Bulletin
HISTORY
MUSEUM
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Vot. 29
,A r o. 4
495S
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CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
January, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field George A. Richardson
Marshall Field, Jr. John G. Searle
Stanley Field Solomon A. Smith
Samuel Insull, Jr. Louis Ware
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Jane Rockwell
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of. changes of address.
LIFEBLOOD OF SCIENCE:
PUBLICATIONS
The lifeblood of a science is the stream of
published papers, large and small, that
comprise the "current literature" each year.
To write scientific papers and send them
out into the world sometimes seems a little
like dropping stones into a deep, deep well.
Having done your part, you await the splash
that may be long in coming. It may be
years before your contribution is heard from
again. But that doesn't mean that no one
has read it. Scattered over the globe are
fellow naturalists who make card files of the
things they read and index them under such
headings as: Kergulenland, the birds of;
rafts, transportation of animals by; migra-
tion, effect of colonization by; barriers,
water gaps as. Such people read and index
your paper.
This is only the first step in the use of
a scientific paper that has been printed in
a small edition of a thousand or so copies,
the step that keeps our colleagues through-
out the scientific world informed of our
activities and scientific progress. But these
scientific papers have still to reach a wider
public. Finally, and it may be years later,
even the smallest worthwhile paper may be
incorporated into more comprehensive writ-
ings and summaries.
I found this well illustrated in a new work
that just came to the Museum. It is
Darlington's Zoogeography: The Geographi-
cal Distribution of Animals, a book that was
twenty years in the writing. It is a mile-
stone in its field — the study of the kinds of.
vertebrate animals there are and the where,
why, and how of their distribution. It is
a summary of one phase of our museum
zoologists' work, and it is the only modern
critical summary. It will be a standard
reference and text for many years.
The author himself indicates in his refer-
ences the precise source of his reliance on
the past and on the writings of others.
Listed here are the scientific papers that
provided raw material, the data that the
author has studied, evaluated, digested, and
incorporated into his thinking. The result
is an amalgamation of old and new ideas on
the subject into a fresh modern treatment
of zoogeography. In other words, the ideas
and data contained in individual papers
published from time to time by many
workers have finally entered a standard
reference book.
The more studious of the widespread
and expanding group of natural-history
enthusiasts will want this book on their
shelves alongside their other books on
animals. College teachers will use it as
a textbook. Indeed, the material has been
presented in a course at Harvard, where the
author teaches. Students who will become
teachers will pass on the information, and
writers will refer to the book and incor-
porate its ideas into their own output. The
ideas and data will be used long after the
source has been forgotten.
Chicago Natural History Museum has
played its part in making this book, I was
pleased to see. Some thirty papers written
by members of the Museum's Department
of Zoology are cited as having been used in
the preparation of the volume, and there
are about seventy-five references to our
Museum authors in the index.
The individual contributions from our
Museum vary from a two-page paper to
a catalogue whose various volumes occupy
two feet of my book shelf. They deal with
mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and
fishes. Their subject-matter comes from
all continents, as one would expect from
a world-wide museum and from many out-
of-the-way islands such as the Ryukyus
and Tristan da Cunha. Their approach is
diverse: nomenclature, descriptions of new
kinds of animals, check-lists, faunal reports,
faunal analysis, relationships and taxonomy,
climate and evolution, and anatomy.
Thus in Darlington's book we have an
example of how our scientific papers on even
the most abstruse subjects — such as the
proper name for a snake, the presence of
Bidder's organ in a toad, the relationship
and the systematic position of a genus of
bird — are synthesized in a textbook and are
well on the way to entering the public
domain. — A.L.R.
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
Our cover this month is a
photomontage of two views of the
colorful bird exhibit recently in-
stalled in Hall 21 (Birds in Sys-
tematic Arrangement). In the
background, Carl W. Cotton,
Museum Taxidermist, adjusts a
toucan's perch. In the fore-
ground, an enlarged view of the
exhibit affords a closer look at
the spiraling birds. Towering 16
feet, the exhibit is truly a spec-
tacular one, for it is designed to
show solely the beauty, grace,
and color of birds in various
attitudes on the circling wire
sculpture. More detailed infor-
mation about the exhibit can be
found on page 5.
STAFF NOTES
Emmet R. Blake, Curator of Birds,
was a contributor to the recent book,
Warblers of North America (Devon-Adair
Co., New York.). Among the several
sections by him are chapters on the warblers
of Mexico and South America, areas in
which he specializes .... Philip Hersh-
kovitz, Curator of Mammals, recently
spent a week at the U.S. National Museum
in Washington and the American Museum
of Natural History in New York studying
South American deer .... Rupert L. Wen-
zel, Curator of Insects, participated in
a symposium on "The Future of Taxonomy
in Entomology" at the annual meetings in
Memphis last month of the Entomological
Society of America. He was appointed to a
committee that will consider the possibility
of establishing a national institute of ento-
mology .... Loren P. Woods, Curator of
Fishes, recently returned from a four-week
exploratory fishing cruise in the offshore
waters of the coast of the Guianas and
Brazil Dr. Theodor Just, Chief Cu-
rator of Botany, participated in a sym-
posium last month at the 124th meeting of
the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science held in Indianapolis. His
paper was entitled "Post-Glacial History
of the Vegetation of the North Central
States" .... Dr. Eugene S. Richardson,
Jr., Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, also
attended the meeting, where he presented
a symposium paper on "Postulates Em-
ployed in a Pennsylvania Paleoecological
Study". . . . Forest Highland, Assistant
Recorder in the Division of Publications,
resigned last month after five years at the
Museum.
January, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page S
PRIMITIVE ART EXHIBITS ARE INSTALLED IN AFRICAN HALLS
By PHILLIP H. LEWIS
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF PRIMITIVE ART
NEW EXHIBITS of African art have
been installed in Halls D and E. To-
gether with the Cameroons King's House
(completed a year ago), these comprise a
series of primitive art exhibits that are re-
lated because the peoples represented occupy
an almost continuous area across Nigeria and
into the Cameroons. These exhibits are
the Cameroons King's House, the series of
wall cases showing the art of Benin, and the
presentation of West African masks from
IBIBIO MASK
Twelve inches high and painted black, this carved
wooden mask comes from the Ibibio people.
the private collection of Dr. William R.
Bascom.
The Cameroons King's House (Hall E)
is an exhibit of both ethnological and artistic
significance. Objects of art from the Mu-
seum's extensive Cameroons Grasslands
collection are exhibited in the appropriate
setting of a Cameroons king's residence,
his ancestor shrine, and his drum hut. The
objects, mainly wood sculpture, are archi-
tectural ornaments, ceremonial masks, soci-
ally important state regalia (such as carved
stools), and sacred ancestral images. The
King's House exhibit illustrates a signifi-
cant point about primitive art, namely that
art in such societies has very important
religious and social functions, and in places
like West Africa it is closely linked to royal
activities.
Another presentation of African art is
the series of newly installed wall-case ex-
hibits devoted to the art of Benin (Hall E).
E-IFE-
I I BO 0S
IBIBIO,'W
BENIN CITY
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Benin City, in southwestern Nigeria, is the
capital of the Bini people, who have lived in
that area for many centuries. According
to Dr. Philip Dark, in his article "Benin,
A West African Kingdom" (Discovery,
May, 1957), when the Portuguese first
arrived in Benin in 1485, they found the
fifteenth Oba (king) ruling there. The
present 06a, Akenzua II, the thirty-seventh
ruler of the Bini since the first known king
in the 13th century, today rules some
300,000 people. His capital is Benin City,
which has a population of about 54,000.
FIRST APPEARANCE IN EUROPE
The first Benin art objects appeared in
Europe after the unfortunate and bloody
incidents of 1897, during which the British
sacked Benin City in retaliation for the
massacre of members of a trade mission.
The realism and craftsmanship of the
bronze castings startled Europeans because
their appreciation of African wood-carving
had not yet developed and the realistic
Benin bronzes contrasted sharply with the
art of other African peoples. Europeans
would not believe that the native peoples
of West Africa, who seemed capable of
producing only grotesque and bizarre wood-
carvings, could have done the Benin bronzes.
At first it was thought that the Bini learned
bronze casting from the Portuguese, but
later it was found that Bini knowledge of
bronze-casting technique antedated the
arrival of the Portuguese. The Bini say
that bronze casting was learned from the
Yoruba people from the city of Ile-Ife,
some hundred miles northwest of Benin
City. The art of Ife, in the form of bronze,
terra-cotta, and stone heads and figures, has
come to light as a result of excavations in
recent years. Ife art is also realistic and,
if anything, more skillfully done than Benin
art. Dr. Dark mentions the possibility
that the technique of lost-wax metal casting
might have come from Egypt some time
between the 5th and 7th centuries A.D.,
wnich theory is supported, he says, by
Yoruba traditions of a migration from the
East occurring about a.d. 600.
In Hall D is the exhibition of West
African masks of the Ibo and Ibibio peoples
of southern Nigeria from the collection of
Dr. Bascom, formerly head of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at Northwestern
University and presently Director of the
Museum of Anthropology of the University
of California. He collected these masks
while on various anthropological expeditions
to Africa and has generously loaned them
to the Museum for exhibition.
FOUR MILLION IBOS
The Ibo people are considered to be
related to each other mainly because of their
common language. There are approxi-
mately 4,000,000 Ibo people. Unlike the
Bini people, there is no Ibo central govern-
ment nor comparable political institution.
Whereas the Benin art objects on exhibition
are royal paraphernalia, the Ibo and Ibibio
masks are made and used by ordinary men,
usually in rites of secret societies.
The Ibibio also speak a number of related
dialects and number about 1,000,000 per-
sons. They live just to the south and south-
east of the Ibo and in a few places are found
IBO MASK
Now on exhibition in Hall D is this carved wooden
mask, twelve and three-eighths inches high.
living together with Ibo people. The few
Ibibio masks in the exhibit were collected
from Ibo villages. The Ibibio also have
excellent wood carvers and produce a va-
riety of carved objects, drums, bowls, dolls,
and masks, of which only a few masks are
shown in the exhibit.
The relationship to other African art of
Page k
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
January, 1958
the highly sophisticated Benin and Ife
art-forms (such as Ibo, Ibibio, and Cam-
eroons) poses complex questions. We have
mentioned the possibilities of diffusion of
bronze casting from Egypt, but another
question looms larger. In the midst of the
great African wood-carving area wherein
some of the world's most complex, abstract,
and stylized sculpture occurs, the Benin-Ife
art styles stand out as two strikingly
naturalistic styles, indeed so well done that
certain Ife objects are the equal even of
classical Greek sculpture.
Some of the questions to be asked are not
easily answered. Are the Benin-Ife art
styles native^to West Africa or, if not,
MUSEUM ACQUIRES ZETEK SHELL COLLECTION
NOW ON EXHIBITION
Made by the Ibo people from Bende village, Nigeria,
this mask is nine and three-quarters inches high.
where did they originate? If they are native
to the area, even greater problems arise.
Who were the people who produced this
striking style? How did they live? What
has happened to them? (Much of Benin
culture, including manufacture of art
objects, still goes on.) What was the re-
lationship of the Benin-Ife people to present-
day inhabitants of the area and to the other
peoples adjoining the area?
Art and archaeological research is be-
ginning to be pursued seriously in Africa,
and undoubtedly many answers will be
forthcoming. Perhaps it is part of the
nature of art that while we wait for such
answers we can enjoy looking at the art
objects.
Examples of more than a hundred families
of mollusks are exhibited in Hall M.
By ALAN SOLEM
ASSISTANT CURATOR, LOWER INVERTEBRATES
In November, Chicago Natural History
Museum received 40,000 non-marine shells
from the collection of James Zetek, formerly
of Chicago and for many years a resident
of Panama. About 4,000 different species
are represented in this accession, which is
the second largest ever acquired by the
Division of Lower Invertebrates.
Shell collectors trade their duplicates
with conchologists in other parts of the
world, and the labels with the Zetek col-
lection read like a United Nations' roster.
Australia, Hungary, New Zealand, Ger-
many, Hawaii, France, Japan, Cuba, South
Africa, Great Britain, and of course many
United States localities attest to the extent
of Zetek's exchanges. Eighty thousand
different species of mollusks are known
(perhaps 28,000 of them are non-marine),
and no private collector can obtain more
than a fraction of all the species. Dr.
Zetek's 4,000 species represent a notable
collection but still account for only about
5 per cent of the species.
Exchange material can be very important
if it contains specimens on which a species
was based or if it comes from important
collections that later were destroyed. In
the 1920's, Dr. Zetek made a very large
exchange with the Hungarian National
Museum in Budapest. The mollusk collec-
tion there was completely destroyed in the
revolution of October, 1956, and Chicago
Natural History Museum is now the custo-
dian of historically important specimens,
many of them paratypes of species whose
holotypes no longer exist.
Almost as important is the fact that
duplicates from other countries enable us
to determine exactly to which of several
closely related species Australian, Japanese,
or South African malacologists consider
a specific name to refer. If someone asks
us to identify an Australian shell, it is much
easier if we have specimens in our collection
that an Australian malacologist has identi-
fied. It is vital to our work to obtain
collections of identified material as well as
unstudied specimens. This Museum prob-
ably has slightly less than one-fifth of the
known species of mollusks, so that additions
such as the Zetek collection contribute
greatly to both the size and usefulness of
our collections.
Behind the new collection lies a fine ex-
ample of institutional co-operation. Stan-
ford University, which specializes in the
marine mollusks of the eastern Pacific
Ocean, has limited facilities for housing
collections and no scientist whose in-
terest is non-marine shells. As an inland
institution, Chicago Natural History Mu-
seum can easily specialize in non-marine
mollusks. Thus Dr. Zetek's eastern Pacific
marine shells are at Stanford and his non-
marine shells are in this Museum. Both
institutions benefit by sharing his fine col-
lection, and the specimens are now located
where they can be used most advanta-
geously in research projects.
#>^^50!S^5*
NEW MEMBERS
The following new Members were elected
from November 18 to December 13:
Contributor
Rudyerd Boulton
Life Members
Mrs. Bruce Borland, William Roy Carney,
Alfred T. Carton, Alfred Cowles, Dexter
Cummings, Gaylord Donnelley, Percy B.
Eckhart, James B. Forgan, Mrs. Stanley
Keith, Joseph H. King, Fowler McCormick,
James Simpson, Jr., John M. Simpson
Non-Resident Life Members
Clifford C. Gregg, Jr.
Captain John B. Gregg
Associate Members
Dr. Herbert K. Abrams, Francis M.
Anderson, Dr. Maurice H. Cottle, Bailey
K. Howard, James S. Nelson, Edward D.
Shumway, Mrs. Herman A. Strauss
Non-Resident Associate Member
James F. Oates, Jr.
Sustaining Member
Dr. Joseph L. Koczur
Annual Members
Wayne M. Allen, Irving M. Backler,
Harry Brown, John E. Caldwell, William
A. Cook, James W. Dunham, Norman S.
Fuller, Samuel A. Glueck, John R. Golden,
Mrs. Debora Gordon, Edward G. Hayes,
Theodore W. Hunt, Walfred C. Johnson,
Fred E. Jorden, Carl R. Keeler, Jr., Mrs.
Emil Lamos, A. J. Lindar, Fred G. Lit-
singer, Joseph M. Michaels, Charles A.
Mortimer, Dr. Evelyn A. Rinallo Neufeld,
Gustave Orth, Dr. Michael M. Orth, Roy
C. Osgood, Stacy W. Osgood, Howard F.
Schlacks, Harold W. Schloss, Mrs. Arnold
B. Simon, Dr. Harold H. Sitron, A. A.
Toggweiler, Mrs. Charles Deere Wiman
Magical Weapons
A collection of supposedly magical orna-
mental daggers, hatchets, war clubs, tri-
dents, and other weapons symbolic of war,
which were used by lama priests of Tibet
in exercising and exterminating demons and
enemies of Buddhism, is on exhibition in
Hall 32.
January, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
SEARCH FOR FOSSIL FISH
UNDERTAKEN IN EAST
By ROBERT H. DENISON
CURATOR OF FOSSIL FISHES
IN THE SUMMER of 1951 while on
a reconnaissance of the Silurian and
Devonian rocks in the eastern states I
visited, among other places, Erie County,
New York. Lying as it does along Lake
Erie south of Buffalo, this region has been
visited from time to time by amateur and
professional fossil-collectors from the nearby
city. Over a period of years they have found
a number of Devonian fishes in the different
formations that are exposed in creeks and in
cliffs along the lake shore. Most of the finds
have been fragmentary, although, rarely
a nearly complete fish has been obtained.
In my short visit in 1951 I concentrated
on the black shales that make up a good
part of the Late Devonian deposits, and
I found them to be barren almost every-
where. Fortunately that year a large ex-
cavation had been made in the black shales
for the foundations of a seminary, and in the
rocks removed from the excavation I found
three well-preserved fishes, two of them
belonging to the arthrodires, an extinct
group of armored fishes in which I am
particularly interested.
This find encouraged me to think that
a more thorough investigation might be
profitable, and so I returned last year
accompanied by Bruce Erickson, Preparator,
and for a short while by Dr. Rainer Zangerl,
Curator of Fossil Reptiles, whose experience
with black shales has been extensive, both
in Europe and in this country. We hoped
to find some layer or locality where fossil
fishes occurred in sufficient abundance so
that quarrying for them would be profitable.
We did not expect to find anything as rich
as the quarry at Mecca, Indiana, but if we
could unearth one or two good specimens
a week, that would be enough. In this hope
we were disappointed, for we were unable
to find even this small concentration.
Black shales are often excellent places to
hunt for fossils because the foul waters in
which they were formed may lead to ex-
cellent preservation. But the waters may
be so foul that little or no life can exist in
them, and this seems to be the situation in
Erie County, New York. The commonest
fossils in these black shales are pieces of
plant stems and tree trunks that were drifted
into the sea from land, perhaps a hundred
miles away. In places there are inverte-
brates, such as cephalopods, that may have
floated into this sea either before or after
death. The occasional fishes are probably
strays that blundered into this unfavorable
habitat and died, or perhaps drifted in after
death.
However, we did not leave this region
empty-handed. Almost every day we re-
turned to camp with a few specimens of
fossil fish, perhaps with only an isolated jaw
COLORFUL BIRD STABILE MAKES DEBUT AT MUSEUM
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
A thirteen-foot wire sculpture bedecked
with birds is the latest addition to the
Museum's bird exhibits. The openness,
the airiness, and the liveliness of the
twisting and turning strands of metal as
they swirl upward make the wire sculpture
a particularly appropriate place for birds to
perch and accentuate the beauty and grace
of these creatures of the air. As the ele-
phants in Stanley Field Hall have become
a sort of symbol or trademark of the Mu-
seum, so it may be that this arrangement
of gay birds will become a trademark of our
bird halls.
The concept of this exhibit, which towers
16 feet in its entirety, is modern, as new as
abstract design, free form, mobiles, and
stabiles. But we expect the exhibit to last
a long time, and, as with many enduring
things, it has a familiar quality. It has
a hint of a cage full of birds in an aviary or
a zoo and of a tree loaded with bright-
colored fowl. Our artists strove for these
effects, realizing that any overemphasis of
decoration this way or that could have
cluttered the clear basic design of the ex-
hibit, making it as dated as the artificial
flowers in a Victorian parlor.
The message of this exhibit is that birds
are beautiful, gay creatures of air and light.
In Hall 21 (Birds in Systematic Arrange-
ment), which is otherwise devoted to the
enlightenment and edification of the Mu-
seum visitor interested in birds, we present
this exhibit for its beauty and its aesthetic
appeal. One doesn't have to know the
name of a single bird to appreciate it.
Beauty need not be labeled to be ap-
preciated, but knowing the names of things
and something about them adds to and
deepens our interest in them. So we did
provide a label, a guide to the names of the
birds and where they live. Many of the
birds can be found in adjacent exhibits
along with their relatives and a general
account of the group to which they belong.
In their central position in Hall 21 these
colorful birds can be seen from far off in the
Museum. We hope that people seeing this
bird stabile will be attracted into the bird
hall; that art students will sketch the
twirling wires with their vivid birds; that
visitors, attracted by the new exhibit, will
stay to browse among the related exhibits
and discover new things for themselves.
