the Blake mollusks are con-
tained in this collection.

The following list comprises some of the large collections received,
through either purchase or gift, but in general not on single explora-
tions:

864 J. G. Anthony collection — mainly freshwater species.

868 T. Bland collection of North American land shells.

869 W. G. Binney, collection containing some of his own and some of
his father's published material.

874 Pease collection — mainly Pacific Island shells.

880 '"Blake" mollusks — marine, mostly West Indian.

896 Prime collection of Corbidulidae.

898 R. E. Call collection — mostly American freshwater mollusks.

898 Balestier collection — Indo-Pacific marine forms.

901 Godman collection (part) material published in the Biol. Cent.

Americana.

906 H. W. Winkley collection — collection of land shells.

910 W. G. Binney collection — North American land shells.

91 1 W. F. Clapp collection — general east coast marine.

912 Smith and Clapp collection — New England and Florida shells.

913 Arnold collection — general.
913 Quadras collection (part) — Philippine land shells (from W. F.

Webb).
914-30 Boston Society of Natural History — many hundreds of lots

of shells other than New England, including the first set of the

Gulick Achatinellidae, with his types.
915 Bryant Walker (part) — duplicates from the collection.
918 W. C. Forbes collection of Philippine mollusks.
918 Mosier collection — Liguus from Florida.
gi8 Barbour and Brooks — general, from Florida.
918 Hirase collection (part) — Japanese shells.

918 H. W. Winkley collection — New England.

919 C. A. Stearns — general collection.
92 I Shurtleff collection — general.

921 A. F. Gray collection — general.

922 N. A. Clapp — series of Maynard Cerionidae.
926 Pearse collection — mainly Florida shells.

926 W. J. Clench collection — mainly land and freshwater.

927 M. D. Barber collection — mainly Tennessee.

928 N. W. Lermond collection — general.

929 T. Bland collection — West Indian land shells.
929-30 J. N. Farnum — two very large collections of Liguus from

Florida.
1930 J. Bequaert collection — African land and freshwater.

72 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

1930 W. F. Webb collection — Clausiliidae.

1930 Maynard collection — Cerions.

1932 Bequaert collection — general.

1935 Bermudez collection — Cuban.

Not only the first Gulick collection but two other sets are in the
Museum, making in all 14,201 specimens of Achatinellidae from
this one source. With the Pease material this gives the Museum a
most noteworthy representation of the Hawaiian landshells, so many
of which have become extinct.

THE COLLECTION OF VERMES

BY

J. H. SANDGROUND

The collection of worms and the allied groups usually thrown to-
gether under the name Vermes is all in alcohol (except a consider-
able amount of dry Bryozoan material) and is only sorted out into
the major groups. Much of the marine material has come from the
"Hassler," "Blake," and "Albatross" collections, while the fresh-
water and land forms have been received from a great number of
sources, mostly as incidental collections made in connection with
gathering other material. Of the Annelids, a considerable number,
perhaps 200 species, have been identified, and of many of these, pos-
sibly 50, there is type material. The Sipunculids have been studied
and the collection is identified and labelled. It contains about 40
species, of which some 12-15 are represented by type material. Of
the small group of Myzostomes there is a valuable series of micro-
scope slides, showing the structure of many species, including a type,
the gift of Professor W. M. Wheeler. In the other groups, many in-
dividuals are identified, but on the whole the collection offers a virgin
field for a systematist.

73

THE COLLECTION OF PARASITIC WORMS

BY

J. H. SANDGROUND

The establishment of a division of helminthology is one of the very
recent innovations of the Museum. Rather than an innovation this
might perhaps be termed a revival, for the development of a hel-
minthological collection in the Museum probably started when Dr.
D. F. VVeinland, whose name is well known in the literature on the
subject, was called from the Museum of Berlin to become associated
with Professor Agassiz in the study of the then little known fauna of
America. VVeinland records having made extensive examinations of
American animals for parasitic worms, but what became of this col-
lection is unknown.