Just what bird merits the title of most
beautiful in the world is debatable. Cer-
tainly we have many contenders here. There
is a scarlet ibis, sometimes called a flame
bird, at the bottom of the exhibit. At the
top are two giant macaws, blue and red,
and a long-tailed quetzal with emerald green
back. Between are yellow birds, red birds,
blue birds, green birds, and, for accents,
here and there, dull-colored ones, like the
black rifle bird and a tiny brown wren. In
all there are 56 birds in the exhibit.
The exhibit was designed and executed by
E. John Pfiffner, Staff Artist, and Carl W.
Cotton, Taxidermist, along with the Divi-
sion of Birds.
or plate, or perhaps on a lucky day with
several plates of a spectacularly large arthro-
dire. During three weeks we had accumu-
lated quite a varied collection of early fishes,
which will make, I hope, an important
addition to the fish fauna of this region.
When it became apparent that we were
not going to find a place where we could
quarry profitably, we moved our operations
into the central part of Pennsylvania. Perry
County, northwest of Harrisburg, the region
where Silurian vertebrates were first found
in North America, is one of the few places
in the world where they occur in abundance.
The problem here was not to find them but
to obtain them in a good state of preserva-
tion. They occur in the Landisburg Sand-
stone, which forms low, rounded ridges in
the valleys but which is soft enough so that
it has few or no natural outcrops.
It is possible to go into a cornfield on
a Landisburg Sandstone ridge and pick up
pieces of rock containing these early verte-
brates, but they are always weathered so
badly that they do not reveal the characters
necessary for identification. To obtain
better material we made two excavations,
both in places where the preservation on the
surface was better than usual. When this
material is prepared we will have for the
first time a collection permitting a satis-
factory description and classification of
these primitive vertebrates. This is of
particular importance because Perry County
is a classic locality, yet one from which the
original material, first described in 1884,
is lost.
Etruscan archaeological exhibits in Ed-
ward E. and Emma B. Ayer Hall (Hall 2)
range from the 8th to the 2nd centuries B.C.
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
January, 1958
WYOMING DIG YIELDS FOSSIL MAMMALS OF EOCENE
By WILLIAM D. TURNBULL
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF FOSSIL MAMMALS
LAST AUGUST the 1957 Paleontological
Expedition to Wyoming departed for
two months of collecting in. the Washakie
Basin (Bulletin, August, 1957). Roughly,
this is the area bounded by Rawlins, Rock
Springs, and the Wyoming-Colorado line.
Orville L. Gilpin, Chief Preparator, and I
returned to this area of southwestern
Wyoming to continue a program of study
and collecting begun in 1956. A previous
trip into this arid and isolated region
(Bulletin, August, 1947) had convinced
Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Curator of Fossil Rep-
tiles and Amphibians, that good collections
of Eocene mammals could be made there
(he was then seeking fossil turtles). My 1956
trip showed this to be true (Bulletin,
December, 1956).
The Washakie formation covers a nearly
circular area of almost 400 square miles in
the center of the basin. A variety of
sedimentary types occurs within the for-
mation. These include lake-bed clays and
silts containing much volcanic ash, as well
as floodplain and stream deposits of ash,
silt, and sand and even pebbles, gravels, and
cobbles. Paved or tarred roads are totally
lacking. Even graded dirt roads are few.
Stream beds, ridges, and sheepherder's trails
are the highways of the region. Often it
becomes necessary to abandon even these
luxuries and to travel a number of miles
cross-country to reach a particular outcrop
area. This combination of circumstances
— the vast distances involved and the
isolation and remoteness of the area when
considered together with the presumed
scarcity of fossils — accounts for the past
neglect of the Washakie formation. This
year's collections add materially to our
knowledge of the mammalian fauna.
Associated skeletal remains are virtually
never encountered in the abundant coarse-
grained sediments of the formation, and only
very rarely in the finer sandstones and clays.
This season the latter beds yielded several
partial skeletons of two carnivores, a titan-
othere and a uintathere. Perhaps the most
significant discovery was the microfauna
that came from several layers of fine sand-
stone. This microfauna predominantly con-
sists of rodent jaws and teeth, though insec-
tivore, carnivore, and small artiodactyl re-
mains also are present.
In addition to the microfauna, 65 speci-
mens were brought back to the Museum.
Two of the finest of these are complete
titanothere skulls. The titanotheres are by
far the most abundant mammals in the
fauna. Other perissodactyls, "cousins" to
the titanotheres, the horses, and the
rhinoceroses, also were found. Rodents,
uintatheres, carnivores, and artiodactyls
occur in lesser abundance. The forms most
rarely represented in our collections are the
marsupials, insectivores, condylarths, and
pantodonts. Thus far I've not detected
a single primate, edentate, taeniodont, or
tillodont although these are to be expected
in deposits of this age.
Last year's collection from the Washakie
formation, as those from previous Museum
expeditions, came mostly from its upper
part. A brief explanation of the geology
of the basin will help to clarify the position
of the Washakie formation within the
sedimentary sequence. The stratigraphy
of the basin is quite simple. Sediments
derived from the adjacent mountains
throughout Late Cretaceous, Paleocene, and
Eocene times (100 to 50 million years ago)
have built up some very considerable rock
sequences. These are now being dissected
by the active agencies of erosion. The
combined result of the earlier episode of
deposition and the subsequent erosion, is
a landscape that is typical of a semi-arid
desert. Vegetation is sparse and low sand
dunes abound. Rims or ridges of resistant
rock, in this case concentric ones, add topo-
graphic relief.
The system of sedimentary rocks of most
intermontaine basins, of which the Washakie
is one of several in North America, can be
likened to a stack of dishes. At the bottom
of the pile is the first plate to be set down.
Likewise the first rock layer to be deposited
after the nearby mountains are formed lies
Mountains
I - . A
/ of Gronitic or '
\'\' ' \ -
other older fioc/cs
' \ v / ~
• - • I
ROCKS ARRANGED IN PATTERN
Cross-section diagram of intermontaine basin shows sequence of sedimentary rocks arranged like stack of
dishes. Dash lines indicate conditions at various stages of deposition.
at the base of the stack of sediments. Suc-
cessively smaller plates build up the stack of
dishes until the smallest saucer rests on the
top. Similarly, successively newer rock
formations of diminishing extent are found
one upon the other. Actually the reduced
extent of the upper formations has resulted
from erosion since their deposition. In this
way the concentric ridges mentioned above
are formed. This same period of erosion has
also reduced the mountains. The stippled
layer in the diagram, below, shows the strati-
graphic position of the fossil-mammal bear-
ing Washakie formation within the basin.
Developing an understanding of the
geologic setting of such an area and of the
unpredictable nature of the fossil finds
themselves are two aspects of paleontology
that are extremely stimulating and satis-
fying.
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum :
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 38. Days with
Birds, Studies of Habits of Some East
African Species. By V. G. L. van Som-
eren. 523 pages, 126 illustrations. $8.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 1. Two
New Birds from Nepal. By Austin L.
Rand and Robert L. Fleming. 3 pages.
10c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 2. A New
Lacertid Lizard from Angola. By Hymen
Marx. 5 pages, 1 illustration. 15c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 35, No. 4. Placen-
tation of the Pigmy Treeshrew Tupaia
minor. By Waldemar Meister and D.
Dwight Davis. 25 pages, 18 illustrations.
60c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 3. A New
Plethodontid Salamander from Nuevo Leon,
Mexico. By George B. Rabb. 10 pages,
1 illustration. 20c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 34, No. 41. Geo-
graphic Variation in the Chicken Turtle
Dierochelys reticularia Latoeille. By Albert
Schwartze. 43 pages, 6 illustrations,
1 map. 85c.
Fieldiana: Botany, Vol. 29, No. 3. Tropical
American Myrtaceae, Notes on Generic
Concepts and Descriptions of Previously
Unrecognized Species. By Rogers Mc-
Vaugh. 86 pages, 6 illustrations. $1.50.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 4. The
Herpetology of Sinai. By Karl P. Schmidt
and Hymen Marx. 20 pages, 3 illustra-
tions, 1 map. 40c.
Field Museum of Natural History: Botani-
cal Series, Vol. XIII, Part IIIA, No. 2.
Flora of Peru. By J. Francis Macbride.
458 pages. $5.50.
Fieldiana: Geology, Vol. 13, No. 1. Early
Cretaceous Mammals and the Evolution of
Mammalian Molar Teeth. By Bryan
Patterson. 107 pages, 17 illustrations.
$2.25.
January, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
NEW EVIDENCE LINKS CHIPPEWA TO PREHISTORIC CULTURE
By GEORGE I. QUIMBY
CURATOR OF NORTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY
AND ETHNOLOGY
THE FIRST definite evidence linking the
historic Chippewa tribe to a prehistoric
culture known only from archaeological
remains was one of the most exciting dis-
coveries of the 1957 joint archaeological
expedition of Chicago Natural History Mu-
seum and the Museum of Anthropology of
the University of Michigan.
The expedition, led jointly by Professor
James B. Griffin, Director of the Museum
of Anthropology, and the writer, found this
evidence while looking for Paleo-Indian
sites along fossil beaches on the northern
shore of Lake Superior, near the Pic River
in Ontario, Canada.
It had long been suspected but never
proved that the Chippewa Indians had
what archaeologists call a Woodland-type
culture. This culture, at least 3,000 years
old and perhaps 4,000, is characterized by
cord-marked pottery, stemmed and notched
projectile points of chipped flint, grooved
and ungrooved axes of ground stone, bone
awls, and other simple tools, utensils,
weapons, and ornaments. It was a rela-
tively simple culture and widespread in
eastern North America. This prehistoric
Woodland culture was particularly common
to the Upper Great Lakes region.
LINK WAS MISSING
Under such conditions it seems obvious
that many Indian tribes at the time of
discovery and first exploration must have
been local representatives of this ancient
culture, but with few exceptions it has been
impossible to demonstrate the historic con-
nection between the prehistoric Woodland
culture and any given tribe.
About twenty years ago the writer made
an attempt to analyze historic-site collec-
tions in an attempt to bridge the gap be-
tween the historic period and prehistoric
times. The attempt was not successful for
the following reasons:
First of all, after devising a method of
dating historic sites by means of known
dates of manufacture of European trade
goods, it was discovered that the historic
sites in question were too late. By 1750
the nonperishable items of Indian material
culture were gone — brass kettles had been
substituted for pottery, flintlock guns for
bows and arrows, and iron tools for flint
tools, although the social culture was prob-
ably little changed. For instance, they still
placed the substituted items of material
culture in graves lined with birchbark. Thus
it was impossible to make a positive con-
nection between tribes dating at 1750 and
later with the Woodland culture known
archaeologically, because the material cul-
ture of the tribes had changed through their
contact with white traders and explorers.
Next an attempt was made to find docu-
mented sites earlier than 1750 in areas
where there had been fairly brief occupancy.
This too failed, either from lack of docu-
mented sites or because the site had been
occupied also in prehistoric times and the
resultant mixture of early and late materials
in the earth could not be satisfactorily
separated.
Third, attempts to use ethnohistorical
• •
CONCLUSIVE CLUES
Aboriginal cord-marked pottery, chipped flint
scraper, trade beads of glass and shell, and fragment
of copper pot found together in campsite offer first
definite evidence in an archaeological puzzle.
sources — descriptions of the Indians by
early explorers and missionaries at time of
first contact — were unsatisfactory because
they did not provide enough detail to enable
comparison of tribal culture with prehistoric
culture known only from archaeological
research.
It was thus with amazement and con-
siderable satisfaction that we compre-
hended the meaning of our find this summer
on the desolate northern shore of Lake
Superior.
The site was found by Professor Griffin
and the writer in the course of a ten-mile
traverse of ancient beach-line in the vicinity
of the Pic River. Starting with the highest
beaches at more than 500 feet above Lake
Superior we crossed successively lower
beaches down to the level of Lake Superior,
where we found the site about a hundred
feet west of the mouth of the Pic River.
The site itself consisted of a dark cultural
layer about four inches thick exposed in
a wind-blown cut through a low sand-dune.
The black sand in this cultural layer was
greasy to the touch and filled with grains
and small pieces of charcoal, fire-cracked
rocks, organic refuse, and cultural materials.
The dark occupation zone was not a soil
horizon. It was a midden, or refuse layer,
deposited by Indians in the course of daily-
living activities while camped at this spot.
Beneath the dark layer was clean white sand
deposited by wind and wave action. Above
the cultural layer lay about ten feet of clean
white sand in a fore dune ridge, which had
subsequently covered the site that lies about
eight feet above the present level of Lake
Superior.
The nature of the occupation layer, its
thickness, and its position on a beach and
under a sand dune proves that it represents
a single occupancy over a relatively short
period, perhaps one to ten years of summer
camping. Moreover, under the conditions
described it would be impossible for earlier-
period materials to become mixed with
later-period materials at this site. Every-
thing found in the cultural layer of the site
was once in the possession of the Indians
who camped there.
Without attempting to remove the over-
burden of dune sand, we excavated the
exposed area of the site, a strip about ten
feet long and twelve inches wide on the west
side of the cut through the fore dune ridge.
Using trowels and scraping gently through
the cultural layer we found the following
objects: many small fragments of charcoal;
fish scales; bones of sturgeon and other
fishes; one beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus);
bones of deer, porcupine, and beaver; bird
bones; fire-cracked rocks; flint chips; a small
trianguloid scraper of chipped flint; two
sherds of rather thin, grit-tempered pottery
with exterior imprints of a cord-wrapped
paddle; one small tubular bead of shell; four
very small spheroidal beads of blue glass
(seed beads); one melted blue-glass bead;
a cut fragment of the rim of a brass or copper
kettle or pot; a rolled pewter or tin pointed
object like the metal part of a fish-stringer;
and one fragmentary gun-flint or fire-
making flint.
SIGNIFICANCE EXPLAINED
The archaeological remains recovered by
our test excavations are not impressive but
are nevertheless most significant because the
food refuse and aboriginal artifacts were
in direct association with trade materials
from European sources. For instance, two
blue-glass beads, the tubular shell bead,
several flint chips, and one piece of cord-
marked pottery were found with charcoal,
fire-cracked rock, and food refuse in a shal-
low fire-pit in the occupation zone. This
association proves that the Indians camping
at this site still had cord-marked pottery and
flint implements at some point within the
historic period when white men's trade goods
were reaching them.
The nature of the trade goods plus the
presence of aboriginal artifacts proves that
the period is earlier than 1750. The evidence
derived from the trade objects alone sug-
gests a time around 1700.
The only tribe living at this period on the
north shore of Lake Superior was the
Chippewa, also called Ojibwa and Saul-
teaux. Two divisions of the Chippewa, the
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
January, 1958
Outchibous and Marameg, are known to
have lived on the north side of Lake Superior
in 1670. And there are even today Chip-
pewa living in the area.
Thus the site near the mouth of the Pic
River, on the north shore of Lake Superior,
is a Chippewa campsite dating from about
1700, and the archaeological evidence from
this site shows that the Chippewa were
a part of the ancient Woodland culture of
prehistoric times.
New Exhibit On Display
in Jade Room
The imposing imperial Chinese jade jar
presented to the Museum by R. Bensabott
in May, 1955, and described in the July,
1955 Bulletin, has been placed on per-
manent exhibit in the Jade Room (Hall 30).
The jar was a special exhibit in Stanley
Field Hall during the late summer of 1955,
but preparations for its permanent exhibi-
tion only recently have been completed.
AN EARLY CHINESE RUBBING IS SCRUTINIZED
Discussing an early Chinese rubbing from the Han period (207 B.C.— A.D. 220) are (seated) Dr. Hoshien
Tchen, Technical Adviser for the Museum Library's Oriental Collection; Ta-tseng Ling. Consul General of
the Republic of China for Chicago; and Stanley Field, President of the Museum. Standing are C. F. Chu,
Chinese Consul of the Republic of China for Chicago, and Dr. Kenneth Starr, Curator of Asiatic Archaeology
and Ethnology. The men attended a tea at the Museum last month in honor of a special exhibit of Chinese
rubbings recently given to the Museum by Dr. David C. Graham of Englewood, Colorado. The exhibit will
continue in the Museum's Stanley Field Hall through January 19.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Miss Fanny P. Brown, Harwich-
port, Mass. — seven-stringed Chinese table
lute (ch'in), China
Department of Geology
From: Illinois Minerals Co., Cairo, 111. —
earthy mass; Dr. Erik N. Kjellesvig-
Waering, Jamaica, B.W.I. — specimen of
Fenestella Permian bryozoan
Department of Zoology
From: Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia — 284 land snails, Europe;
Rudyerd Boulton, Washington, D.C. — 175
birdskins, Angola, Southwest Africa; Dr.
N. L. H. Krauss, Honolulu — 5 lizards, Wake
Island; Dr. Marshall Laird, Quebec — 7 lots
of tadpoles, Singapore; Simon Siegel, Porter,
Ind. — short-eared owl; University of Texas,
Austin — 11 fishes, Mexico; U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, Pascagoula, Miss. — collec-
tion of invertebrates, Gulf of Mexico; Dr.
Lewis H. Weld, Arlington, Va. — 67 gall
wasps; John E. Werler, Houston — lizard,
Mexico
Daily Guide-Lectures
"Highlights of the Exhibits," free guide-
lecture tours that give a general idea of the
entire Museum and its scope of activities,
are available Monday through Friday at
2 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. No tours
are offered on Sundays.
AUDUBON SCREEN-TOUR:
PUERTO RICO, U.S.A.
The "land of perpetual spring" will be
the pleasant topic of the Illinois Audubon
Society's first screen-tour lecture of the
New Year, when Fran William Hall, noted
lecturer for the National Audubon Society,
presents "Puerto Rico, U.S.A.," on Sunday
afternoon, January 12, at 2:30 o'clock in the
James Simpson Theatre of the Museum.
Mr. Hall's film and lecture will show Puerto
Rico as a land of extremes, contrasting the
modern atmosphere of San Juan with
a countryside little changed from the days
of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish
conquistadors. The audience will see
striking shots of wildlife — barracuda, sea
urchins, iguanas, and enormous hermit
crabs.
PHOTO CONTEST ENTRIES
DUE ON JANUARY 11
The last call has been issued for entries
in the Thirteenth Chicago International
Exhibition of Nature Photography to be
held in February at the Museum. All
photographs and color slides should be
received at the Museum not later than
January 11.
Entries in the contest's two divisions —
prints and color slides — must qualify under
one of three classifications: (1) Animal Life,
(2) Plant Life, or (3) General (scenery,
clouds, etc.). Medals and ribbons will be
awarded by the Nature Camera Club of
Chicago and special prizes will be given by
the Photographic Society of America. Con-
testants are permitted to submit no more
than four entries in each division.
The geological history of the Chicago
region is illustrated by exhibits in Hall 34.
ARTIST PAINTS MURAL
Marion Pahl, Staff Illustrator, paints smile on (rol-
icking Eskimo child, one of series of murals created
by Miss Pahl for Museum lunchroom.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
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NATURE PHOTO SHOW
February 1-23
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
February, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field George A. Richardson
Marshall Field, Jr. John G. Searle
Stanley Field Solomon A. Smith
Samuel Insull, Jr. Louis Ware
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
AUSTIN L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Jane Rockwell
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
PRESIDENT FIELD
IN 50th TERM
Stanley Field was re-elected at the annual
meeting of the Trustees on January 20 to
begin his 50th consecutive year as President
of the Museum. Mr. Field was elected a
Trustee in 1906 and at the same time be-
came Second Vice-
President. He was
elected President for
the first time in 1909.
Under his guidance
the Museum has expe-
rienced the years of its
greatest expansion of
collections and great-
est activity in world-
wide expeditions. Mr.
Field was instrumen-
tal in obtaining the
Grant Park site the
Museum occupies and
in pushing forward the construction of the
present building, which was opened to the
public in 1921. Founded late (1893) as com-
pared with such institutions as the British
Museum in London, the American Museum
of Natural History in New York, and the
U. S. National Museum in Washington, the
Chicago museum rapidly progressed, largely
through the enthusiasm and interest of Pres-
ident Field, to its present rank as one of the
STANLEY FIELD
four leading museums of the world in the
natural sciences.
All other officers of the Museum were re-
elected at the Trustees' meeting. They are:
Hughston M. McBain, First Vice-President;
Walther Buchen, Second Vice-President; Jo-
seph N. Field, Third Vice-President; Solomon
A. Smith, Treasurer; Dr. Clifford C. Gregg,
Director and Secretary; and John R. Millar,
Deputy Director and Assistant Secretary.
MUSEUM VISITORS IN 1957
AGAIN TOPPED MILLION
Attendance at the Museum in 1957 ex-
ceeded a million, as it has for each of the
thirty-one preceding years. The total num-
ber of visitors was 1,097,561, an almost negli-
gible decline from the 1,101,512 who came
in 1956.
While the number of persons who were
admitted free constituted an overwhelming
majority, as always, there was a small in-
crease in the number of visitors paying the
25-cent admission fee — 139,834 as compared
to 129,483 in 1956. The free attendance is
composed not only of visitors on the free
days — Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays —
but also includes children, teachers, and Mu-
seum Members, all of whom are admitted
free every day.
It should be emphasized that attendance is
an incomplete measure of the public reached
by the Museum's influence. Extramural
activities such as the circulation of traveling
exhibits by the N. W. Harris Public School
Extension, bring Museum service to many
hundreds of thousands besides those who
come to the Museum.
BOOK REVIEW
VERTEBRATES OF THE UNITED
STATES. By W. Frank Blair, Albert P.
Blair, Pierce Brodkorb, Fred R. Cagle,
and George A. Moore. 819 pages, many
text-figures. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.,
New York, Toronto, and London. $12.
This volume will be an indispensable refer-
ence book for anyone with a small library
studying the natural history of the United
States. Only here, in about 800 pages, can
one find diagnoses of the major groups as
well as genera and species, and keys for iden-
tification of all the vertebrates (except ma-
rine fishes and turtles) . The book is technical
and, as such, replaces the out-of-print Pratt's
manual of similar title as a college textbook.
The treatment is at species level, and the list
of names will provide a useful standard for
ecology treatises and general writings.
The choice of the species, not the sub-
species, as the smallest unit is a happy one,
and ranges are given for each. Naturally
the names and the generic limits will not
always agree with those in other standard
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
The portrait of a garden snail on
our cover won the first-prize silver
medal in the Animal-Life Section,
Division of Prints, in the Thir-
teenth Chicago International Ex-
hibition of Nature Photography.
The exhibition, which is sponsored
by the Nature Camera Club of
Chicago and the Museum, is being
held from February 1 through
February 23 in Stanley Field Hall
of the Museum. The snail photo-
graph is the work of H. S. Barsam,
of Fresno, California. To satisfy
a whim for "composition," Pho-
tographer Barsam reversed the
negative, for Museum staff mem-
bers point out that the shell's
spiral, which is taxonomically im-
portant, curves in the wrong di-
rection in the picture.
texts. This is inevitable in different inter-
pretations of biological data. Some of the
changes are to be commended. For example,
all the grizzly bears have been replaced into
one species; the black bear is back in the
same genus (Vrsus) as the grizzly, and the
yellow-shafted and red-shafted flickers are
considered conspecific. The data on life
histories are scant, as they must be in the
small space available, and are often sum-
marized under group headings.
In the flood of popular natural-history
books and hobby-type texts, this work
stands out as taking the serious student
back to some of the fundamental details on
which classification is based.
Austin L. Rand
Chief Curator of Zoology
Staff Notes
Ronald J. Lambert has been trans-
fered from his position as Taxidermist in the
Department of Zoology to the Division of
Paleontology, where he will serve as a Pre-
parator Michael Anderson, formerly
of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, has been ap-
pointed Assistant Taxidermist .... Dr. Ju-
lian A. Steyermark, Curator of the Phan-
erogamic Herbarium, was speaker before the
Conservation Council of Chicago and par-
ticipated in a meeting in St. Louis of the
board of governors of the Missouri chapter
of Nature Conservancy .... Dr. John W.
Thieret, Curator of Economic Botany, has
been appointed to the staff of advisory edi-
tors of the journal Economic Botany.
A series of exhibits in Boardman Conover
Hall (Hall 21) illustrates various aspects of
the biology of birds.
February, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
'BEST IN NATURE PHOTOS' TO BE EXHIBITED FEB. 1-23
RARE VIEWS of nature at its best-
animal life, plant life, landscapes and
seascapes, cloud formations, and other phe-
nomena — will be seen at the Museum from
February 1 through February 23 when,
under the auspices of the Nature Camera
selected after careful deliberation by the
judges.
The accepted color-slides will be exhibited
by projection on the screen of the Museum's
James Simpson Theatre on two Sundays,
February 9 and February 16, at 2:30 P.M.
ROCK-BOUND COAST
By William Siegel, of Riverdale, Illinois. Awarded first-prize silver medal in General Section of the 13th
Chicago International Exhibition of Nature Photography to be held at the Museum February 1 through 23.
Club of Chicago, the Thirteenth Chicago
International Exhibition of Nature Photog-
raphy is presented in Stanley Field Hall.
HUNDREDS OF PHOTOGRAPHERS
Several of the prize-winning photographs
are reproduced on the cover and inside pages
of this issue of the Bulletin. The contest
drew entries from many far parts of the
world. The photographs exhibited were se-
lected from the work of several hundred pho-
tographers, both amateur and professional,
and are believed to include some of the best
camera studies made in the past year or two.
Since the inception of the annual Chicago
contests they have been the world's largest
competitions devoted exclusively to nature
photography, and the resulting exhibitions
rank among the largest photographic shows
in any category.
As in the twelve preceding nature-photog-
raphy exhibits, there are two divisions, one
devoted to prints, both black-and-white and
color, and one to color transparencies. The
prints exhibited number about two hundred,
Admission to these showings is free, and all
who are interested are invited to attend.
The committee of judges included the fol-
lowing: Lorena R. Medbery, photographer,
A.P.S.A.; Edward Kloubec, Jr., photogra-
pher; Phillip H. Lewis, Assistant Curator of
Primitive Art at the Museum; Loren P.
Woods, the Museum's Curator of Fishes;
and Ramon Swisher, of the biology depart-
ment of Wilson Junior College. A silver
medal was awarded as the first prize in each
section (animals, plants, and general) of each
division. Many other entries were awarded
ribbons denoting honorable mention. Two
special silver medals were awarded by the
Photographic Society of America for slides
best illustrating color-harmony in nature.
WINNERS' NAMES ON PLAQUE
Names of winners of medals will be in-
scribed on a bronze plaque contributed by
Mrs. Myrtle R. Walgreen, who is a leader in
the activities of the Nature Camera Club.
As soon as possible, the club will publish an
illustrated catalog of accepted photographs.
Following is a list of prize-winners in the
various categories:
MEDAL WINNERS
Prints:
Animal-Life Section: H. S. Barsam, Fresno, Calif.
— Garden Snail
Plant-Life Section: Ted Farrington, Chicago —
Japanese Creeper
General Section: William Siegel, Riverdale, 111. —
Rock-bound Coast
Color Slides:
Animal-Life Section: Richard Prasil, Mineral,
Calif.— U'mm, Good!
Plant-Life Section: Bernice S. Foster, Worcester,
Mass. — Pixie Cup and Friend
General Section: Russel Kriete, Chicago — Pano-
rama
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Chicago Area
Prints:
Animal-Life Section: Martin J. Schmidt
General Section: John S. Bajgert, Louis W. Braun,
William Siegel
Color Slides:
Animal-Life Section: Augusta Dahlberg, Charles L.
Meiser
Plant-Life Section: G. P. Hoffman, Grace H.
Lanctot, Barbara F. Palser, R. Stahl
General Section: Charles Albee Howe, William C.
K rails. Russel Kriete, Paul Lobik
Outside Chicago Area
Prints:
Animal-Life Section: Leslie A. Campbell, Belcher-
town, Mass.; Edgar L. Crooks, Colton, Calif.; Grant M.
Haist, Rochester, N.Y.; Bob Leatherman, San Bernar-
dino, Calif.; Rae Mclntyre, Edmonton, Canada; T.
Middleton, Glossop, Derbys, England; Eliot Porter,
Santa Fe; Gordon S. Smith, Buffalo; Mme. Van den
Bussche, Antwerp, Belgium; G. H. Wagner, Omaha
Plant-Life Section: Edward H. Bourne, Penfield,
N.Y.; George Brewster, Arlington, Va.; Cy Coleman,
Detroit; H. J. Ensenberger, Bloomington, 111.; Grant M.
Haist, Rochester, N.Y.; Howard Oberlin, Canton,
Ohio; Eliot Porter, Santa Fe; Dr. Joz. Prove, Antwerp,
Belgium; G. H. Wagner, Omaha; Mrs. Gretchen Wip-
pert, El Monte, Calif.
General Section: Harry Harpster, Salt Lake City;
Clarence H. Heagy, Fresno, Calif.; Inocencio E. Padua,
Los Angeles; Gertrude L. Pool, Palo Alto, Calif.;
Henry W. Ryffer, San Diego, Calif.; George String-
fellow, Pomona, Calif.; Gretchen Wippert, El Monte,
Calif.
Color Slides:
Animal-Life Section: H. S. Barsam, Fresno, Calif.;
Mrs. Dorothy Beatty, Chambersburg, Pa.; H. E.
Berry, Wellesley, Mass.; S. G. Blakesley, Merced,
JAPANESE CREEPER
By Ted Farrington, of Chicago. Awarded first-prize
silver medal in Plant Life Section of Nature Photo-
graphy Exhibition under the auspices of the Nature
Camera Club of Chicago and the Museum.
Calif.; Leslie A. Campbell, Belchertown, Mass.; Roger
H. Camping, Rochester, N.Y.; Charles A. Carlson,
Berkeley, Calif.; John A. Collis, Belchertown, Mass.;
Ralph E. Cowan, Bakersfield, Calif.; John R. Dowalo,
Donoro, Pa.; J. A. Falkenstein, Reading, Pa.; C. B.
Harris, Merced, Calif.; Arthur C. Hollatz, Bloorping-
(Continued on page 8, column 1)
Page U
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
February, 1958
SPEED OF BIRDS
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
A FLEA travels at the rate of 4.5 miles
per hour in 8-inch jumps. This I dis-
covered in a recent account of speed of
animal locomotion. Though I had no im-
mediate use for this datum, it did set me
thinking about animals and speed. How
fast a bird flies or an animal travels is a
question we commonly are confronted with
at the Museum. We usually look up the
appropriate table in the most recent text-
book and read out the answer. But I've
Cartoons by Roth And
long had the feeling that these weren't very
good answers. So I welcomed the stimulus
given by the flea information, and that about
mosquitoes flying at one mile per hour, and
a Masai warrior, one of the celebrated lion
spearers, with shield and spear running at
18.4 miles per hour when pursued by a
rhino, and a rhino trotting at 27.2 miles per
hour when pursuing a Masai warrior but
galloping at 32-35 when charging a motor
car.
I browsed through the surveys of Mein-
ertzhagen and Roberts of England, and of
Cooke and Lane of the United States. They
contained records from the United States,
Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, gath-
ered at various times by various persons.
The standards of precision may have been
different and the methods of calculating were
often very different. Some were made by
pacing the animals with automobiles or air-
planes; some by using range finders; some
by timing over measured courses; some were
made with "instruments"; and some were
merely estimates. Only occasionally were
the conditions given: tail wind, frightened,
etc.
There were records of mayflies at one mile
per hour; butterflies and houseflies at 5 miles
per hour; horsefly types at 40, and dragon-
flies at 60. A 20-pound salmon, freshly
hooked, took out line at 10 miles per hour
while salmon are credited with 14-17 when
ascending waterfalls. A varanus lizard in
Egypt did 14 miles per hour on a dash to a
hole, but the dreaded, deadly black mamba
snake could not exceed 7.2 miles per hour
over short grass in Kenya, and a hungry
giant tortoise in Mauritius moved at 1/6
mile per hour toward food. A cheetah chas-
ing an electric hare on a race course at 44
miles per hour was the fastest mammal.
HUMAN SPEED
Then I came to man: a man may walk
from two to four miles per hour; on a mile
race he may run at the rate of 12 miles per
hour; in a 100-yard dash he may approxi-
mate a rate of 20 miles per hour. But to say
that man's top speed is 20 miles per hour,
implying that 15 minutes would be enough
to get from his home to the office five miles
away, is not a sound piece of information.
Nor can I imagine a flea setting out to travel
a mile in 8-inch jumps when he could hop on
a dog and travel at the rate of 40 miles per
hour (top greyhound speed).
But it was the speed of birds that inter-
ested me most. Notable was the fact that
the recorded speeds are very variable.
Horned lark records, for instance, ranged
from 17 to 54 miles per hour. But variabil-
ity must be taken into account and may
depend on a variety of factors. For in-
stance, ground speed is not the same thing
as air speed. With a good wind behind it a
herring gull might double its ordinary speed,
from 30 to 60 miles per hour. An eider duck
has a maximum speed of 50 miles per hour,
but Meinertzhagen saw one flying into a
heavy gale that actually had a minus ground
speed, approaching him backwards as it tried
to fly away.
The question as to whether or not a bird
is doing its best makes a difference, too. A
crow in India that cruised at 25 miles per
hour in the shelter of trees speeded up by an
additional 10 miles per hour when it was
crossing open fields where attack was likely.
Kingbirds are recorded as making only 11
and 15 miles per hour, but I have seen one
overtake and strike a fleeing crow that was
certainly doing more than the 26 miles per
hour credited to it.
570-M.P.H. DIVE
Pigeons may fly in the neighborhood of
40 miles per hour, but racing pigeons have
exceeded 90. A duck hawk, sometimes
thought of as one of our fastest birds, is
said to be unable to catch pigeons in level
flight but by diving on them from a height
can gain enough impetus to do so. How-
ever, I once saw a duck hawk easily overtake
a teal, one of our fastest ducks, in level
flight. A golden eagle, that probably does
not reach 60 miles per hour in much of its
flying, has been credited with an estimated
speed of 570 miles an hour on a mile-long
dive. Migration flights of birds are said to
be much faster than the ordinary flight.
Starlings often move about at 20-30 miles
per hour, but when they get up to travel
approach 50.
The length of time a speed can be main-
tained is a point on which we have no data.
Presumably birds can speed up greatly for
short spurts.
Then there are speed records we wonder
at: Indian spine-tailed swifts that were meas-
ured over a course at about 200 miles per
hour, and frigate birds traveling at 261. A
museum man has much of his raw material
housed for permanent reference. His speci-
mens can be remeasured and checked against
standards. Time and again a controversy
has been settled in this manner. But these
scattered data on speed permit no check. A
project set up to accumulate new data by
having trained birds fly a measured course
would be very expensive and time-consum-
ing for such data as would be secured, and
the limited use that could be made of it.
But the speed of birds is a legitimate sub-
ject of interest and we will have to make do
with the scattered data gathered incidentally
as opportunity offers. However, until we
can separate out the various types of flight:
those aided by wind or given impetus by a
dive, leisurely cruising or a hurried dash to
safety, or long range traveling, we must be
satisfied with very general answers.
GENERAL ESTIMATES ON BIRDS
The following are some general estimates
of the speed of birds in calm air in level
flight:
1 0-20 m.p.h. : Many small perching birds
— sparrows, wrens, catbirds, fly-
catchers
20-30 m.p.h.: Many medium-sized birds
often move in this range — as robins,
grackles, meadowlarks, and some lar-
ger, broad-winged birds like herons,
pelicans and gulls
20-40 m.p.h.: Many small and medium-
sized birds move in this range — star-
lings, chimney swifts, flickers, mourn-
ing doves
40-60 m.p.h.: The faster flying birds —
like falcons, ducks, geese, and rock
doves — often travel in these ranges
Perhaps the most productive approach in
further study will be to make comparative
studies to determine which birds can over-
take other birds.
As to the extreme records, comparable to
man-made records in airplane, car, boat, or
February, 1 958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
on foot, the record is doubtful. Their bio-
logical interest is in one bird's being able to
overtake another, or the amount of energy
expended. Their more general interest is
that of any record — what is the biggest, the
most costly, the strongest of its kind? When
we think how carefully checked are human
world records for the mile, for instance, we
realize how poorly documented are fastest-
bird records. But such as they are, the fol-
lowing often rejected records have been
seriously put forward:
SCIENCE BAFFLER: HOW MANY ANIMALS ARE THERE?
Indian spine-tail swift
Frigate bird
Duck hawk
Golden eagle
200 m.p.h.
(level flight)
261 m.p.h.
(level flight)
360 m.p.h. (dive)
570 m.p.h. (dive)
The fastest records of level flight in calm
air that were accepted by Meinertzhagen in
1955 are: homing pigeon, 94.3 miles per hour;
golden plover, 62; hummingbird, 60; mal-
lard, 60; swift, 57.
FRUSTRATION IN FISH
In a valley in Mexico, in the state of
San Luis Potosi, there are several caves with
pools containing blind and half-blind fish
well known to aquarists as cave tetras. These
are closely related to and, indeed, may be
crossed with normal-eyed river fish but this
presents some difficulties as has been re-
ported by Dr. C. M. Breder, Jr., Curator
of Fishes and Aquatic Biology at the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History, New York.
The normal-eyed fish are gregarious and
usually rest in compact schools kept together
by visual perception. The blind fish do not
form schools but wander continually at
random. When a blind and an eyed fish are
placed together in a tank for experimental
purposes the eyed fish attempts to follow the
blind one in its aimless wandering. This is
very often disastrous for one or the other.
The eyed fish may become emaciated and
die, Dr. Breder says, since blind fish
normally eat much more than eyed fish and
apparently are adjusted to the continual
exercise. The eyed fish may become erratic
in behavior. One actually took to spinning
on its snout at one end of the tank but
recovered after removal to another tank.
Most likely the eyed fish will attack the
blind one and destroy it.
Dual-purpose Skirts
Batak women of the Philippine Islands
wear bark skirts wide enough to wrap twice
around their bodies so that their skirts can
serve as blankets at night if necessary.
How mosquitoes carry malaria is illus-
trated by an exhibit in Albert W. Harris
Hall (Hall 18).
By G. AI.AN SOLEM
ASSISTANT CURATOR, LOWER INVERTEBRATES
MANY TIMES I have been asked the
seemingly simple question, "How
many animals are there?" This has always
embarrassed me since no quick answer is
possible. What are "animals"? Does "how
many" mean individuals or kinds? If kinds,
does this mean kinds known to scientists,
kinds actually living today, or should the
many extinct animals be included? Viewed
in this light, the question becomes very
complex.
WHAT IS AN ANIMAL?
If one considers only the higher plants and
animals, it is relatively easy to propose defini-
tions which will separate the two categories.
at this time. The term "animal" does in-
clude far more than mammals and other
vertebrates. Biologists use it to cover the
vast and heterogeneous assemblage called in-
vertebrates as well as the more familiar
vertebrates. A sponge is as much an animal
to a biologist as is a mammal, although in
the popular literature this definition might
not be utilized.
A coral and a clam are two kinds of ani-
mals, but by "kind" one usually means
"species." Biologists know what a species
is, more or less certainly, just as they know
what an "animal" or a "plant" is, but defi-
nitions are very difficult to make. A good
working definition might read: "A species is
a kind of animal, composed of all populations
of individuals, which, under natural condi-
INSECTS, CRABS, ETC.
Phylum ARTHROPODA
Ui.OOO SPECIES
THCNC UK MORC IKOKI or IMNCGTI
isoaoootnuN or all otkea animal*
AM PLANT* COWNINCO
ARTHROPODA-IN NUMBERS, THE DOMINANT GROUP OF ANIMALS
About 864,000 species of insects and their relatives are known, making this phylum by far the largest of any
animal group. Photograph shows section of "Animal Kingdom" exhibit devoted to these creatures.
When the single-celled and subcellular or-
ganisms are examined, it becomes obvious
that there is no dividing line between "ani-
mal" and "plant," but that there is one
world of living things. The question of how
to define animals and where to place the
things which are neither animal nor plant is
a separate subject and will not be discussed
tions, is actually or potentially capable of
interbreeding and producing fully fertile off-
spring." Species are then grouped into
higher categories on the basis of supposed
relationship. No general agreement on the
number and composition of the many higher
categories exists and even on the question of
the phyla, the largest divisions formally rec-
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
February, 1958
ognized, there is wide disagreement.
A few biologists would recognize only four-
teen phyla; most would recognize many more
groups as being full phyla and some authori-
ties recognize up to thirty-five phyla. The
differences of opinion are caused by our
limited knowledge of the relationships of
several groups of animals which contain only
a few living species. Some stretch the defi-
nitions of the major phyla to include the
"minor groups," but most zoologists retain
them as distinct phyla.