That considerable interest must have obtained in the field of
parasitology is attested by the large and heterogeneous collection of
tubed specimens, donated by numerous investigators in various
branches of zoology, that had accumulated and were brought to
light with the recent reorganization of the various collections. The
absence of anybody on the Museum staff equipped with special
knowledge in this important and rapidly growing subject led to the
neglect of this material. When the present curator was appointed in
1928 to take charge of and build up the collection, much of the old
material had to be discarded because of bad preservation, desicca-
tion and the absence of labels carrying the necessary information for
the proper identification of specimens. Among various smaller series
that could be salvaged from the old collection was a number of tubes
containing the types of North American Gordiacea described by
Montgomery in a bulletin of the Museum in 1898.

The collection, as it stands at present in the catalogue, is still very
small when compared with collections in those few American in-
stitutions where helminthology has been a continuously living
interest.

74

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 75

While many of the major divisions of the several classes of parasitic
worms are still unrepresented, we already have 130 species of 76
different genera of Nematoda, eight species of eight genera of Acan-
thocephala, 43 species belonging to 22 genera of Cestoda and 21
species of 16 genera of Trematoda. Even this small collection con-
tains the type specimens of about 20 recently described forms.

Awaiting study and identification are three very extensive collec-
tions made by Dr. Ralph Wheeler in Assam, by Mr. Loveridge in
Tanganyika and by Dr. Sandground in his recent trip through
Rhodesia and Mozambique. Because of the recent affiliations with
the Department of Tropical Medicine in the Medical School, the
collections are growing satisfactorily in their representation of
parasites of economic importance.

THE COLLECTION OF COELENTERATES

BY

H. B. BIGELOVV

The foundations for the present collections were laid in the sixties
when the interest in the marine fauna of the American waters was
awakened. Some of the oldest specimens (mostly horny corals) were
collected by Louis Agassiz from various places off Florida, Charles-
ton and Maine, etc., and a very complete representation of the
Alcyonarians of the west coast of Central America was brought home
by Alexander Agassiz from his first trip to Panama. Some speci-
mens probably date from much earlier accessions to the Univer-
sity's cabinet of Natural History. The New England fishermen
showed early great interest in the Museum and gave quite large col-
lections of horny corals and pennatulids from deep water. The first
scientific expeditions, under L. F. de Pourtales, brought an abun-
dance of material from the waters around Florida, later the Hassler
expedition made a cruise around South America, and in the eighties
began a number of large expeditions under the leadership of Alex-
ander Agassiz, with the "Blake" and the "Albatross," first in the
West Indian waters and later as government expeditions to various
parts of the Pacific Ocean, and that implied that the greater part of
the collections, including all types, went to the United States Na-
tional Museum in Washington. In the last twenty-five years only
few additions have been made to the collections of the horny and
stony corals, while the pelagic coelenterates and hydroids have
steadily increased in number through gifts from all parts of the
world, from the United States Fish Commission, the Canadian
fisheries, the Australian Museum, the Philippine Bureau of Science,
the Arcturus Expedition, etc.

About 3500 numbers of specimens already determined have been
catalogued by Dr. H. B. Bigelow (mostly pelagic coelenterates and
hydroids), and about 1000 lots of partly undetermined material

76

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1

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GROUND PLAN OF UNIVERSITY MUSEUM. TO SHOW SPACE FOR I, M. C. Z.;

2, BOTANICAL MUSEUM; 3, MINERALOGICAL MUSEUM; 4, GEOLOGICAL

museum; 5, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND

ETHNOLOGY

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 77

Still awaits being catalogued. There are about 10,000 specimens of
pelagic coelenterates and hydroids and probably 2000 other forms
(alcyonarians, stony corals, anthipatids, actinians).
The determined part of the collections contains:

About 150 species of hydroids, chiefly West Indian, with about 30

types.
About 450 species of pelagic coelenterates, from all parts of the world,

with a few types.
About 100 species of stony corals, chiefly West Indian, with 35 types,
About 150 species of alcyonarians, from the West Indies and west coast

of Central America, with about 30 types.