SPECIES IN CHICAGOLAND
Scientists have reported 46 species of na-
tive mammals, 134 of nesting birds, 52 of
reptiles and amphibians, 130 of fishes, 147
of snails and clams, and between 8,000 and
12,000 species of insects from the Chicago-
land region. Of course, not all these animals
can be seen at one time or in one place, but
even in a limited area or in one day a sur-
prising number of different animals can be
observed. During spring migration last
year, a Chicago ornithologist saw 163 species
of birds in one day. While no insect census
of a suburban garden has been taken in Chi-
cago, a New York entomologist found more
than 1,400 species of insects in his own back
yard over a period of a few years.
EXISTING SPECIES IN THE WORLD
No catalogue of animals for the entire
world exists, nor is one likely to be prepared.
In 1758 the great Swedish biologist, Carolus
Linnaeus, published a catalogue of all the
animals known to him, a total of 4,236 spe-
cies. Since then, several thousand system-
Figure A — Number of species known to scientists.
Systematics, like all other activities, is affected by-
world conditions. The upheavals of World War II
and the Korean War show in the slight increase
between 1939 and 1957. In the past few years the
line has continued its sharp upward growth.
atists have worked at collecting, naming, and
classifying the living world. Figure A here-
with is a graph showing the estimated number
of species known to scientists for various
years from 1758 to the present day. The
increase is not in number of existing species,
but only in the number found by scientists.
New species are being described at the rate
of more than 10,000 per year and the actual
number of existing species may be between
2,000,000 and 5,000,000. At the same time,
many forms previously thought to be species
are found to be only varieties of other spe-
cies. Thus the rate of increase in what
scientists consider to be "good species" is
less than 10,000 per year, but this still is
quite a substantial figure.
Some phyla have been more thoroughly
studied than others. The vertebrates have
been particularly well studied and probably
only a comparatively few species remain to
be discovered. Much more work remains to
be done on the invertebrates, most of which
are very small and must be studied with the
aid of special equipment.
At this writing I am studying snails 1/25
of an inch in size. The last whorl of the
shell has 120 "large" ribs. The important
characters in classification are found in the
microsculpture between the "large" ribs.
Obviously a high-powered microscope is
needed to study these shells. Minute size
and the need for special equipment have
greatly slowed the study of the smaller ani-
mals. For most of the invertebrates we have
barely begun the process of describing the
existing species, much less studying their
variation, distribution, and biology.
Table 1 gives a list of the larger phyla with
estimates of the number of species known to
scientists today and the guesses of various
Table 1
THE 12
LARGEST
PHYLA
NUMBER
ESTIMATED %
OF KNOWN
OF EXISTING
PHYLUM
SPECIES
SPECIES KNOWN
Protozoa
20,000 (±5,000)
* * *
Porifera
5,000
75%
(sponges)
Coelenterata
10,000
7 9 t
Platyhelmintb.es
10,000
25%
(flat-worms)
Nemathelminthes
10,000
10%
(round-worms)
Rotifera
1,500
? » J
(wheel-animals)
Ectoprocta
3,000
t 1 ?
(moss-animals)
Annelida
6,200
f ? ?
(segmented-wormS;
Mollusca
80,000 (±25,00(
65%
Arthropoda
864,000 (±100,000)
45%
(joint-legged)
Echinodermata
5,600
t ? ■>
Chordata
47,528
(Cephalochordates!
28
? ? t
(Tunicates)
1,500
80%
(Fishes)
25,000
(±5,000)
85%
(Amphibians)
2,500
95%
(Reptiles)
6,000
95%
(Birds)
9,000
99%
(Mammals)
3,500
98%
Minor phyla
2,696
(Table 2)
Total
1,065,524 (±135,000)
specialists as to what percentage of existing
species these figures represent. Estimates of
the number of described species of mollusks
range from 40,000 to 150,000; insects from
650,000 to 1,000,000; and fish from 20,000
to 40,000. The great differences in estimated
numbers reflect the vastness of these groups
and the impossibility for a systematist to
master more than a small fraction of the
species comprising one of these larger phyla.
Estimates as to the percentage of existing
species these figures represent may be more
accurate than the figures of number de-
scribed. In collections of invertebrates from
various parts of the world, there will be a
very high percentage of undescribed species.
From this we can estimate the approximate
percentage of existing forms that are known
at the present time.
EXTINCT SPECIES
Mention was made above that the rela-
tionships of the "minor" phyla (those with
only a few living species) are uncertain.
Because of the small number of living spe-
cies, some zoologists call these animals "ab-
errant" and lump them with the larger phyla.
Although only 225 living species of brachio-
pods are known, more than 30,000 fossil ones
have been described. Fossilization is a rare
accident and ordinarily only organisms with
hard parts will be preserved as fossils. Most
species belonging to the "minor" phyla have
no hard parts and we cannot determine
whether they have always been insignificant
in number, or whether they were once as
important as some of the larger phyla of
today. Nineteen of the "minor" phyla are
listed in Table 2.
Table 2
THE
19 SMALLEST PHYLA
NUMBER OF
PHYLUM
KNOWN SPECIES
Mesozoa
50
Ctenophora
90 (±10)
Nemertinea
650 (±100)
Acanthocephala
300
Gastrotricha
180 (±20)
Kinoryncha
100
Priapulida
3
Nematomorpha
75 (±25)
Entoprocta
60
Sipunculoidea
250
Echiuroidea
60
Phoronidea
15
Pogonophora
18
Brachiopoda
245 (±25)
Onychophora
80 (±10)
Tardigrada
340
Linguatula
70
Hemichordata
80
Chaetognatha
30
Total
2,696 species
Tabic 1 — Estimated number of species belonging to
the major phyla. In phyla such as the arthropods
and nematodes, only a small proportion of the
existing species have been classified. Individuals
are small but fantastically numerous. Many are of
direct interest to man because of damage they do
to growing crops.
Table 2 — Number of species known to belong to
the minor phyla. Most, if not all, of these names
are unfamiliar. Yet each name represents a type of
animal construction that is just as distinctive as is
that of a coral, snail, or 6sh. Most of these animals
arc small and live in the ocean. Although one may
not recognize these names, such a list serves as a
reminder of the diversity of animal life.
The fossil record, although very incom-
plete, does tell of faunal changes in the past.
The trilobites, dinosaurs, and graptolites
February, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
are now extinct, yet once they were very
large and important groups of organisms.
The horseshoe crab, Nautilus, and the lizard-
like Sphenodon are the only living members
of formerly important groups. Only a mi-
nute portion of the species of the past have
been both preserved as fossils and discovered
by paleontologists. It is thus impossible to
guess how many species have become extinct.
It can only be said, "We don't know how
many animals there are." Zoologists have
named more than 1,000,000 species, but per-
haps another 1,000,000 have not yet been
described. In the 200 years since 1758,
zoologists have increased the total number
of known species at least 250 times, yet the
end is nowhere in sight. Perhaps in another
200 years the task of just naming the living
species of animals may be 90 per cent com-
pleted, but the much greater job of classifying
variation, structure, physiology, embryology,
and genetics will hardly have begun.
INFLATION NOTE
Talk about inflation . . .
The Ashanti tribe in West Africa had it,
too.
In the old days the king of the Ashanti
gained revenue for his royal needs by
a device that gave him extra profit whether
he was buying or selling. It's illustrated in
an exhibit in Case 4 of Hall E, one of the
Museum's two halls of African ethnology.
When the king was selling gold dust, the
buyer took a loss because of the king's
special privilege of using a set of weights of
less than the tribe's standard mass. But
when the king bought gold flakes, he used
another set of weights that insured him of
full value, or more. Thus he always won.
A set of the brass weights of the type used
is in the Museum exhibit of Ashanti crafts-
manship. The weights, highly ornamental,
were sculptured in the forms of men and
women, animals, and familiar objects used
in daily living. Because of their occupation,
the goldsmiths, while easy marks for the
king under the system, were nevertheless
regarded as a high social caste.
A Bit of Charm Works
Even on Fish
After hours of not-so-patient waiting for
stubborn fishes to bite, do you often wish
you could charm the fishes right out of the
water? Well, that's exactly what the
Maoris of Polynesia attempt to do. Maori
fishing expeditions aren't complete unless
a priest accompanies the fishermen to in-
voke his magical powers. The first fish
caught is charmed by the priest and then
thrown back into the water in the hope that
action will induce other fish to bite. More
information about the Polynesian people is
given in the exhibits in Hall F (Peoples of
Polynesia and Micronesia).
PERU PROJECT HEADS
Several expeditions — a smaller number
than in most years — will carry on the Mu-
seum program of collecting and field re-
search during 1958. The curtailment is
necessitated by a reduction in the funds
available for the purpose.
The outstanding new field project of the
year will be the Conover Peru Expedition
conducted by Emmet R. Blake, Curator of
Birds. Blake will fly in May to Cuzco to
prepare for exploration of areas virtually
unpenetrated by zoologists. With a prin-
cipal assistant who has a museum-collecting
background he will set out from Cuzco for
the lowlands east of Madre de Dios where
the only means of travel are foot-trail and
canoe. A party of native boatmen, hunters,
and porters will be organized before pro-
ceeding into the Amazon drainage region
east of the Andes and into practically un-
inhabited rain forests along the Rio de
Madre de Dios. A large general collection of
the fauna, principally birds, will be sought.
Preliminary reconnaissance has indicated
that the area should be rich in bird life and
that the chances are favorable for discover-
ing some species hitherto unknown to
science. The expedition will be financed by
the Conover Game-bird Fund, established
by the late Boardman Conover who was both
a Museum Trustee and Research Associate
in the Division of Birds.
The largest expedition of the year in point
of personnel and size of operations will
resume excavations of prehistoric Indian
sites in Arizona. This work, by the South-
west Archaeological Expedition, which goes
into its twenty-fourth season, will, as in past
years, be under the direction of Dr. Paul S.
Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology.
The expedition has been unearthing evidence
for tracing the culture and history of peoples
who inhabited the area 4,500 years ago.
Dr. John B. Rinaldo, Assistant Curator of
Archaeology, will again be Dr. Martin's
principal associate. They will be joined by
a staff of other archaeologists, while crews
of local men will be enlisted for the digging.
The comprehensive survey in both the
United States and Canada of the archae-
ology of the Upper Great Lakes region,
which has been under way for several years,
will be continued by George I. Quimby,
Curator of North American Archaeology
and Ethnology. The period under study
goes all the way back to 10,000 B.C.
Collecting of Middle and Late Eocene
specimens will be continued in the remote
Washakie Basin of Wyoming by William D.
Turnbull, Assistant Curator of Fossil Mam-
mals, and Orville L. Gilpin, Chief Preparator
of Fossils.
Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Curator of Fossil
Reptiles, and Dr. Eugene S. Richardson, Jr.,
Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, will con-
tinue to collect and study the fossil content
1958 EXPEDITION LIST
of a Coal Age shale occurring near Mecca,
Indiana. This work is financed by a fund
contributed by Dr. Maurice L. Richardson,
of Lansing, Michigan.
Dr. John W. Thieret, Curator of Eco-
nomic Botany, is scheduled to make a field
trip to the Great Plains areas in Minnesota,
North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska,
Montana, and Wyoming to collect and
study grasses.
AUDUBON FILM SHOWS
COLORADO ROCKIES
Wildlife and plants found on the eastern
slopes of the Rocky Mountains will be color-
fully portrayed when the Illinois Audubon
Society presents "High Horizons," its fourth
screen-tour lecture of the 1957-58 season.
The color-film program will be given at
2:30 p.m. Sunday, February 23, in the
James Simpson Theatre of the Museum.
William Ferguson of Omaha, Nebraska,
who will lecture with his film, is the origi-
nator of "This Curious World," an educa-
tional cartoon syndicated to hundreds of
newspapers in the United States and Can-
ada, as well as a cartoonist for a group of
farm newspapers. Mr. Ferguson's lecture
and film will present an exciting journey
from the melting snows above timberline
down to alpine meadows and finally to fer-
tile prairies. During the exciting descent
through the Colorado wilderness, the audi-
ence will see vivid portraits of animals and
plants living in the various zones.
The last program in the current series of
Illinois Audubon Society screen-tours will be
"Forgotten Country," on Sunday, March 16.
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum:
Fieldiana: Botany, Vol. 28, No. 4. Contri-
butions to The Flora of Venezuela. By
Julian A. Steyermark and Collaborators.
514 pages, 7 illustrations. $7.50.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 5. Two
New Species of Birds from Angola. By
Austin L. Rand. 5 pages. 15c.
Fieldiana: Geology, Vol. 10, No. 28. The
Present Status of the Volcanoes of Central
America. By Sharat Kumar Roy. 5
pages, 1 map. 15c.
Fieldiana: Anthropology, Vol. 47, No. 1.
The Sawmill Site, A Reserve Phase Village,
Pine Lawn Valley, Western New Mexico.
By Elaine A. Bluhm. 88 pages, 29 illus-
trations, 3 maps. $2.25.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
February, 1958
Saturdays in Spring . . .
LECTURES ON TRAVEL
START MARCH 1
On Saturday afternoons in March and
April the Museum will present its spring
series of free illustrated travel lectures for
adults. Provided by the Edward E. Ayer
Lecture Foundation Fund, the new series
will be the 109th offered by the Museum.
The programs for March are:
March 1 — A Nova Scotia Visit
Roy E. Coy
March 8 — Indo-China
William G. Campbell
March 15 — Eastern South America
Phil Walker
March 22 — Ethiopia
Willis ButUr
March 29 — Afghanistan
Julien Bryan
A complete schedule of the lectures will
appear in the March Bulletin. All of the
programs will be given in the James Simpson
Theatre of the Museum at 2:30 p.m. and all
will be illustrated with color motion-pictures.
A section of the Theatre is reserved for Mem-
bers of the Museum, and each Member is
entitled to two reserved seats for each pro-
gram. Requests should be made in advance
by telephone (WAbash 2-9410) or by mail.
Seats will be held in the Member's name
until 2:25 P.M. on the day of the program.
PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS-
{Continued from page 3)
ton, 111.; Ted Johnson, Rochester, Minn.; B. J. Kaston,
New Britain, Conn.; Robert Leatherman, San Bernar-
dino, Calif.; O. H. Logan, Camden, Ohio; Joseph J.
Malek, Reading, Pa.; R. O. Malcomson, Mount Pleas-
ant, Mich.; Edgar K. Nauth, Kenmore, N.Y.; Wendell
W. Nicholson, Kalamazoo, Mich.; John B. Pearson,
Mount Vernon, Ohio; Mildred Porter, Studio City,
Calif.; Robert W. L. Potts, San Francisco; Elsie Pyle,
Van Nuys, Calif.; Alfred Renfro, Santa Barbara, Calif.;
Marian M. Rich, Melrose, Mass.; Alvin Richard, Po-
mona, Calif.; Marion Roberts, Los Angeles; Le Roi
Russel, Prescott, Ariz.; R. E. Sams, Mentone, Calif.;
Lt. Col. Ralph Sims, Amarillo, Tex.; Ernest Smith,
Santa Barbara, Calif.; David C. Stager, Bloomfield,
New Jersey; S. Stern, New York; Edmund Stoddard,
Auburn, Calif.; Mrs. Anstiss Wagner, Arlington, Mass.;
John E. Walsh, Beverly, Mass.; Mrs. John E. Walsh,
Beverly, Mass.; D. E. Williams, Porterville, Calif.;
W. A. Wren, Newport, Ohio; W. M. Wright, San
Diego, Calif.; Louis B. Ziegler, San Jacinto, Calif.
Plant-Life Section: W. G. Chaney, Browns Mills,
N.J.; Len Chatwin, Rosemere, Canada; Mrs. W. L.
Davis, Dumas, Tex.; B. Durba, Yonkers, N.Y.; How-
ard L. Garrett, Midland, Mich.; Mrs. J. E. Goodwin,
Toronto; Henry M. Harris, Pacific Palisades, Calif.;
G. Culberson, Olympia, Wash.; Anne M. Hatcher,
Port Chester, N.Y.; S. G. Johnson, Hemet, Calif.;
Peggy Jordan, Brighton, Mass.; John W. Kell, Fre-
montia, Calif.; Mrs. V. King, West Hill, Canada; Emil
Muench, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Mary M. Mulford,
Washington, D.C.; L. W. Peterson, La Verne, Calif.;
Leona Piety, Ontario, Calif.; Dr. R. B. Pomeroy,
Scarsdale, N.Y.; Glenn O. Porter, Studio City, Calif.;
R. G. Prasil, Mineral, Calif.; Donald T. Ries, Normal,
111.; William D. Popejoy, Normal, 111.; Winnifred Recht,
Boulder, Colo.; Mattie C. Sanford, Salt Lake City;
Nettie Schoppe, Yakima, Wash.; Benjamin M. Shaub,
Northampton, Mass.; Mrs. Mary Shaub, Northampton,
Mass.; L. L. Steimley, Urbana, 111.; Oscar F. Stewart,
Detroit; Howard Swigart, Seattle; Carl Van Steen-
bergen, Long Beach, Calif.; Lee Walp, Marietta, Ohio;
Elvin Warrick, Urbana, 111.; Claire E. Webster, Berke-
ley, Calif.; Wesley Wilcox, Normal, 111.; Virginia Wil-
A Killer's 'Badge of Honor'
For Young Bachelors
Young men of the Ilongot tribe of the
Philippines impress the tribe's young
maidens by wearing the red beak of the
hornbill over their foreheads to indicate
that they have killed an enemy. A lesser
honor in the maiden's eyes is the bachelor's
headdress of rooster tail-feathers, which sig-
nifies that he has cut the body of an enemy.
Other information about the people of the
Philippines may be found in Hall A (Peoples
of Melanesia and the Philippines).
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Miss C. F. Bieber, Santa Fe —
ethnological material, Borneo; Walker B.
Davis, Chicago — Barong fighting-knife and
sheath, 2 woven mats, Philippine Islands;
G. Edward Quimby, Chicago — breech clout
of tapa cloth, New Guinea
Department of Botany
From: Dr. John Dwyer, St. Louis — 33
grasses, Missouri and Arkansas; Ernest J.
Palmer, Webb City, Mo. — 5 plant specimens
Department of Geology
From: Mrs. Walter Douglas, Phoenix,
Ariz. — petrified palm-trunk, Florida
Department of Zoology
From: California State Fisheries Labora-
tory, Terminal Island, Calif. — fish specimen;
Robert J. Drake, Tucson, Ariz. — 3 land
snails, Veracruz; Rodolfo Escalante, Mon-
tevideo, Uruguay — birdskin; Dr. Henry
Field, Coconut Grove, Fla. — landshells,
France; Raymond Grow, Gary, Ind. — 2
birdskins; Miss Trudie Jerkins, Tarpon
Springs, Fla. — a frog, Colombia; B. Malkin,
Minneapolis, Minn. — fresh-water clams,
Brazil; Tarpon Zoo, Tarpon Springs, Fla. —
a snake, Colombia; U. S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, Pascagoula, Miss. — marine inverte-
brates, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Carib-
bean
liamson, Lyndhurst, N.J.; Edmund A. Woodle, Natick,
General Section: John Benzel, Covina, Calif.;
W. C. Brasie, Midland, Mich.; Norma Chatwin, Hose-
mere, Canada; Wayne C. Foster, Phoenix, Ariz.; Hank
Greenhood, Los Angeles; Katherine H. Jensen, Pitts-
ford, N.Y.; M. McGregor, Toronto; Paul L. Miller,
Seattle; Dr. A. M. Nielsen, Salt Lake City; Jack E.
O'Brien, Webster Grove, Mo.; Anton F. O'Neil, Seattle;
Clark Sager, South Gate, Calif.; Lewis S. Stadler,
Kalamazoo, Mich.; Mrs. Anstiss Wagner, Arlington,
Mass.; Ing. J. L. Zakany, Mexico City
SPECIAL MEDALS FOR COLOR SLIDES
{Awarded by the Photographic Society of America)
Wendell W. Nicholson, Kalamazoo, Mich. — Luna
Moth Larra
Stafford L. Jory, Berkeley, Calif. — Feeding Time
Children's Programs . . .
YOUNG PEOPLE'S GROUPS
WILL BE HONORED
Children's free movie-programs at the
Museum will honor various young people's
organizations on Saturday mornings in
March and April. Films and suggested
tours will carry out the themes of projects
under study by the particular groups.
Although special recognition is being given
the organizations, unaffiliated boys and girls
also are invited to attend all the programs.
The first program, on March 1, while honor-
ing no specific organization, will be dedi-
cated to the most important of all — the
typical American family.
March 1 — Family Day
"Animal Families"
March 8 — Cub Scout Day
"Exploring Alaska"
March 15 — Girl Scout Day
"Hands Around The World"
March 22 — Campfire Girls' Day
"Meet the People"
March 29 — Chicago Boys' Clubs Day
"Wildlife"
The programs are provided by the James
Nelson and Anna Louise Raymond Founda-
tion. No tickets are needed for the shows,
which will be given in the James Simpson
Theatre at 10:30 A.M. Children are in-
vited to come alone, accompanied by
parents or other adults, or in groups.
NEW MEMBERS
(December 14 to January 15)
Contributors
Walter J. Cummings, Joseph H. King
Associate Members
Edison Dick, W. Paul McBride
Sustaining Members
Joseph W. Dennis, K. Schlanger, John B.
Van Duzer
Annual Members
Frederick B. Andrews, Mrs. William Bel-
Iano, Herbert E. Brehm, Jr., Albert H.
Brunell, James H. Burtch, Mrs. Anthony E.
Cascino, Arthur D. Chilgren, Joseph S.
D'Amico, Dr. Lloyd De Vore, Earl T. Fran-
zen, Robert A. Gardner, Jr., Alfred Gaw-
throp, Miss Elsie L. Haug, LeRoy Hirsch,
A. C. Hoffman, Carl Jacoby, George A.
Laadt, James McMahon, Arthur H. Mor-
stadt, Mark K. Newell, J. A. Papa, Arnold
W. Pascus, Lester W. Reinecke, Dr. Clifton
C. Rhead, Richard F. Robinson, Miss Eve-
lyn Rose, Arnold N. Schorn, Whitt N.
Schultz, Noel M. Seeburg, Jr., R. Wells
Simmons, Edward A. Sippel, Miss Marie
Smith, Fred A. Stavenhagen, Arthur I.
Stephens, Russell T. Stern, Edward Winkler
An entire hall of the Museum (Hall N-l)
is devoted to whales.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
CHICAGO/^ /£*-
ISTORY
USEUM
/
"to/. 29
JYo. 3
4958
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
March, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Jane Rockwell
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
SO SPLENDID YEARS
AT MUSEUM HELM
Members of the Museum staff have noted
with deep gratification the many tributes to
Stanley Field, President of the Museum for
the past half-century, published in the
metropolitan papers and other newspapers
in the Chicago region, recognizing his out-
standing contributions to the cultural life
of Chicago. Temptation is strong to sit back
complacently and say "We knew it all
the time."
The fact that the success of this institution
is largely due to the personality of Mr. Field
and his constant encouragement of the staff
is basic in the history of this Museum. We
are happy, also, in the knowledge that his
recognition of the talents of other members
of the Board of Trustees does not imply that
he plans to leave his work in the near future.
C.C.G.
ciate Member since 1935. Both converted
to Life Memberships in order to add to the
Museum's endowment funds.
Errata
The report on New Members of the Mu-
seum published in the February Bulletin
erroneously listed Edison Dick and W. Paul
McBride as Associate Members. It is re-
gretted that this error occurred. Actually,
the gentlemen named are Life Members.
Mr. McBride had been an Annual Member
since 1941 and Mr. Dick had been an Asso-
Record Homing Flight
A record homing flight has been made by
the Laysan Island albatross, according to an
article in a recent issue of the journal
Condor. Two American scientists sent nest-
ing albatross from Laysan Island near the
Hawaiian group to the Philippine Islands by
air in 1957, and in 31 days one of them was
back, a distance of 4,120 airline miles. Part
of the ocean flown over was outside the
range of the species. Two birds sent to
Washington state returned, an airline dis-
tance of 3,200 miles in 10 and 12 days each.
The most spectacular sea-bird homing flight
recorded before these was a Manx shear-
water, transported 3,200 miles from Wales
to Boston, which returned in 12 V2 days.
STAFF NOTES
John R. Millar, Deputy Director, who
on February 3 completed his 40th year of
service on the Museum staff, was guest of
honor at a staff reception in recognition of
the occasion. Mr. Millar joined the staff in
1917 as a preparator in the Department of
Botany and participated in several expedi-
tions to South America and elsewhere. In
1938 he was appointed Curator of the De-
partment of the N. W. Harris Public School
Extension and in 1946 became Deputy Di-
rector. . . . Raymond A. N. Gomes has
been appointed Assistant Recorder in the
Division of Publications. Formerly em-
ployed by the Evanston Hospital Associ-
ation, he replaces Forest Highland who has
resigned. . . . Miss Louise Jones is now
secretary in the Museum Book Shop. . . .
Dr. Donald Collier, Curator of South
American Archaeology and Ethnology,
lectured on "Ancient Peruvian Art" at the
Kalamazoo (Michigan) Art Center on
February 12. . . . Vocational counsel on
"Archaeology as a Career" was given
at La Grange (Illinois) High School on
February 26 by Dr. John B. Rinaldo,
Assistant Curator of Archaeology. . . . Dr.
Julian A. Steyermark, Curator of the
Phanerogamic Herbarium, has resigned. . . .
D. Dwight Davis, Curator of Vertebrate
Anatomy, has been appointed to the Scien-
tific Advisory Committee of the Chicago
Zoological Society. He recently lectured on
"Concepts of Taxonomy" before a class at
the University of Chicago. . . . "Definition
of Genera" was the subject of a recent
lecture by Dr. Robert F. Inger, Curator of
Amphibians and Reptiles, before the Zoology
Club at the University of Chicago. . . .
Loren P. Woods, Curator of Fishes, re-
cently was speaker for the Conservation
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
One who looks at the cover of
this Bulletin and at the drawing
on another page of a caveman
moppet serving a bottled cola
drink to a dinosaur should not in-
fer that the Museum has veered
away from its strict scientific con-
cepts or that its direction has
been taken over by Walt Disney.
For entertainment and for deco-
ration there is room for fantasy
everywhere, and even so eminent
and serious a biologist as the late
Dr. Karl P. Schmidt, of the
Museum staff, in moments of re-
laxation wrote and published gro-
tesque stories about the animal
world under the title "Unnatural
History." This same title might
be applied to the series of amus-
ing murals, of which the cover
and dinosaur pictures are exam-
ples, recently painted on the walls
of the children's lunchroom in
the Museum. These whimsies
are the creation of Marion Pahl,
Staff Illustrator. She evokes
chuckles by combining natural-
istic forms of animals with im-
possible situations.
Council in Chicago and the Izaak Walton
League of Winnetka.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Dr. William R. Bascom, Berkeley,
Calif. — two masks and two wooden figures,
Nigeria, West Africa; Dr. David C. Graham,
Englewood, Colo. — 42 Chinese rubbings,
China
Department of Botany
From: Los Angeles County Museum,
California — 58 plant specimens, Brazil;
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Beltsville, Md.
— a specimen of Araeococcus pectinatus,
2 plant specimens, Honduras and Costa
Rica
Department of Geology
From: University of Chicago — fossil rep-
tiles, Texas; Mrs. Ethel Doerr, Tinley Park,
111. — limestone specimens; University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia — three casts of
Oigantopithecus
Department of Zoology
From: Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt —
2 fleas, 2 lice; Tim Hopkins, Redwood City,
Calif. — a tiger beetle; Dr. David Kistner,
Rochester, N.Y. — 25 beetles, Africa; Chin
Phui Kong, North Borneo — 3 fishes; Borys
Malkin, Minneapolis — a land shell, Brazil;
Dr. Jeanne S. Schwengel, Scarsdale, N.Y.
— shells and books; Stephen Weinstein,
Chicago — a snake, Colombia
March, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
FILMS FROM BEHIND IRON CURTAIN IN SPRING LECTURES
THE MUSEUM offers a varied fare for
this spring's stay-at-home travelers.
Subjects of color motion-pictures and accom-
panying talks by world wanderers range from
Nova Scotia in the North to the jungles of
Africa, and include a view behind the "iron
curtain" to see
how life is lived
and what peo-
ple are really
like in Soviet
Russia today.
There will be
nine illustrated
lectures in the
109th series to
be presented in
the James Simp-
son Theatre of
the Museum on
Saturday after-
noons at 2:30
o'clock in
March and
April. The pro-
grams, to which admission is free, are offered
under the provisions of the Edward E. Ayer
Lecture Foundation Fund. Each Member
of the Museum is entitled, on request, to
two reserved seats. Early reservations are
urged for all the following dates and pro-
gram subjects:
March 1 — A Nova Scotia Visit
Roy E. Coy
In his travelogue, Roy Coy, director of the
St. Joseph (Missouri) Museum, will take his
audience to "the most different" of Canada's
provinces. Starting in the quaint old city of
Halifax with its flower gardens and ancient
fortress, the lecturer plunges into natural
history at the outset with a visit to a most
unusual wildlife park. Then his film follows
the fishing fleet out into the Bay of Fundy
for scallop and cod and into Oyster Bay for
lobster and mackerel. Highlights include a
trip to an island thronged with black-backed
gulls, to Cape Breton Isle whose people are
noted for their remarkable handcrafts, and
to Ciboux Island with its vast colonies of
Atlantic puffins.
March 8 — Indochina
William G. Campbell
All three states of Indochina — Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos — yield their stories to
Dr. Campbell's cameras. His films focus on
the life of Saigon ("weary Paris of the Ori-
ent"), the court of the king of Cambodia, the
royal dancers of Laos, the mysteries of Bud-
dhist temples, the remote tribal peoples, and
the magnificent ruins of Angkor Wat and
Angkor Thom, seats of the once-great Khmer
civilizations. Opium dens as well as opium
control-measures are the subject of study.
Elephants, festivals, golden pagodas, virgin
mountain-forests, the historic Mekong River,
the beautiful coast of Annam — and every-
where all kinds of people — contribute to the
interest of Campbell's superb color-films and
equally colorful narrative.
March 15 — Eastern South America
Phil Walker
Special emphasis is placed on Buenos Aires
and other parts of Argentina in Phil Walker's
film and lecture, because of changes since the
overthrow of Dictator Peron, but a compre-
hensive travelogue is given of Brazil and
Uruguay from Rio de Janeiro to Montevi-
deo. Among the highlights are Bariloche in
Argentina, called the "Switzerland" of South
America because of its snowcapped peaks
and jewel-like lakes, and Santos, Sao Paulo,
and Bahia. The Caribbean islands of Cura-
cao and St. Thomas and life aboard a cruise-
ship are other features.
March 22 — Ethiopia Today
Willis Butler
In an exciting and beautiful film-story,
Willis Butler takes you through 4,000 miles
of rugged Ethiopia by airplane, jeep, mule,
and boat. He covers thoroughly the coun-
try's geography, history, religion, family life,
and scenic attractions. Visits are made to the
coffee plantations (the world's first coffee
came from Ethiopia) and to the workshops
of native arts and handcrafts. A feature is
a sojourn at the imperial palace in which the
audience becomes well acquainted with Em-
peror Haile Selassie.
March 29 — Afghanistan
Julien Bryan
Few tourists or other outsiders get into
Afghanistan. Julien Bryan has made the
first full-length color motion-picture of this
country's life ever obtained by an American
lecturer. He traces the major movements in
Afghanistan: early Buddhism (500-400 B.C.),
the entry of Alexander the Great (about 320
B.C.), the arrival of the followers of Moham-
med (9th century A.D.), and the invasion of
Ghengis Khan (13th century A.D.). His film
RESERVED SEATS
FOR MEMBERS
No tickets are necessary for ad-
mission to these lectures. A sec-
tion of the Theatre is allocated to
Members of the Museum, each of
whom is entitled to two reserved
seats. Requests for these seats
should be made in advance by
telephone (WAbash 2-9410) or in
writing, and seats will be held in
the Member's name until 2:25
o'clock on the lecture day.
shows what is being done by the final in-
vader, modern machinery, in building new
schools and hospitals, roads and dams, and
airports. The life of nomadic tribes and of
the cities with their mosques, markets, veiled
women, and theatrical presentations are
given equal attention.
April 5 — Germany
Alfred Wolff
Two phases of Germany — the "once-upon-
a-time" land of fable and fairy tale and the
post-Hitler modern industrial country of to-
day — are presented in Alfred Wolff's film-
lecture. He will show his audience the
medieval pageantry of Rothenburg and the
fairylandlike castle of Neuschwanstein and
even Red Riding-hood's House at Oberam-
mergau, as well as the Passion Play Theatre.
Scenic features include a journey up Ger-
many's highest mountain, the Zugspitze; the
Bavarian Alps and villages; the Black For-
est and the Rhineland. Cities visited in-
clude Berlin, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and
Munich.
April 12 — Marvels of Africa
John Nicholls Booth
Dr. Booth presents one of the most com-
prehensive picture-stories of Africa ever at-
tempted. This color-film opens with a voyage
up the mighty Congo River through dense
jungle, with stops among the fascinating
Ngomba and Monga tribes, to French Equa-
torial Africa, where a visit is paid to Dr.
Albert Schweitzer at his famed hospital.
A northward trek to Morocco, which is tra-
versed from sites of ancient Roman invaders
and Barbary pirate lairs to modern Casa-
blanca, a jump of 4,000 miles to the equator
and into Kenya, which is in the grip of the
Mau Mau terror, and the ascent of Africa's
tallest mountain, Kilimanjaro, are followed
by exploration of Nigeria and once-forbidden
Timbuktu. The film ends with a survey of
northwest Uganda, near the Mountains of
the Moon, where thrilling pictures are made
of the biggest wild game on earth.
April 19 — Wildlife Across Canada
Cleveland P. Grant
Early in his film, Cleveland Grant, a for-
mer member of the staff of this Museum,
takes his audience around the Gaspe Penin-
sula and the great sea-bird cliffs of Bona-
venture. Then he proceeds to Canada's far
west for pictures of the big-game animals in
Alberta, British Columbia, and Yukon Ter-
ritory. There are adventures with grizzly
bears, and hazards are met while recording
on film the life of the mammoth bull-moose.
April 26 — Russia
Neil Douglas
In his film and lecture Neil Douglas brings
you the latest available information on the
people behind the iron curtain. He visited
Page U
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
March, 1958
Russia just before the Hungarian clash,
which marked the end of opportunity for
traveling photographers. A vast area is ex-
plored, including Leningrad, Moscow, the
port of Odessa, Yalta and the Crimea, the
Caucasus, and Georgia, whence came the
late Stalin. A vast array of the different
peoples within the USSR is pictured — Ka-
zakhs, Taziks, Turkmen, Siberian Yakuts,
Ziss, Ukrainians, and Georgians whose "peo-
ple's folk dances" are a colorful feature.
Those who see Douglas' color motion-pic-
tures and hear his story should gain an
impression of what life is really like in the
sprawling land of the Soviets.
FANTASY FOR CHILDREN IN MUSEUM LUNCHROOM
CHILDREN'S MOVIES
BEGIN MARCH 1
Young people's organizations will be
honored at the Museum in the spring series
of children's free movie-programs to be pre-
sented on Saturday mornings during March
and April by the James Nelson and Anna
Louise Raymond Foundation.
Except for the opening program on March
1, "Family Day" — which will offer a series
of movies showing how animal families live
together — all of the shows will give special
recognition to organized groups. All pro-
grams, however, are open to unaffiliated
boys and girls as well as members of groups.
No tickets are needed for the shows, which
will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the James Simp-
son Theatre. Children may attend alone,
in groups, or with parents or other adults.
Below is a schedule of the Saturday-morning
programs for March and April:
March 1 — Family Day
"Animal Families" — a program of films
illustrating how both wild and domesti-
cated animals live together in family
groups
March 8 — Cub Scout Day
"Exploring Alaska" — movie program and
exhibits in the Museum will provide a visit
to Alaska's Eskimos and animals
March 15 — Girl Scout Day
"Hands Around the World" — a skit and
movie program will carry out the Girl
Scout project-theme "International
Friendship." Following the program an
open house will be held, at which Senior
Girl Scouts will act as guides and hostesses
March 22 — Camp Fire Girl Day
"Playtimes" — movies and a special tour,
"Toys Around the World," will show
children at play in various parts of the
world. Horizon Girls will serve as host-
esses and guides after the program
March 29 — Chicago Boys' Clubs Day
"Wild Wild World!" — several short films
will show wild life from the backyards of
Chicago to the wilds of Africa
One of a new series of murals, described as "unnatural history," painted for the amusement of young visitors
by Marion Pahl, Illustrator. These lighthearted paintings depict a world of things that couldn't be.
April 5 — No program because of Easter
holiday
April 12 — Boy Scout Day
"Exploring Our Earth" — film program
will show volcanoes, mountain climbers,
rock-and-mineral collecting, and the as-
sembly of two of the Museum's dinosaur
exhibits
April 19— YMCA Day
"Boys, Braves, and Dancers" — American
Indians will be visited by way of movies
and Museum exhibits
April 26 — Brownie Scout Day
"Three Little Pigs" — a puppet show by
the Apple Tree Workshop of Chicago
Heights will give a present-day interpre-
tation of the classic fairy-tale, "Three
Little Pigs." Senior Girl Scouts will be
guides and hostesses after the program
A cartoon is included in each program
except for the last one, on April 26.
'ANIMALS OF THE BIBLE'
TOPIC FOR JOURNEY
Animals in the stories of both the Old and
New Testaments are seen on the thirteenth
Museum Journey for children, "Animals of
the Bible." Mammals, birds, reptiles, and
fishes exhibited on the first and ground floors
of the Museum will be visited by any boy or
girl who takes the spring Journey, which is
offered from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on any day in
March and April. Journey instructions with
a questionnaire about the animals are pro-
vided at the north and south doors of the
Museum. When a child has filled out the
questionnaire he can deposit it in a barrel at
either the north or south door of the Mu-
seum. After successfully completing four
Journeys, the child is eligible for a Museum
Traveler award. Eight successful Journeys
entitle him to be a Museum Adventurer and
twelve Journeys a Museum Explorer. The
spring Journey begins a series in which an
entirely new award will be presented to the
boys and girls participating. The nature of
the award will be announced in a future issue
of the Bulletin.
LURE OF WILDERNESS
IN AUDUBON FILM
The wonders of the real wilderness that
may be found in the Far West by heeding
the invitation of little-used back roads and
rivers will be shown on the screen in "For-
gotten Country," next film-lecture of the
Illinois Audubon Society. The program will
be presented by Bert Harwell in the James
Simpson Theatre of the Museum on Sunday,
March 16, at 2:30 p.m.
The "forgotten" land where Harwell has
found adventure is a vast area between the
Rockies and the Pacific Coast extending
from Canada to Mexico. From the lofty
crags, the deep canyons, and the thick for-
ests of this region of beauty, contrast, and
mystery, Harwell brings a colorful life pag-
eant of many strange animals and plants.
This is the final program in the current
Audubon series of screen-tours. Admission
is free. Seats in the reserved section of the
Theatre are available to Members of the
Audubon Society and the Museum on pre-
sentation of their membership cards.
Whooping Cranes Achieve
New Lease on Life
The whooping-crane population is the
highest in seven years, according to an
article in the New York Zoological Society's
Animal Kingdom. There is now a total of
31 living whooping cranes: one adult in the
San Antonio Zoo, two adults and two young
in the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans,
and 22 adults and four young wild on the
Aransas Refuge in Texas.
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
March, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
FISH COLLECTING ON COASTS OF GUIANAS AND BRAZIL
By LOREN P. WOODS
CURATOR OF FISHES
RECENTLY the author participated for
the fifth time in an exploratory fishing
cruise of the motor vessel Oregon of the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Three of the previous cruises were in the
Gulf of Mexico and one in the western
Carribean. Each resulted in large collec-
tions of fishes from offshore deep waters.
Many of the species collected were not
previously represented in our collection and
have provided valuable research materials
for our staff and for several ichthyologists in
other institutions as well as for graduate
students training to become ichthyologists.
On the fifth voyage, in November, 1957,
the Oregon explored the South American
FISHING GROUNDS
Each spot on the map represents a trawling station
on the recent cruise to the Guianas and Brazil of
the motor vessel "Oregon."
continental shelf along the coasts of the
Guianas and Brazil from off the mouth of
the Orinoco River to the mouth of the
Amazon. Over this vast distance an otter
trawl with an opening 40 feet wide and 6 feet
high was dragged at 5-fathom depth-inter-
vals (see map) in depths ranging from 10 to
400 fathoms and from 20 miles off shore to
the edge of the continental shelf, 50 to 75
miles from shore.