The undetermined part of the collections contains about 700 trays
of stony corals, 50 trays of horny corals and a few actinians, anthi-
patids, medusae, millepores, etc., but the number of these unnamed
specimens has greatly diminished since Dr. Elisabeth Deichmann
became first Alexander Agassiz Fellow and then Curator and has
been caring for this material.

The collections of pelagic coelenterates rank among the best in the
world. With regard to alcyonarians, stony corals and hydroids the
Museum has, through the Blake material, secured the most com-
plete series of species from the West Indian waters, and the Blake
material has been the foundation for several important monographs
from that region. There are also quite extensive collections from the
west coast of Central America and Brazil.

THE COLLECTION OF SPONGES

BY

ELISABETH DEICHMANN

There are about three hundred trays of dried specimens of sponges,
and about five hundred and fifty more of these are kept in alcohol.
The "Blake" material from the West Indies, treated by P. Schmidt
in 1879, contains about fifty types. The remaining part of the collec-
tion consists of the material which von Lendenfeldt used for his large
monograph on the Pacific sponges, secured by the "Albatross"
1904-05, but of this collection the types are in Washington. There
are a number of common forms from various parts of the world.
Few additions have been made in the last twenty-five years, and the
collection needs a specialist who will build it up.

78

THE FOSSIL MAMMAL COLLECTION

BY

H. C. STETSON

Accession No. i in the register of the Museum of Comparative Zo-
ology happens to have been a fossil mammal. Other collections in
the Museum have subsequently outstripped this division of the
palaeontological department, both in size and in value, but the
distinction remains. On August 14, 1849, Professor Louis Agassiz
arose before a meeting of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science in Harvard Hall and described a tusk, a tooth, some
foot bones and a rib of a fossil elephant found during the construc-
tion of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad at Mt. Holly, Vermont,

The first large collections were made by Garman and Clifford,
who were sent on expeditions into the Bad Lands by Alexander
Agassiz. In the early days of collecting in our west, a common
method was to drive around in a wagon and pick up specimens
which had already weathered out. Digging was at a minimum. In
spite of these crude methods much material of importance was
added, chiefly from the White River, including many specimens
which later became types. On the 1880 expedition Garman dis-
covered, in the Pleistocene of Nebraska, the skeleton of a ground
sloth which is still one of the most perfect ever found in North
America. Somewhat later C. H. Sternberg collected considerable
rhinoceros material from the Pliocene of Kansas. From that time
down to the first of the Schlaikjer expeditions in 1925 practically no
material was received from the rich Tertiary faunas of our west.

In 1887 Alexander Agassiz bought the Rossignol collection, which
contains some of the choicest material ever acquired. This comprises
many beautiful specimens from the Eocene phosphorites of the Paris
Basin. Most of the specimens are extraordinarily preserved, and can
never be duplicated because the quarries have been destroyed in the
process of mining gypsum. The European Tertiary is further repre-
sented by three major collections, the Duval, Bronn and Eser, as

79

8o MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

well as by several smaller ones. These comprise many types as well
as much study material.

In 1890 was added one of the most important acquisitions in the
Museum, namely the mounted group of ground sloths, a glyptodont
and a complete Toxodon from the Argentine pampas. This group
has'been mentioned in the Museum guide.

More recently the Gibbes, Frost and Wilson collections have been
acquired, comprising, in large part, Cetacean material from the
Tertiary of South Carolina. The Pleistocene of Cuba is well repre-
sented by material, chiefly rodent, collected by Messrs. Barbour,
Brooks and Warner, and by the Moreno collection which contains
many specimens of ground sloths. The same period in Florida is very
thoroughly covered by the recent excavations of C. P. Singleton, who
was financed by a friend of the Museum. From Mr. Childs Frick we
obtained several fine bison skulls from the Pleistocene of Alaska.

From 1925 on, the choicest material has come from the Schlaikjer
expeditions to South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming. Part of the
Earl Douglass collection was acquired in 1931, and more recently the
Harvard-Australian expedition obtained several specimens of fossil
marsupials of that isolated continent. Much of the material from the
later expeditions is of exhibition rank, and has been described in the
guide to the Museum. Suflfice it to say that exhibits of fossil mammals
have now been developed sufficiently to form an important aid in
teaching the various courses in palaeontology.