The fauna of the shelf of this section of
South America had never been explored be-
yond a depth of 20 fathoms, and we made
many noteworthy discoveries. In fact, only
about one-third of the fish species collected
were recorded as living along the coasts of
the Guianas or Brazil while the remaining
two-thirds were either extensions of range
from the West Indian-Caribbean area or
are undescribed species.
CURRENTS AND WINDS
The main equatorial current moves west-
ward across the Atlantic just south of the
equator and divides on approaching Cabo
de Sao Roque, the easternmost projection of
South America. One branch turns south to
form the Brazil current and the other
stronger branch, the Guiana current, flows
northwest along the coasts of Brazil and the
Guianas where it combines with the north
equatorial current and enters the Caribbean
through deep channels between the islands
of the Lesser Antilles. The Guiana current,
moving past Brazil and the Guianas at
a rate of more than 50 miles in 24 hours, is
one of the strongest ocean currents around
South America. Its waters and the life it
contains are more affected by the outpour-
ings of great rivers than those of any other
ocean current in the world.
This region also lies in the path of the
trade winds that blow strongly from the east
and northeast and result in long even swells
moving in a southwesterly direction. The
mingling of trade-wind swells with waves
accompanying the equatorial current results
in very choppy seas that make difficult
working conditions and at times uncom-
fortable sailing conditions. We did not get
beyond the trade-wind belt into the region
of equatorial calms, although usually the
trade winds do not blow south of French
Guiana. These fresh northeast winds tem-
pered the sun's heat so that, although we
were near the equator, the temperature was
seldom above 90 degrees and dropped to 80
degrees at night.
The surface waters appeared to be rela-
tively sterile if compared with waters over
the shelf in the Caribbean or Central Ameri-
can coasts of the Pacific. Only one small
school of small tunalike fishes was observed.
There were very few flying fishes, Portu-
guese man-o'-war, porpoises, or birds. Only
an occasional tern, jaeger, or petrel was seen.
Boobies and tropic birds frequently seen in
the Caribbean do not live on these coasts.
Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy, Research
Associate in Oceanic Birds at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York,
who has written about the sea birds of South
America, has stressed the importance of vast
areas of the sea made turbid by the tre-
QUEER SPECIMEN
A deep-water angler-fish named Chaunax. It is pink.
It fills its gill pouches with water and blows itself up.
The contrasting fleshy "bait" between its eyes is
used to lure other fishes on which it preys.
mendous discharge of the numerous rivers
of this section of coast as a limiting factor
in the distribution of such birds as the peli-
can. He gives as explanation that "in this
turbid water there are either no schooling
fish in numbers sufficient to support a popu-
lation of pelicans, or else the water itself is
so opaque that the pelicans are unable to see
their prey."
FRESH WATER ON SEA SURFACE
Most authors in describing conditions in
this area have mentioned the low-lying
muddy coasts, the extensive patches of silty
and stained fresh water, the mangrove
swamps, the estuarine and inshore fauna.
Our work was carried on far enough off-
shore so these turbid-water conditions were
encountered on only two occasions. No-
vember is at the end of the low-water stage
^ m ^m*m$m*
\- fl ^^^ ^"
w' M
■ft
W r
GOOD CATCH
A pelagic (open seas) lancet fish is displayed by
Harvey R. Bullis, Jr., Chief of Gulf Fisheries Explo-
ration and Gear Research aboard the "Oregon."
of the rivers or at the beginning of the rising
waters so their volume apparently was not
sufficient to overcome the waters of the
Guiana current.
In describing their approach to one of the
mouths of the Amazon, usually the Para
River, many travelers have mentioned the
discolored (brown or greenish-brown) water
and the fact that the open sea is quite fresh
a long distance from the shore. On the
Oregon we encountered some discolored
water about 40 miles offshore of French
Guiana. This water tasted slightly brackish.
However, the water near the bottom in
25 to 40 fathoms was certainly undiluted
sea-water because the fresh water, being
lighter, floats on top of the salt. The fishes
trawled on the bottom here were all typical
sea-fishes with one exception. This ex-
ception was a small banjo-catfish, Aspredo,
that is widely distributed in the rivers of the
Guianas and northern Brazil, including the
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
March, 1958
Amazon. Although Aspredo is known to
live in river mouths, it apparently has never
been collected in offshore waters before.
ABUNDANCE OF FISHES
Fishes were abundant everywhere but in
the deeper waters, 200 to 400 fathoms, and
in the shallower waters about 10 to 20
fathoms they were more abundant than in
the intermediate depths. One of the con-
stant difficulties in trawling in a new region
is to find a bottom sufficiently free from
ridges and valleys or from rocky or coral
reefs that the trawl may be dragged several
miles without being torn.
There are no coral reefs near the shore
where conditions of silt and fresh waters
combine to make conditions unfavorable for
coral, but offshore where the shelf waters are
still relatively shallow yet beyond the range
of these two limiting factors there are
patches of coral reef and patches of gor-
gonians and sponges flourishing in the clear,
warm, saline Guiana current. Fishes
trawled here were typical coral-reef fishes
such as wrasses, tangs, demoiselles, parrot-
fishes, and butterfly fishes. There were also
many invertebrates of kinds usually asso-
ciated with corals.
In the middle depths, by far the most
extensive type of bottom was fine sand.
Here were snappers, grunts, goatfish, several
kinds of small sea-basses, lizard fish, sea
robins, scorpion fishes, eels, and many more
kinds. In these areas beds of shrimp were
discovered, often in quantity sufficient for
commercial fishing.
As might be expected in the shallowest
areas (10 to 25 fathoms) nearer shore the
bottom was often of mud although even here
some rock outcrops were encountered off
French Guiana. Even here as offshore the
bottom was predominately sandy. In these
relatively shallow waters we caught five or
six kinds of sea catfishes as well as the
Aspredo mentioned above, and as many
kinds of drum fishes and grunts. Sea cats
and drum fish are abundant much nearer
shore, and a large part of the local com-
mercial catch is made up of these species.
WEIRD SOUNDS
Often when a netful of fish was dumped
in a heap on the deck a variety of clicks,
staccato popping, rasping, grunting, and
groaning would be heard emanating from
the catfish and drums in the pile. Some of
the catfish produce sounds by rasping their
pectoral fins. The drum fish make noise
both by grinding broad crushing tooth-
plates located in their throats and by vi-
brating their swim bladders giving a rapid,
sharp, penetrating purr.
In deep waters near the edge of the shelf
(200 to 300 fathoms) the fish fauna was
practically identical with the fauna of simi-
lar depths in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of
Mexico. Here are several kinds of grena-
diers, hake, whiting, armored sea-robins,
pelican flounders, other flatfish, and beds of
deep-water red shrimp. Some kinds of these
red shrimp were almost twice the size of the
pink or brown commercial shrimp, and
shrimp gumbo or shrimp salad was often on
the menu next day.
In the deep waters on the slope of the
shelf (400 fathoms) typical bathypelagic and
benthal fishes were caught. Several kinds of
these — scorpion fishes, boar fish, dorys —
are red with very large eyes or merely pink
without the large eyes as is the angler fish,
Chaunax (see illustration). Most of the
abyssal fishes are very dark brown or black
with an endless variety of luminous organs
arranged in patterns over their heads and
bodies. Also caught in these deep waters
were viper fish 12 inches long with teeth an
inch long curving over the tops of their
heads, lantern fishes, hatchet fish, and
a great many kinds with large mouths and
weak fins — kinds that have no common
names. Many of these were small, about
6 inches long, but some such as the deep-
water chimaera were nearly 30 inches long.
The black, velvety, blue-eyed deep-water
sharks were also quite small, seldom over
a foot long. Because of their small, weak
teeth they feed on soft and sluggish inverte-
brates found on the bottom rather than
actively pursue other fishes, as do the larger
pelagic and inshore sharks.
The packed collection, which was left
aboard the Oregon to be shipped upon
arrival at its home port of Pascagoula,
Mississippi, did not arrive at the Museum
until after the beginning of the new year.
It has taken two people nearly two weeks
to unpack and sort the collection into jars
so that the specimens may be studied.
When these studies are finally completed
the fishes will become part of the Museum's
steadily growing reference collection of
fishes. One more unknown region of the
oceans has been at least superficially ex-
plored and something of its potentiality as
a food source is known.
Books
THE SEVEN CAVES. By Carleton S.
Coon. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York.
338 pages, photographs, line drawings,
maps. $5.75.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SPADE.
By Geoffrey Bibby. Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., New York. 414 pages, plates, line
drawings, maps. $6.75.
The increasing number of excellent popu-
lar books on archaeology is most heartening
to those of us who are asked to recommend
books on this subject. The two recent
publications reviewed here are first-class
references, well-written documents, and
dramatic and exciting reading.
The Seven Caves, by Carleton S. Coon, is
an account of the author's search for the
origins of the Old Stone Age cultures in
caves in northern Africa, the Middle East,
and Afghanistan. The lay-reader is fortu-
nate in having this account because it was
written before the long scientific reports
have been issued and it is therefore rela-
tively fresh. The photographs are excellent,
but the maps, for one not well acquainted
with the area, are difficult to interpret.
Dr. Coon's first caves were dug in 1939
and the last one in 1955. The war years
naturally interrupted his labors, which
otherwise would have terminated some five
or six years earlier. The reader will find
his interest aroused from the outset, for
Dr. Coon, in facile and witty style, presents
his story in narrative form. His explana-
tions as to why people dig in caves are
convincingly personal and lack any psycho-
analytical motivations.
The excavations were sometimes exciting
and rewarding but more frequently were
monotonous, tiring, dangerous, and dis-
appointing. The significance of the many
finds (over 150,000 pieces) is carefully pre-
sented albeit in a technical manner. There-
fore, many sections have to be read with
care. But the reader will be rewarded
because all the parts of this gigantic jigsaw
puzzle are related to the Stone Age cultures
of the Far East, the Middle East, and
Europe. In short, one finds that the
earliest horizons in Europe are merely the
later developments of cultures that origi-
nated many thousands of years earlier in the
Middle East or perhaps the Far East. One
of the radiocarbon dates — 43,000 years
ago — is the oldest date found at a site
occupied by human beings.
Dr. Coon and his associates were search-
ing for the place of origin of a man fully
evolved and equipped with a complete
Upper Paleolithic toolkit that would enable
him to live in the cold, moist, cloudy climate
of Ice Age Europe. The story of the
success he achieved and of his theories about
the origins of Neanderthal man, climate
changes, and migration routes of our pre-
historic ancestors will answer many ques-
tions for Dr. Coon's readers and will point
out many that cannot yet be answered.
The Testimony of the Spade is utterly
different and yet equally rewarding and
illuminating. Dr. Bibby, an English archae-
ologist, has made full use of his knowledge
of many languages in creating the saga of
the life and the inhabitants of Europe from
15,000 B.C. to about A.D. 800. The sweep
of events, the breadth of scope, the enor-
mous mass of detail that make up this story
remind one of a great tapestry depicting
(Continued on page 8, column 1 )
March, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
ABOUT ST. PATRICK
AND THE SNAKES
By ROBERT F. INGER
CURATOR OF AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES
THERE ARE TWO recurring questions
about Ireland and snakes. (1) Is it true
that there are no snakes in Ireland? (2) Did
St. Patrick really drive them out?
My qualifications for answering these ques-
tions are two : I am Curator of Reptiles, and
my mother was born on St. Patrick's Day.
This story, like most good ones, goes back
a long time — in fact, about 60,000 years, to
the period immediately before the last Ice
Age. At that time snakes probably lived in
ANIMAL LIFE HAD ITS ORIGINS IN THE OCEANS
Cartoon by E. John Pliffner
Ireland as they almost certainly did in Eng-
land. But as the glaciers began to advance
and cover Ireland (and England), the snakes
and other warmth-loving animals were
pushed farther and farther south. Finally
the ice covered all of Ireland, exterminating
the entire fauna, including the snakes. Ac-
tually, the reptiles must have died out before
all of the land was under ice because the cli-
mate was undoubtedly too cold.
By the time the glaciers began to melt and
retreat, so much water was bound up in the
ice that sea level was lowered, forming a land
connection between the British Isles and the
continent of Europe. As the ice sheet con-
tinued to melt, animals of many kinds began
to reinvade Great Britain from the conti-
nent. The climate was still very harsh and
the hardiest animals returned first. Rep-
tiles, being very sensitive to cold, probably
were not among the first invaders. But even-
tually they, too, crossed the land between
modern Europe and England. Just about
the time snakes began to reach Great Britain
but before they could reach Ireland, it was
cut off from England and Scotland by an
arm of the sea, for as the ice sheet melted
the level of the oceans rose.
This geographic separation of Ireland took
place some time before 5000 B.C. Since St.
Patrick did not reach Ireland until about
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
THE PREPONDERANCE of seascape
paintings in our new exhibit, "The Ani-
mal Kingdom," came as a surprise to me
when I stood back and looked at the plans.
But the importance of the sea and its in-
habitants in any survey of animal life is
great. Inclusion of many seascapes was
necessary.
In area the seas are much more extensive
than the land, covering about two-thirds of
While in the vast expanses of the sea less
than one-quarter of the million or so existing
species of animals live, they include more
basic types than do the other three-quarters
of the animal species, which live on the land.
CRADLE OP ANIMAL LIFE
The sea was the cradle of animal life.
Already in that far-distant geological period,
the Cambrian, or shortly afterward, there
lived in the sea representatives of all the
major types of animals that we know today.
STARFISH, SEA URCHINS, SEA LILIES, ETC.
ECHINOOERMATA
5. OOO SPECIES
»AMO DOLLARS
J *9
ECHINODERM PANEL IN 'ANIMAL KINGDOM' EXHIBIT
The animals shown form the only group that developed in the sea and still all live there, none having
colonized on land or in fresh water.
the surface of the globe. The oceans have
their depths too — the Mindanao Deep off
the Philippines descends to 32,000 feet,
exceeding by more than a half-mile the
height of Mount Everest. But it is the
shallow water and the surface layers of the
open oceans that contain most of the living
things.
a.d. 400, the sequence of events eliminates
him from the zoological problem.
Therefore the answers to our two ques-
tions are: yes and no. Yes, Ireland has no
snakes. No, St. Patrick did not drive them
out.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect in a re-
view of the animal kingdom, living and
extinct, is that only these few basic types
have flourished. Many smaller groups have
disappeared, of course. Dinosaurs became
extinct but other reptiles have survived.
Trilobites disappeared more than 200 million
years ago but other arthropods survive in
abundance. A few obscure groups, such as
graptolites (of which no one but specialists
have ever heard and even they find the
fossils difficult to interpret), did become
extinct, and probably some soft-bodied
groups disappeared without leaving an un-
(Continued on page 8, column S)
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
March, 1958
BOOKS-
(Continued from page 6)
events that are so remote, so thrilling, so
commonplace that they quite outclass the
story of St. George and the dragon.
This book really contains two stories:
the growth of culture in northern Europe
and short biographies of the more important
and colorful archaeologists whose labors
have made possible this excellent volume.
Both stories are skillfully intertwined and
yet each stands out clearly. The most
satisfactory feature of the book, besides its
clever title, is its simplicity and directness
of style. The absence of technical anthro-
pological terms and the expression of the
technical aspects of this work in everyday
language are remarkable.
To whet the reader's appetite, let me
cite several of the subjects covered. The
first part of the book deals with the antiquity
of man in Europe and the discovery of the
world-famous and incredible cave paintings
that date back some 15,000 years. The
second part covers events before and during
the retreat of the great ice sheets. In this
section is the best account I have ever
encountered of the methods of dating the
past. Herein one finds an explanation of
typology (types), of geochronology (the
dating technique worked out by Baron de
Geer wherein the laminated, annual glacial
deposits of sediments are counted), of dating
by means of pollen analysis, and, finally, of
the more recent dating by means of radio-
carbon. I recommend this section most
heartily to all laymen who wish to find out
how the archaeologist interprets and dates
his materials. The remainder of the book
is concerned with such absorbing subjects
as the Swiss Lake Dwellers, the first farmers,
the coming of the plough, Stonehenge,
Viking ships that have been totally re-
covered, and the bodies in the peat bogs.
Mr. Bibby concludes his masterful book
by stating the reasons for digging up the
past. "He [the archaeologist] digs in pity
and humility that the dead may live again,
that what is past may not be forever lost,
that something may be salvaged from the
wrack of the ages, that the past may color
the present and give heart to the future."
I have given high praise to both of these
books because they deserve it. I can un-
equivocally recommend both of them to
the layman and to the archaeologist alike.
Paul S. Martin
Chief Curator of Anthropology
Spring Visiting Hours
Begin at Museum
Beginning March 1, spring visiting hours
will go into effect at the Museum. The
building will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
every day, an extension of one hour over the
winter hours. On May 1 there will be an-
other extension, when summer hours, 9 to 6,
go into effect.
ENDOWMENT FUND SET UP
AS SCHMIDT MEMORIAL
An endowment fund to assist naturalists
in pursuing their fields of study has been
established by the friends and colleagues of
the late Dr. Karl P. Schmidt, Curator
Emeritus of Zoology, as a memorial to the
eminent scientist who died September 26,
1957. The training of young scientists was
among the activities closest to the heart of
Dr. Schmidt.
Under the provisions of the fund, income
will be disbursed as grants-in-aid to help
naturalists in the museum phase of their
studies, that part that is often most difficult
to finance. Grants will be limited to visiting
naturalists desiring to use the research facili-
ties of this Museum and will apply to work
in any area of natural history except for
financing of field work.
A self-perpetuating seven-man committee
drawn from the staff of the Museum and the
several universities in the Chicago area will
administer the grants. The Museum will
handle investment of the capital but will not
be concerned with the administration of
the fund. All contributions to the fund
should be sent to The Karl P. Schmidt Fund,
care of Chicago Natural History Museum.
Checks should be made payable to The
Karl P. Schmidt Fund.
In addition to actual fossil skeletons of
prehistoric animals, exhibits in Ernest R.
Graham Hall (Vertebrate Paleontology,
Hall 38) show how bones hundreds of mil-
lions of years old happen to be buried and
how paleontologists find them.
NEW MEMBERS
(January 16 to February 12)
Life Members
John P. Bent, Edison Dick, Russell P.
Kelley III, W. Paul McBride, Donald R.
McLennan, Mrs. Clive Runnells
Associate Member
Robert J. Greenebaum
Sustaining Members
Kent W. Duncan, Donald Erickson
Annual Members
Norman Barnes, Frank J. Bartsch, Theo-
dore A. Beyer, R. P. Broadhurst, Emmett
P. Carey, Ned J. Cerami, Carroll Chouinard,
A. J. Christianson, Dr. Robert Corbett,
Miss Joan Davis, Howard B. Donner, Peter
Edge, Arthur W. Fruh, Harold J. F. Gall,
Willett N. Gorham, Dr. James F. Graham,
G. Findley Griffiths, W. H. Guinn, R. J.
Hepburn, Victor H. E. Hokanson, R. W.
Johnson, T. C. Kammholtz, Philip F.
Koenig, Dr. Charles Lawrence, LeRoy A.
Lindberg, Gustav L. Lov, K. B. Nagler,
Victor C. Nardi, H. Edsall Olson, Edward
W. Osann, Jr., R. Curtis Patterson, Charles
SEA LIFE-
(Continued from page 7)
derstandable record. But eight "major"
basic types of animal organization that are
shown in this exhibit have an ancient lineage.
They got their start in the sea, and all of
them still flourish there.
All of the echinoderms (sea stars, sea
urchins, etc.) live only in the sea, and two
other groups, the sponges and the coelen-
terates (jellyfish, corals, etc.) are mostly in
the sea, with only a few colonists in fresh
water. The protozoans and the various
worms are shared by sea and land, but those
that have colonized the land usually stick
to damp places. The mollusks, too, are
most abundant in the sea and are much less
important as a land group.
Two groups only have colonized the land
and become conspicuous there: some chor-
dates (birds, mammals, reptiles) and some
arthropods (notably insects). But both of
those have left large subgroups in the sea
too, notably fishes and crustaceans.
plants in food chain
Both on land and in the water the basis of
the animal food-chain is the same: plants.
All animals eat plants as part of a food-chain
or eat other animals that eat plants. On
land the grass, herbs, and leaves are the
start of the food-chains. In the sea, plant-
life is less varied. Especially in shallow-
water there are large, many-celled algae,
some of which may grow in strands 200 feet
long. But out in the open ocean it is minute
one-celled plants such as diatoms that form
the plant part of the drifting sea-life called
plankton and the first link in the food-chain.
Though the plants of the plankton are
very small, they are extremely abundant.
The many animals of the plankton that feed
on them are also very small, and the tiny
crustaceans bulk large among them. Some
mollusks, like clams, also filter out tiny bits
of food from the water. Then there come
animals a size larger that eat the smaller,
then larger crustaceans that eat smaller ones,
and fishes that are predators — jellyfish that
eat fish, starfish that open oysters, squids
that pursue and catch fish, and sperm whales
that eat squids. Parasitic worms pass
through a complicated life-cycle in which
an individual lives in a fish, a snail, and
a bird as alternative hosts before it becomes
adult. The web of life in the sea is different,
but it is at least as complicated as on the
land.
While the plant-life may be less varied in
the sea, the manner of feeding on it and the
food-chains that lead from that are more
varied than on land, and this is what one
must expect with the greater variety of
animal life in the sea.
H. Reich, George J. Resnikoff, Robert C.
Schloerb, Ole Selseth, H. William Smith,
Peter B. Warner, Roy I. Warshawsky,
Herman Wendorf, Nelson C. Works, Jr.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
CHICAGO
NATURAL
HISTORY vita
MUSEUM ^^
/
ffu/letin
JVo. 4
4958
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
April, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Jane Rockwell
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
PEARLE BILINSKE
1889-1958
The Museum has suffered the loss of a
faithful and valued employee in the death,
on February 20, of Pearle Bilinske, head of
the Division of Mem-
berships. Miss Bilin-
ske's many years of
service began in 1923
when she joined the
Museum staff as a ste-
nographer and mem-
bership canvasser. In
1928 she was placed in
charge of the Division
of Memberships, and
in the years that fol-
lowed she efficiently
conducted the affairs
of that office, and at-
tained great success in expanding the rolls of
members to the highest point in the Mu-
seum's history. Miss Bilinske was 68 years of
age at the time of her death. She was born
in Chicago on March 27, 1889. She became
eligible for retirement on pension in 1949,
but chose to continue actively at her desk,
and this arrangement was welcomed by the
Museum administration not only because of
the high caliber of her work but also because
of her extreme loyalty to the Museum.
PEARLE BILINSKE
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
Top-billed of the attractions for
Members' Night, Friday, April 18,
is the completed skeleton of Bron-
tosaurus, 30-ton 72-foot dinosaur
in Ernest R. Graham Hall (Hall 38).
For our cover, the giant's head and
neck as they must have appeared
in life, have been restored by Maidi
Wiebe, Artist of the Department
of Geology. The skull, the long
neck, shoulder girdle, fore limbs,
and the long tail are important
new parts just added to complete
the huge fossil specimen — the cen-
tral or torso section of the skele-
ton had been on exhibition since
1911.
Ashley Hine Dies
News of the death of Ashley Hine, once
a member of the Museum staff, was received
with deep regret. Mr. Hine came to the
Museum in September, 1922, and held the
position of Chief Bird Taxidermist from that
time until his resignation in 1935 when he
moved to the west coast. He also partici-
pated in field work and was a member of the
Rawson-MacMillan Expedition to the Arc-
tic in 1926. For many years, Mr. Hine had
been living in San Diego, California, where
he died on January 4, at the age of 81 years.
Artist John O. Wilkins Dead
Word has been received of the death, on
February 1 7, of John G. Wilkins, 65, an artist.
A former member of the faculty of the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. Wilkins
was in charge of that institution's art classes
at this Museum in the 1920's. He was the
author of a book for students, Research De-
sign in Nature, published in two volumes by
the Museum press.
MUSEUM REPRESENTED
IN ART PROJECT
Some 60 outstanding objects of American
Indian art in the ethnological collections of
Chicago Natural History Museum were
photographed in color last month for use in
the Carnegie Study of the Arts of the United
States. Sponsored by the Carnegie Cor-
poration of New York, the project is aimed
at providing teaching materials in the visual
arts of this country for wide distribution to
educational institutions both in the United
States and abroad. The project is being
administered by the University of Georgia
under a Carnegie grant, and will provide
thousands of color slides covering archi-
tecture, city design, landscape architecture,
costume design, decorative and applied arts,
graphic arts, painting, photography, sculp-
MEMBERS' NIGHT
PROGRAM
Friday, April 18
7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
(Museum doors open at 6 p.m.)
FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE—
Special Motor-Bus Service has been
arranged for Museum Members and guests
who do not wish to drive their own cars. A
bus marked to indicate that it is for Museum
shuttle-service will leave Jackson Boulevard
and State Street at 15-minute intervals be-
ginning at 6:30 p.m. The last bus will
leave the Museum at 10:45 p.m. In both
directions intermediate stops will be made
at 7th Street and Michigan and at Jackson
and Michigan.
Ample Free Parking Space is available
to the north of the Museum building for
those who drive.
You May Dine at the Museum in the
Cafeteria (ground floor). Open 6 to 8 p.m.
(regular service and prices).
FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT—
New Exhibits : Brontosaurus, fossil skele-
ton of a 30-ton 72-foot dinosaur, in Ernest
R. Graham Hall (Hall 38, 2nd floor). Min-
eralogical exhibits, Clarence Buckingham
Hall (Hall 35, 2nd floor). Ethnological and
primitive ait exhibits from Africa and Oce-
ania in Halls D, E, A, F, and G (all these halls
on ground floor). Cultures of ancient Mexi-
co and Central America in Hall 8 (main
floor). "Birds Are Beautiful" stabile in
Hall 21 (main floor).
Open House: "Behind the Scenes,"
7 to 9 p.m. Visitors are invited to take the
elevator to third and fourth floors where the
scientific staff and other Museum workers
will welcome them in laboratories, studios,
offices, and the Library and explain various
phases of a museum's operation. Some lab-
oratories also will be found on the Ground
Floor.
Refreshments at 9:30 p.m. in Stanley
Field Hall (main floor).
ture, stage design, and visual communica-
tions, as well as primitive art.
The work at this Museum, as well as at
the Art Institute and other Chicago sources,
was conducted by Photographer John
Waggaman, and Mrs. Waggaman, of New
York, who were assigned to it by Color
Illustration, New York. That organization,
under the direction of Victor Sandak, has
developed a new technique for duplicating
color slides by the thousands without the
work and expense formerly required.
April, 1 958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
MEMBERS' NIGHT AT MUSEUM SET FOR FRIDAY, APRIL 18
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT this year will be, for the first time, a spring event. It will be held on Friday
evening, April 18. There has been an unusually long interval since the last such gathering (October 12, 1956),
and many new exhibits installed since then await the visitors. New Members who have enrolled within the last year
and a half are especially urged to take this opportunity to become better acquainted with the institution they are
helping to support. Members' Night is the one occasion when they may go "behind the scenes" and observe the
activities that keep a museum moving and growing, as well as seeing the fruits of these activities in the displays in
the exhibition halls.
Central feature of this year's Members'
Night will be the recently completed giant
fossil skeleton of Brontosaurus — a 30-ton 72-
foot long dinosaur. The completion of this
exhibit is an event that has been awaited
some 47 years. Since 1911 the Museum has
exhibited the torso-framework and legs of
this huge creature that lived about 160 mil-
lion years ago, but the skull, the long neck,
and most of the long tail were missing. In
1942 the Museum finally acquired the miss-
ing parts of the skeleton which were badly
fractured requiring patient assembly like a
jigsaw puzzle of stupendous size and baffling
intricacy. The final result is a fine specimen
of the giant creature which was one of the
largest animals ever to walk the earth. Else-
where in this Bulletin will be found an
account by Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Curator of
Fossil Reptiles, of the history and life cycle
of Brontosaurus, its place in the story of evo-
lution, the gigantic task of collecting its
component parts by expeditions to the burial
places in Colorado where the huge bone piles
lay hidden for millions upon millions of years,
and finally the herculean task of reassem-
bling the skeleton in the Museum labora-
tories and its erection in the exhibition hall
(Ernest R. Graham Hall of Historical Geol-
ogy—Hall 38).
Many Other Features
Other features on the program for this
year's Members' Night are:
A preview of reinstalled and new exhibits
in the completed half of Clarence Bucking-
ham Hall (Hall 35), devoted to minerals,
meteorites, and the moon.
Spectacular new exhibits illustrating
phases of tribal life in Africa, recently added
to the collections in the two halls of African
ethnology (Halls D and E).
Recent additions to the exhibits illustrat-
ing the amazing cultures of the Mayas,
Aztecs, Toltecs, and Zapotecs of ancient
Mexico and Central America (Hall 8).
Exhibits of examples of primitive art cre-
ated by peoples of Africa and of many islands
of the Pacific, especially selected by the new
Division of Primitive Art recently estab-
lished in the Department of Anthropology.
"Birds Are Beautiful," the new and color-
ful display of birds arranged in "stabile"
art-form to emphasize their appeal to the
aesthetic sense (Hall 21).
A vast array of new exhibits of many kinds
scattered through all departments of the
Museum — Anthropology, Botany, Geology
and Zoology. Visitors will be furnished with
leaflet-guides to all new exhibits added since
the 1956 Members' Night.
All exhibits, old as well as new, will be
lighted and available for inspection.
Behind the Scenes
"Open House" will prevail, and will be
one of the main attractions of the evening.
Visitors are invited to take the elevator to
the third, fourth, and ground floors of the
TAXIDERMY
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s
■-■"ji-j*^
Museum, where they will find the various
work areas. There they will meet the staff —
chief curators, divisional curators, taxider-
mists, preparators, artists, technicians, libra-
rians, editors, and others. In laboratories,
studios, workshops, and offices of the staff
PLEASE NOTIFY MUSEUM
IF YOU'RE MOVING
Members of the Museum who
change residence are urged to notify
the Museum so that the Bulletin
and other communications may reach
them promptly.
Members going away for extended
periods may have Museum matter
sent to their temporary addresses.
the guests will have opportunity to observe
the workings of many branches of Museum
activity, and learn something about the
methods, the techniques, and the painstak-
ing and long drawn-out toil that go into the
preparation of exhibits.
The open house hours will be from 7 to
10:30 p.m., but the doors will open at 6 for
the convenience of visitors who wish to dine
at the Museum. The Cafeteria will serve
dinner from 6 to 8 p.m., offering its regular
service at its usual prices.
Reception and Refreshments
The official, but thoroughly informal re-
ception will begin at 9:30 p.m. in Stanley
Field Hall, where guests will be welcomed by
President Stanley Field, Director Clifford C.
Gregg, and other Museum officials. Light
refreshments will be served at this time.
For Members and their guests who arrive
by private car, ample free parking space is
available at the north entrance. Special mo-
tor-bus service has been arranged to accom-
modate those who do not wish to drive their
own cars. A free shuttle-bus, marked to in-
dicate that its destination is the Museum,
will leave Jackson Boulevard and State
Street at 15-minute intervals, beginning at
6:30 p.m. Intermediate stops will be made
at Jackson and Michigan Avenue and at
Seventh Street and Michigan. The last
bus, city-bound, will leave the Museum at
10:45 P.M.
Museum Exhibit at U. of C.
Some of this Museum's notable collection
of Chinese rubbings, books and archaeologi-
cal materials were on loan for a special ex-
hibit last month in the galleries of the
Renaissance Society on the campus of the
University of Chicago.
Page U
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
April, 1958
NEW EXHIBITS OF MIDDLE AMERICAN CULTURE
By DONALD COLLIER
CURATOR OF SOUTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY
AND ETHNOLOGY
NEW INSTALLATIONS in Hall 8,
(Ancient and Modern Indians of Mex-
ico and Central America), will be available
to visitors on Members' Night. The most
recently completed of these exhibits deal
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MODEL OF EARLIEST KNOWN MAYA TEMPLE
with the ancient Mayas and the prehistoric
Indians of Mexico.
The Maya exhibits include displays of pot-
tery vessels, precious jewelry, stone sculp-
ture, and a diorama depicting a colorful
religious ceremony. Also displayed is a mod-
el of the earliest known Maya temple, dating
from about 100 B.C. This is the temple
known cryptically as E VII sub, which was
excavated by the Carnegie Institution of
Washington in the Guatemalan jungle at
Uaxactun (pronounced Wah-shock-toon).
This small, stepped
pyramid was discov-
ered inside a later and
larger pyramid. The
temple that surmount-
ed the earlier structure
had been destroyed
when the later pyra-
mid was built over it,
but postholes from the
supporting beams of
the temple were pre-
served. From the evi-
dence of these post-
holes and our knowledge of later Maya
buildings, Dioramist Alfred Lee Rowell was
able to reconstruct the thatch-roofed temple
that stood on this little pyramid 2,000
years ago.
The four stairways of the pyramid are
flanked by great masks 8 feet wide and 6 feet
high sculptured in stucco. They are con-
ventionalized and anthropomorphized ren-
derings of the jaguar, and probably represent
rain gods.
This beautiful pyramid is especially im-
portant because it is the only well-preserved
prototype of the Classic Maya architecture
that evolved several centuries later. And
the style of the jaguar masks is a link be-
tween Maya art and the early Olmec style
of southern Veracruz.
Another new exhibit of special interest is
the model of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at
Teotihuacan, in the Valley of Mexico. This
stepped pyramid, which is situated a half-
mile south of the Pyra-
mid of the Sun, dates
from the early Classic
period, about a.d. 200.
It was excavated by
the Mexican govern-
ment in 1921.
Like pyramid E VII
sub at Uaxactun, the
Temple of Quetzal-
coatl was buried un-
der a later pyramid,
the construction of
which resulted in the
destruction of the up-
per terrace and the
crowning temple of
the earlier structure.
We shall never learn
the precise character of the former temple.
But in the model Mr. Rowell has replaced
the missing parts with a reconstruction
based on what is known of the architecture
of the period. He has thus recreated the
architectural spirit of the original structure,
even though some of the details may be
inaccurate.
The terrace faces and the balustrades of
the central stairway were ornamented with
heads and reliefs sculptured in stone and
stucco. The principal features were great
MODEL OF TEMPLE OF QUETZALCOATL
masks of Tlaloc, the rain god, and the heads
and undulating bodies of feathered serpents
representing Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl
("quetzal snake") was the god of wind,
clouds, and fertility, and lord of the planet
Venus. These and other ornaments were
painted in red, green, blue, and white. Their
colors are now largely destroyed but they
have been restored to their full brilliance in
the reconstructed model.
TEN-YEAR-OLD SCIENTIST
HAS DAY AT MUSEUM
A "one-man" science show extending some
15 miles from the North School in Franklin
Park, Illinois, to Stanley Field Hall in Chi-
cago Natural History Museum was staged
by Junior Scientist Lee Carson, age 10, 3412
Ruby Street, Franklin Park, on March 18.
Lee is a fifth-grade pupil at North School,
and his exhibit was part of that school's
Science Fair. "General Consultant" was
Mrs. Gordon Carson, Lee's mother.
Lee's exhibit was intended to illustrate in
comprehensible terms of space, the distances
between astronomical bodies. To accom-
plish this, he prepared a representation of
the sun's 864,100-mile diameter on a scale
of 1 inch to equal 25,000,000 miles, reducing
the sun thus to less than 1/25 of 1 inch in
diameter. This part of the exhibit was dis-
played at the school in Franklin Park. The
nearest star neighbor, which explanatory la-
bels written by Lee stated would be one of
the Alpha Centauri system, was represented
by another placard containing a dot 1/25 of
1 inch in diameter, representing the star's
diameter of approximately 1,000,000 miles.
This was displayed in Stanley Field Hall.
With the two astral bodies on this tiny scale,
the distance of some 26 trillion miles be-
tween them was therefore represented in ra-
tio by the distance of about 15 miles between
the Franklin Park School and the Museum,
it was explained by Lee's labels. To show
the sun and the other star on a scale "big
enough to see, they had to be this far apart,"
Lee's legend said.
At the school, Lee's exhibit also covered
our galaxy and its nearest neighbor on a scale
of one quintillion miles to the inch; our su-
pergalaxy on a scale of 20 quintillion miles
to an inch; and the universe on a scale of 5
sextillion miles to the inch, which he said was
based on Einstein's figures. Coming down
to more modest figures, he showed the earth
and its moon on a scale of 40,000 miles to the
inch, and the sun at 500,000 miles per inch.
He also had an exhibit on atoms and elec-
trons in which the nucleus of an atom was
shown in the school exhibit on a scale that
required the orbit of its electrons to pass
through another school several blocks away,
and the nearest neighboring atom to be lo-
cated in New York.
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
April, 1 958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
BRONTOSAURUS-A BULKY LUMP OF ANCIENT PROTOPLASM
Copyright Chicago Natural History Museum ~*
RESTORATION OF BRONTOSAURUS-A MURAL, BY CHARLES R. KNIGHT, IN HALL 38
By RAINER ZANGERL
CURATOR OF FOSSIL REPTILES
ANY RECENT VISITOR to the Hall of
rl Fossil Vertebrates (Ernest R. Graham
Hall — Hall 38) must have noticed the com-
motion behind screens and blinds in the
middle of the hall. Looking through the
peepholes which had been provided, he could
witness one of the more formidable construc-
tion jobs that the staff of the Museum has to
undertake from time to time. Ever since our
present building was opened in 1921 there
has stood, at the present location, the skele-
tal torso of a giant dinosaur, Brontosaurus
(which was exhibited also for a number of
years in the first building in Jackson Park).
Although the skeleton lacked everything in
front of the chest and a good part of the tail,
it did convey a fair notion of the fantastic
size of the creature. It did not, however,
give an adequate idea of what the animal
looked like. Therefore, it was decided to
complete the exhibit by using a second speci-
men to supply the missing parts. These were
assembled properly with the original skele-
ton, and remaining minor gaps were filled
out with restorations in plaster of Paris.
Brontosaurus has become a familiar ani-
mal, partly because it is a spectacular giant
and as such has received a good measure of
publicity, and partly because it is used as a
trade mark by one of the big oil companies.
It belongs to a group of dinosaurs, the sauro-
pods, including such other illustrious names
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
as Diplodocus, Camarasaurus and the spec-
tacular Brachiosaurus. Remains of sauropod
dinosaurs have been discovered in every part
of the world, except in Antarctica, but fairly
complete skeletons are rare so that the group
as a whole remains rather poorly known.
The sauropod dinosaurs walked on all four
feet, but their ancestors did not; all dino-
saurs originated from animals that walked
on their hind feet holding the body in semi-
erect posture. In late Triassic time (some
180 million years ago) there lived a group of
dinosaurs showing, among other similarities
to the sauropods, a marked tendency toward
walking on all fours. This change in the
mode of locomotion seems clearly to go along
with the rapid increase in body size, result-
ing in a better distribution of the enormous
weight in the large sauropods.
REASONS FOR HUGE BULK
What brought about this prodigious bulki-
ness of the body in the sauropods? We have
no definitive answers to this question. But
there are some ideas that might have a bear-
ing on the problem. For one thing, the
study of paleontology has revealed gradual
increase in size in the course of evolution of
very many animals, such as the horses and
the elephants, to mention two familiar ex-
amples. Suggested underlying mechanisms
that might have been responsible for such
phyletic increase in body size involve, among
others, selective advantages enjoyed by the
larger individuals of a breeding population
in terms of opportunity for reproduction,
competition for food, balance of power in re-
lation to enemies. In the sauropod dino-
i^ ii ti tu^
DRAWING OF BRONTOSAURUS SKELETON APPROXIMATELY AS RECONSTRUCTED IN HALL 38
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
April, 1958
saurs, increase in body size was accompanied
by a very notable enlargement of a ductless
gland at the base of the brain, the anterior
lobe of the pituitary, whose size can be de-
termined in a fossil skull by the dimensions
of a pit in the floor of the bony braincase
that contained the organ in the living ani-
mal. One of the functions of this ductless
gland is to produce a growth hormone; over-
production of this hormone in man, for ex-
ample, results in abnormal growth of such
individuals beyond the normal size range of
the human species. They may become so
overgrown that they are labeled giants.
nature's engineering
Vast bulkiness in an animal creates many
structural problems. The skeleton provides
the supporting framework for the muscles
and the large digestive and reproductive or-
gans within the belly cavity. As the body
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
'SUPER' STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Backbone of a crocodile (above, left), and below it,
the corresponding vertebra of Brontosaurus. Cross-
sections through spines are shown in both examples.