THE FOSSIL FISH COLLECTION

BY

H. C. STETSON

Fossil fishes are comparatively rare; therefore the collection must
necessarily be small as compared with the invertebrates, or even with
other vertebrates.

As ranked with other collections in this country it is possibly in
second place, taken as a whole, although several museums exceed it
in special local collections. The accessions are mostly old ones, and
beginning with 1908 the collection lay untouched for almost twenty
years.

The nucleus is the Louis Agassiz collection, which consists of such
European material as Professor Agassiz brought over and which
was early secured for the Natural History Collections of Harvard
College. The next large accession was the acquisition in 1862 of part
of the famous collection of the Earl of Enniskillen. It consists of
Palaeozoic sharks from the British Isles, and is unrivaled in this
country. Two small collections were also acquired in the sixties, the
Marder Collection in 1861, likewise British Palaeozoic sharks, and
the C. F. Hartt collection of Teleosts from the Cretaceous at Ceara,
Brazil.

Nothing was added till the eighties, when in close order came the
Sternberg collection of the large predaceous Teleosts from the Kansas
chalk in 1881, the Haeberlein collection from Solenhofen in 1882, the
very large Stock collection of Ganoids from the Scottish Coal Meas-
ures in 1884, and the Terrell collection from the Cleveland Shale in
1885. These were all gifts of Alexander Agassiz. The Haeberlein
collection is the finest, from the Lithographic limestone, ever brought
to this country. The Terrell collection has yielded the fine specimen
of a large Arthrodire (Dinichthys) now on exhibition. Large collec-
tions of Teleosts from the Eocene of Monte Bolca, Italy, and from
Wyoming were also given by Alexander Agassiz. The preservation
of fish from these localities is perfect and they make very attractive

82 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

exhibits. Through the acquisition of several collections a large
amount of Devonian material from Iowa was obtained in the nine-
ties. Of recent years other important acquisitions have been made,
such as the collections of Silurian and Devonian Ostracoderms from
Scotland secured by H. C. Stetson or by his interest, some very fine
specimens for exhibition from Europe and the Cretaceous of Kansas,
and last of all the material secured by Mr. Schevill in Australia.
His Portheus on exhibition is superb. The fossil fish types in the Eser
collection were transferred to the Museum from the Boston Society
of Natural History but a few years ago.

The collection contains upwards of 12,000 specimens, including
250 types.

THE FOSSIL REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN
COLLECTION

BY

H. C. STETSON

The fossil reptile collection in storage was until recently very small.
The largest accession is the Sternberg collection of 1882 from the
Texas Permian, among which are some most important remains of
Seymouria which have recently been uncovered, as well as a fine
skull of Captorhinus. There is some excellent Triassic material:
Mystriosaurs and Ichthyosaurs from England and Germany; a fine
Phytosaur from California; and, lastly, the Singleton collection of
Pleistocene turtles from Florida. Many of the most valuable fossil
reptiles are exhibited, but they are always removable for study by
qualified students. The Australian Plesiosaurs, recently collected,
have been only partially studied, but they are the largest ever found.
A Diadectes has been mounted.

The amphibians contain three rather valuable accessions — first a
collection of Stegocephalians from the Lower Permian of Lebach,
Germany, part of the old Bronn collection; secondly, several good
Stegocephalian specimens from the Linton Coal Measures of Ohio
and a few Batrachians from the Miocene of Germany; and fine repre-
sentatives of the genera Eryops, Buettneria and Diplocaulus.

There are, however, only about twenty types in this department.

Since the above was written Dr. A. S. Romer has become Curator
of the Department, and fruitful expeditions have yielded large collec-
tions of fossil reptiles from the Permian of Texas, as yet largely
unstudied.

83

THE INVERTEBRATE FOSSIL COLLECTION

BY

P. E. RAYMOND

The collection of invertebrate fossils is stored in cases in five large
rooms. In addition to those under the direct supervision of the
curator, there are separate series of fossil echinoderms and of fossil
insects. The greater part of the collection is arranged in zoological
order, but recently an attempt has been made to build up another
series, in which the arrangement is chronological, by geologic ages.
Louis Agassiz was the first to accumulate great numbers of inver-
tebrate fossils, and the bulk of the material reached the Museum
through his efforts or those of Alexander Agassiz. Some of the earlier
accessions are of great historic interest, containing material collected
by Louis Agassiz himself, and specimens presented to him by Sir
Charles Lyell. Of similar interest and importance are collections
from Jules Marcou, particularly from his "Dyas," Bohemian fossils
from Barrande, specimens collected by J. B. Perry, an early curator
in the Museum, a large European collection from de Koninck, and
the Alpheus Hyatt collection of cephalopods. Outstanding for their
large size and importance are: the Day collection, chiefly from the
Silurian near Milwaukee, especially rich in cephalopods and trilo-
bites; the Rust and Walcott collection, largely Ordovician, contain-
ing an unrivalled series of trilobites, including the thin sections which
first demonstrated the presence of appendages, and thousands of
brachiopods and bryozoans; the Schary collection, the greatest
assemblage of Bohemian Paleozoic fossils except that in Praha, in-
cluding many of Barrande's types; the Schultze collection from the
Devonian of the Eifel district, especially rich in brachiopods and
containing types; the de Koninck collection of Carboniferous,
Mesozoic, and Tertiary fossils, largely from Belgium and France,
representing many classic localities; the Dyer collection from the
Ohio Valley, containing thousands of specimens of brachiopods, tri-
lobites, and cephalopods; the St. John collection, chiefly Carbonif-

84

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 85

erous from the Mississippi Valley; the Gebhard collection from the
Lower Devonian of the Schoharie Valley; the Taylor collection
from northern New York; the Haeberlein collection of choice crus-
taceans, cephalopods, and other fossils from Solenhofen; the Eser
collection, rich in the invertebrates of Europe; the numerous am-
monites of England, purchased from B. M. Wright; the Michelotti
collection of Tertiary fossils from Italy; the Campiche collection and
the Boucault collection, both abounding in Tertiary mollusks; the
large collections of European fossils obtained from Fritsch, Bronn,
and Duval; altogether providing us with a remarkable assemblage of
European invertebrates. Other collections which have added
greatly to the value of the aggregate are those of Robert Tracy Jack-
son, gathered during his many years at Harvard; Tertiary fossils
collected by W. B. Clark and J. B. Woodworth; and the great mass of
material collected by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler on his expeditions
to Anticosti, the southern states, and Europe. Among smaller but
important collections should be mentioned one purchased from
James Hall, and an excellent series of ammonites, including some
types, which came from S. S. Buckman. Another small but impor-
tant collection is that brought from California by J. D. Whitney,
which contains some of Gabb's types.

The collection of Protozoa is small, but we fortunately have ma-
terial from several European localities not now available to the
collector. The small collection of sponges is fairly representative, but
should be enlarged. The Hydrozoa include a good representation
of Ordovician graptolites of eastern North America and Sweden,
and from the Silurian of Bohemia. These three collections together
occupy about two hundred drawers.

The collection of corals is a large one, occupying about eight
hundred and fifty drawers. There is a very large representation of
Paleozoic corals of both America and Europe, and a smaller number
from the Mesozoic and Tertiary of these continents. Its outstanding
feature is the Davis collection from the Falls of the Ohio, which
contains many types.

Worms are represented by only a small collection, these animals
not being common as fossils. The recent accession of a large number
from the Mid-Cambrian of British Columbia might be mentioned.
There is a large collection of bryozoans, occupying about one hun-

86 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

dred and fifty drawers; chiefly Paleozoic, but containing some im-
portant Mesozoic material from classic localities in Europe, no
longer available.

The brachiopods are represented by a splendid collection, prob-
ably third of importance in this country, well balanced in its repre-
sentation of American and European material. It occupies about a
thousand drawers, and is estimated to contain about two hundred
thousand specimens. The gastropods are represented by five hun-
dred drawers of material, and at least a hundred and fifty thousand
specimens, a large proportion of which are of European origin. The
pelecypods are contained in about sixteen hundred drawers, and
represent all geological horizons from which pelecypods are obtained,
the preponderance of the collection being European. A beginning
on the needed additions to the American portion has recently come
to us by the presentation of a large collection from the Cretaceous of
Texas by Mr. Dilworth Hager. The cephalopod collection is about
the same size as that of pelecypods, and is of especial importance be-
cause the greater part of it was studied by Alpheus Hyatt, forming
the basis of much of his published work. It contains many types, and
many other specimens of historic value. The collection of trilobites
is a very good one, stored in five hundred drawers, and representing
both Europe and America. The collection contains many types and
figured specimens, including a few described by Barrande. A hun-
dred and forty drawers contain the other crustaceans and marine
arachnids.

The stratigraphic collection has about nine hundred drawers of
Cambrian and Ordovician fossils, a large part of this collection being
a by-product of work done under the auspices of the Shaler Me-
morial fund. The Ordovician of Russia and Scandinavia and of the
American Appalachians are particularly well represented. The re-
mainder of the Paleozoic is represented by material in about five
hundred drawers, which contain important collections from the
Canadian and American Rockies, from Sweden, and from various
parts of eastern North America. About two hundred drawers are
filled with Mesozoic and Tertiary fossils, chiefly from the United
States, but include the collections made by Dr. Robert T. Hill in the
West Indies. In comparison to the vastness of the collection, the
number of primary types is relatively small; there are perhaps a

RESEARCH COLLECTIONS 87

thousand of them. No attempt can be made to estimate the number
of species obtained from the typical locaUties or determined by the
original describers.

In spite of the size of the collection, over eight thousand drawers,
there are obvious gaps. We have almost nothing from Asia, Africa,
South America, or the Arctic regions, but we are a little better off
in specimens from the West Indies and much better off for Australia.
This might be called to the attention of friends who are making expe-
ditions or are in a position to purchase collections.

LIBRARY

BY

ELEANOR S. PETERS

The Library of the Museum, located on the second floor, was
founded in 1861 by private subscription. From a collection at that
time of "more than six thousand volumes," it has grown to its pres-
ent size, over seventy-six thousand volumes and ninety-five thousand
pamphlets. It serves not only the Staff of the Museum, but the
students and faculty of the Departments of Zoology, Palaeontology,
Geology and Geography of the University. It has a large and very
complete collection of scientific serials from all parts of the world;
some of these are entirely on natural history subjects, but many are
the scientific publications of the learned societies and academies of
the world, not to be found in any other Harvard library — and in
some cases in only one or two other libraries in the country. Over
one thousand such serials are received here regularly; of these, over
six hundred and fifty are received in exchange for the publications
of this Museum, others come as gifts, and many are purchased.

The prestige of the Library has grown through many gifts of the
private libraries of such well-known persons as Louis and Alexander
Agassiz, Louis de Koninck, Josiah Dwight Whitney, William Brew-
ster, Walter Faxon, Samuel Garman, and William Morton Wheeler.
It is largely due to these and other gifts that the Library now possesses
many of the very early works on natural history and remarkably
complete collections in the fields of ornithology, herpetology,
ichthyology, conchology, entomology and geology. On the walls
hangs a very remarkable collection of prints or photographs of early
and recent scientists, and many original water colors by Brooks,
Benson, Fuertes, Sargent, Kaulemans and many others. The Library
has some interesting and valuable manuscripts, especially six in
Lamarck's holograph and a vast collection of autographs and letters
which often prove useful in identifying the handwriting on old labels
or museum specimens.

88

LIBRARY 89

The Faxon bequest brought to the Library his unrivalled collection
of Wilsoniana, as also numerous original drawings and paintings by
this early American ornithologist. The Museum also possesses many
original sketches, etc., by Audubon, as well as much manuscript ma-
terial by him. The Garman library was rich in Linnaeana as well as
rare early works on fishes and reptiles.

The death masks of Agassiz and Audubon are exhibited in the de-
livery room, as well as the manuscript of Longfellow's well know^n
poem written for a birthday of Louis Agassiz and also holograph
letters of Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Humboldt and other early
naturalists.