Note the structural shape in the backbone of the
dinosaur. Eor comparison, structural shapes used
in typical metal building supports are illustrated in
the four drawings at right.
size increases, the muscle mass becomes bulk-
ier and, especially in plant-eaters, the diges-
tive organs must provide for the reception
and processing of ever increasing food de-
mands. This in turn requires a heavier and
stronger skeleton, which in turn increases
the overall weight, requiring yet bigger and
more powerful muscles, and so on. Clearly,
mere increase in size without structural ad-
justments would lead to a vicious circle in
which a functional equilibrium among the
parts of the body could never be realized.
The sauropod dinosaurs illustrate more
clearly than any other animals the structural
adjustments that must accompany increase
in body size.
The backbones of Brontosaurus and his rel-
atives conform to one of the basic principles
of structural engineering: design for maxi-
mum strength with minimum use of material
and thus overall reduction in weight. In-
stead of using solid metal bars and rods, our
engineers have designed what they call
"structural shapes" — angles, I-beams, T-
beams, tubes, etc. — for the construction of
building supports. The sauropod backbones,
too, make use of the advantages of struc-
tural shapes. The arches of the vertebrae
are not solid masses of bone as they are, for
example, in a crocodile; instead, they consist
of relatively thin sheets of bone, re-enforced
by struts and braces (see figure). This de-
sign of the backbones had additional advan-
tages in providing large areas of attachment
for the muscles and the ligaments that had
to support the head at the end of a very long
neck.
There is still another aspect to the great
size and weight (it has been estimated at 30
tons) of Brontosaurus. Heavy animals often
show mechanisms that permit them to rest
in standing position in such a way that their
weight is not supported by the action of
muscles, but rather by locking devices be-
tween leg bones (as in the elbow joints of the
elephants) or by complicated arrangements
of ligaments in the foot region, as in the
horses. In Brontosaurus there are no indi-
cations of such resting devices. The joints
between the limb bones are very poorly de-
veloped, and thick cartilage pads must have
covered the ends of the bones. These con-
siderations and the fact that the nasal open-
ings were located high up on the face, led to
the conclusion that the big sauropod dino-
saurs must have spent most of their lives in
the water where the great weight would have
been much less of a problem and where they
could have rested in perfect safety with only
their nostrils above water. That they were
capable of walking on land, however, is cer-
tain, since trackways of large sauropods, im-
pressed into the plastic mud along the shores
of an ancient pond or lake have been discov-
ered, for example, in Texas.
The sauropod dinosaurs have rather pecu-
liar teeth: more or less blunt, thick spatulae,
that are neither designed for cutting or tear-
ing flesh, as are those of the predacious dino-
saurs, nor for grinding hard plant material
as are the dental batteries of the duckbilled
and horned dinosaurs. Accordingly it is
thought that the sauropods fed essentially
on soft, leafy water plants of which they
must have consumed immense quantities.
THRIVED OVER LONG PERIOD
It would be very misleading, however, to
conclude from the preceding discussion that
the sauropod dinosaurs could hardly have
been successful animals. The fact is that
they were around for a very long time,
namely from the Jurassic period (about 160
million years ago) to almost the end of the
Cretaceous, spanning an interval of some
70 million years.
The old skeleton was collected near Fruita,
Colorado, by the Museum's palaeontological
expedition of 1901 with former Curator El-
mer S. Riggs in charge. The new partial
skeleton, now merged with the old one, was
obtained by a Museum expedition in 1942
near Floy Junction, Utah, by James H.
Quinn, former Chief Preparator and Orville
L. Gilpin, present Chief Preparator of Pale-
ontology. Both specimens were found in
late Jurassic beds of the Morrison Forma-
tion. The fact that these specimens are of
very nearly the same size made it possible
to combine them into one skeleton.
The amount of work and skill that goes
into an exhibit of a sauropod dinosaur is al-
most unbelievable. Two full years were re-
quired to prepare the second specimen alone,
and its addition to the old mount posed
much the same problems that face a house-
holder trying to enlarge his living quarters
which were built with no such eventualities
in mind. Mr. Gilpin must be congratulated
for his skill in solving all these difficulties, so
that the finished skeleton looks as if it had
been mounted all at one time.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Chicago Academy of Sciences —
12 pigeon whistles, China
Department of Botany
From: Holly Reed Bennett, Chicago —
1,917 plant specimens; Dr. Lawrence
Kaplan, Chicago — 26 seed samples, South
Africa
Department of Geology
From: Dr. Henry Field, Coconut Grove,
Fla. — dinosaur egg fragments, southern
France
Department of Zoology
From: Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt
— 26 mammals; Dr. Carl L. Hubbs, La
Jolla, Calif. — 31 birdskins, Guadalupe; Dr.
P. Wagenaar Hummelinck, Utrecht, Nether-
lands — collection of Subulinidae (land snails) ,
Lesser Antilles; N. L. H. Krauss, Honolulu
— 4 frogs, 7 lizards and a snake, Guam,
Gilbert Islands and India; Mrs. Margaret
C. Teskey, Marinette, Wis. — collection of
sea shells, worldwide; Douglas Tibbitts,
West Dundee, 111. — a mammal skull, Illinois
Repopulation Advances
The Laysan Island teal, once hovering on
the verge of extinction, now has a population
of about 600 birds. In addition to the birds
on Laysan Island, eight were brought to the
Honolulu Zoo in 1957.
(Auk, 1958, p. 82)
April, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
MINERALOGICAL EXHIBITS
FOR MEMBERS' NIGHT
Guests of the Museum on Members' Night
are to be given a preview of 25 modern and
attractive exhibits now completed in the
Hall of Minerals and Meteorites (Clarence
Buckingham Hall— Hall 35).
For two years the Department of Geology
has been actively engaged in the gigantic
task of verifying the identification and the
reclassification of more than 20,000 mineral
specimens in the Museum's collection. The
classification used represents a new scientific
approach to mineralogy and is based on a
better understanding of the chemical com-
position and atomic structure of minerals.
The new system of classification has facil-
itated the exhibition not only of common
and beautiful specimens but also of rare and
unusual minerals from many parts of the
world.
Included among the new introductory ex-
hibits is the outstanding Chalmers Crystal
Collection displaying exceptional examples
of natural crystals. Exhibits are also de-
voted to the crystal structure and physical
properties of minerals and their use in min-
eral identification. When completed the
hall will contain 50 exhibits devoted to min-
erals and meteorites.
The world's largest scale model of the
visible half of the moon remains as an out-
standing feature of the hall. But now, as a
full moon should, it reflects a flood of bright
light.
Harry E. Changnon
Curator of Exhibits, Geology
Books
(All books reviewed in the Bulletin are
available in The Book Shop of the Museum.
Mail orders accompanied by remittance in-
cluding postage are promptly filled.)
Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the
World. By James C. Green way, Jr.
518 pages, including 86 line-cuts. Ameri-
can Committte for International Wild
Life Protection, New York — Special Pub-
lication No. 13.
Of the 9,000 or so species of recent birds,
about 56 are extinct, and another 50 sub-
species have shared the same fate. About
75 more are poised on the verge of extinction.
There are about 18 species known only from
their bones and 27 "species" known only
from early travelers' tales too uncertain to
accept but perhaps representing species ex-
terminated quickly upon contact with man.
What these last were we'll never know.
There are no extinct birds known from
Africa, South America, or Europe. From
Asia there is one, (a duck); Australia and
New Zealand, three each; North American
mainland, six. The rest come from islands
among which the Hawaiian group leads with
26 kinds.
This is the material that James C. Green-
way's book covers in a comprehensive
manner. There is an intriguing section of
100 pages on "Geography of Extinction"
followed by a species-by-species account.
Each writeup includes a brief description of
the bird, former range, status, and a sum-
mary of what we know of its history and the
factors that led to its extinction.
Those who would seek an easy, universal
answer to the question, "What causes birds
to disappear?" will be disappointed. Be-
yond man's all-embracing activities in
general, the picture is very complex. In-
troduction of goats, rats, cats, rabbits,
mongooses, monkeys, disease; clearing of
forest, draining swamps, shooting, trapping,
together or separately may be factors.
While one set of factors may exterminate
a bird on one island, a similar bird on another
island may thrive under what appear to be
similar conditions. Then volcanic action,
cyclonic storms, and changes in the climate
since the Pleistocene have been factors in
some places.
Greenway has set forth his data in a calm
and balanced manner and has provided what
will be a standard reference in a field where
none existed. The black and white sketches
of many of the species are an added attrac-
tion of the volume.
Austin L. Rand
Chief Curator of Zoology
FOUR YOUNG 'EXPLORERS'
HONORED BY DIRECTOR
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
STAFF NOTES
George I. Quimby, Curator of North
American Archaeology and Ethnology, made
the presentation speech for the Viking Fund
Archaeology Medalist at a dinner given in
New York by the Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological Research. Quimby is
president of the Society for American Archae-
ology. . . . Dr. Kenneth Starr, Curator of
Asiatic Archaeology and Ethnology, was a
recent speaker before the Renaissance So-
ciety of the University of Chicago. His
subject was "Chinese History and Culture
as Seen in Chinese Rubbings." . . . Miss
Marilyn Jaskiewicz has resigned as secre-
tary of the Department of Botany. Mrs.
Dorothy Gibson has been appointed to
the position. . . . Dr. Robert F. Inger, Cu-
rator of Amphibians and Reptiles, has been
appointed to the Committee on Paleozoology
at the University of Chicago. . . . Rupert L.
Wenzel, Curator of Insects, spoke on anato-
my and evolution in histerid beetles before
a seminar of the Department of Anatomy
of the University of Illinois Medical School.
. . . Henry S. Dybas, Associate Curator of
For successfully completing 12 Museum
Journeys for Children, the happy quartet
shown in photograph above were recently
presented with awards as Museum Explorers
by Dr. Clifford C. Gregg, Director. They
are: Cub Scout Boyce Brunson, 9, and his
sister, Carol, 11; Janet Mangold, 9, and
Konrad Banasak, 13. Awards were made
also to boys and girls qualifying as Museum
Travelers (4 Journeys) and Adventurers (8
Journeys). Journeys may be made any day,
any hour, by any child. They are furnished
with combination questionnaires and guide-
sheets, on request, at the Museum entrances.
They fill these out during their Journeys,
and deposit them in barrels at the Museum
doors when they leave the building.
Insects, attended the annual meeting of the
American Mosquito Control Association in
Washington, D.C. While in the capital, he
made some studies of specimens in the U.S.
National Museum.
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum:
Fieldiana: Anthropology, Vol. 47, No. 2.
The Bayou Goula Site, Iberville Parish,
Louisiana. By George I. Quimby.
84 pages, 16 illustrations, 2 maps. $1.75
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 40. A Monograph
on the Termitophilous Slaphylinidae
(Coleoptera). By Charles H. Seevers.
334 pages, 42 illustrations. $6.50
Fieldiana: Geology, Vol. 10, No. 29. The
Nature of Shield Abnormalities in the
Turtle Shell. By Rainer Zangerl. 22
pages, 5 illustrations. 60c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 34, No. 42. Notes
on Amphibians and Reptiles from El
Salvador. By A. Stanley Rand. 30 pages.
50c.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
April, 1958
3 MOVIES FOR CHILDREN
OFFERED THIS MONTH
On the last three Saturday mornings in
April, the Raymond Foundation will present
the concluding film and puppet shows of
its spring series for children in the James
Simpson Theatre of the Museum. Because
of the Easter holiday, there will be no pro-
gram on April 5. No tickets are needed for
the shows, which begin at 10:30 a.m. Al-
though each program has a tie-in with cer-
tain children's organizations, all children
unaffiliated with these groups are equally
welcome to attend. They may come alone,
or with parents or other adults. Following
is the schedule:
April 12 — Boy Scout Day
"Exploring Our Earth" — film program
will show volcanoes, mountain climbers,
rock-and-mineral collecting, and the as-
sembly of two of the Museum's dinosaur
exhibits
April 19— YMCA Day
"Boys, Braves, and Dancers" — American
Indians will be visited by way of movies
and Museum exhibits
April 26 — Brownie Scout Day
"Three Little Pigs" — a puppet show by
the Apple Tree Workshop of Chicago
Heights will give a present-day interpre-
tation of the classic fairy-tale, "Three
Little Pigs." Senior Girl Scouts will be
guides and hostesses after the program
A cartoon is included in each program
except the last one, on April 26.
The African and Madagascar general
ethnological exhibits in Halls D and E have
been reinstalled. Cases have been painted
MEMBERS' NIGHT SHOW
OF AFRICAN ART
A series of new exhibits in Halls D and E
(Africa and Madagascar) will greet Musuem
visitors on Members' Night, April 18. The
new exhibits emphasize art and represent
the first work of the new Division of Primi-
tive Art. In Hall E are to be found five
new exhibits showing the Museum's world-
famous Benin bronzes, ivories, iron and
brass art objects. Another recently in-
stalled wall case shows brass weights used
in West Africa for weighing gold dust.
These exhibits augment the previously
completed Cameroons King's House exhibit,
which shows primitive art in the context of
its usual surroundings.
At the west end of Hall D is to be seen
a special exhibit of West African masks,
from the collection of Dr. William R.
Bascom, Director of the Museum of Anthro-
pology, University of California. These
masks are from the Ibo and Ibibio peoples
of Nigeria. In addition, in the same ex-
hibit there are some very fine African tex-
tiles from the Ashanti and Yoruba peoples
of West Africa.
BRONZE PLAQUE FROM BENIN
The figure .represents a warrior-noble of the Bini
people of Nigeria. He wears a helmet, carries a
sword in his right hand, and a staff in his left.
and rearranged in the halls and new lighting
has been installed. The completion of these
halls, together with the Oceanic halls, means
that most of the Ground Floor Anthro-
pology exhibits have been improved for the
benefit of Museum visitors.
Phillip H. Lewis
Assistant Curator of Primitive Art
Chicken Thieves Thwarted
In Easter Islands
Natives of the Easter Islands do their best
to discourage would-be chicken thieves.
First, the natives build stone houses for their
chickens in which tunnels serve as bedrooms.
A thief with "fowl" thoughts must create
a terrible racket in order to tear down the
stones, one by one, before he can even think
of entering the tunnels where the chickens
slumber. Incidentally, many Easter Islan-
ders place skulls of certain clans in their
chicken houses in the belief that the magical
effect of the skulls will stimulate egg pro-
duction. For other facts about these island
people visit Hall F (Peoples of Polynesia
and Micronesia).
Among the world's strangest mammals
are the pouched marsupials and the egg-
laying monotremes. The principal facts
about them are graphically illustrated in
a special case in Hall 15.
4 LECTURES FOR ADULTS
SCHEDULED IN APRIL
The four final lectures in the spring series
on science and travel for adults, provided by
the Edward E. Ayer Lecture Foundation
Fund, will be given on Saturdays at 2:30 P.M.
in April. Following are dates, titles, and
subjects:
April 5 — Germany
Alfred Wolff
April 12 — Marvels of Africa
John Nicholls Booth
April 19 — Wildlife Across Canada
Cleveland P. Grant
April 26 — Russia
Neil Douglas
Attendance is limited to adults, but free
programs of motion pictures for children are
presented on the mornings of the same Satur-
days (except April 5).
No tickets are required for admission. A
section of the James Simpson Theatre is
allocated to Members of the Museum, each
of whom is entitled to two reserved seats.
Requests for reservation of seats should be
made in advance by telephone (W Abash
2-9410) or in writing, and seats will be held
in the Member's name until 2:25 o'clock on
the lecture day.
NEW MEMBERS
(February 13 to March 14)
Life Members
Paul Bechtner, Harry H. Blum, William
D. Cox, Robert Crown, David Degen,
William R. Dickinson, Jr., Querin P. Dor-
schel, Fletcher M. Durbin, Dr. Lester E.
Frankenthal, Martin H. Kennelly, Eric L.
Kohler, Bowman C. Lingle, Francis E.
Manierre, Mrs. C. Phillip Miller
Associate Members
Charles M. Hines, Theodore Tieken, John
T. Vemon, W. W. Watkins, H. M. Wies
Annual Members
John L. Antognoli, F. H. Bopp, Howard
J. Davis, James F. Duffy, E. Melvin Elling-
sen, C. G. Gehringer, Wadsworth Serre
Giller, Lawrence W. Gougler, Dr. Henry I.
Graham, Joseph Halouska, Samuel Hassen,
A. J. Hoefer, Col. Duncan Hodges, M. F.
Hutcheson, Ralph C. Kieffer, Maurice M.
Kraft, Robert C. Liebenow, Marshall Long,
Eugene W. Masters, Frank J. Misek,
Richard B. Nolte, William A. Reider,
Richard S. Reichman, Oliver T. Sands, Ray
J. Schoonhoven, Fletcher Seymour, Miss
Martha Utz, Benjamin Weintroub, Louis J.
Weiss, George B. Wendt, Munroe A.
Winter
MUSEUM MEMBERS' NIGHT
Friday, April 18
An entire hall (Hall N) is devoted to
marine mammals, among which are some of
the most interesting of living creatures.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
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Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
May, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Jane Rockwell
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
GEORGE A. RICHARDSON
1887-1958
With profound regret, we announce the
death on April 15 of George A. Richardson,
formerly a Trustee of the Museum, whose
retirement was an-
nounced in our Octo-
ber, 1957 Bulletin.
Mr. Richardson died
at his home at Rancho
Santa Fe, California.
He had been in appar-
ently splendid health
up to the time of his
death.
In addition to his
service as a Trustee of
the Museum for a pe-
riod of 28 years, he
had also been active in
other civic enterprises, serving as an alder-
man of Lake Forest, and as president of the
Chicago Council of Foreign Relations. He
served as a Major of Field Artillery in World
War I and as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the
Army Air Force in World War II.
Although he had retired from the Museum
Board of Trustees, his loss as a friend will be
keenly felt.
C.C.G.
George A. Richardson
Juliu
JULIUS FRIESSER
1873-1958
With sorrow, members of the Museum
staff received news of the death on April 9 of
their former associate, Julius Friesser. Mr.
Friesser had reached
the age of 84. He
served the Museum as
a Staff Taxidermist for
nearly 44 years, from
1905 until his retire- fi>"~
ment on pension in
1948.
Born October 6,
1873, in Marburg, Aus-
tria (a section now a
part of Yugoslavia),
Mr. Friesser first de-
voted himself to col-
lecting birds and small
mammals in his homeland as a schoolboy.
He took up taxidermy, which was to become
his life work, while still in his teens. In 1892,
at the age of 19, he came to the United States
and soon settled in Chicago where he ob-
tained employment as a commercial taxi-
dermist. When the Museum needed a man
qualified in his craft for a collecting trip to
Mexico in 1902, he applied and received the
commission. His success on this expedition
led to his joining the Museum staff.
During his career at the Museum, he was
one of the most productive and skillful taxi-
dermists in the country. Exhibits prepared
by him at the Museum, including both elab-
orate habitat groups and individual mounts
of large mammals, total more than 200. In
many cases the animals upon which he prac-
ticed his art were specimens he had collected
himself. Between 1910 and 1933 he was sent
on expeditions to Alaska, Mexico, the Olym-
pic Mountains, British Columbia, and Gua-
dalupe island off the coast of Mexico. Among
the most spectacular groups he produced are
those of American bison, Alaska moose, giant
elk, Rocky Mountain goats, polar bears, and
sea elephants.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: E. J. Grumbecker, Chicago —
5 Philippine knives; Mrs. C. A. Reed, Port-
land, Ore. — a Chinese gown; the Rev>, Miss
Ellen Studley, Chicago — a Chinese rubbing
Department of Geology
From: Florida Geological Survey, Talla-
hassee, Fla. — casts of Miocene mustelids,
Florida and Nebraska; Mr. and Mrs. Samuel
Kirkby, Riverside, Calif. — Permian brachio-
pod, Devonian corals, Miocene crayfish, and
scaphopods, from Arizona, Texas, Oregon,
California
Department of Zoology
From: Miss Dorothy E. Beetle, Laramie,
Wyo. — a collection of inland mollusks; P. K.
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
The Museum's habitat group of
Rocky Mountain goats pictured
on our cover might well be labeled
"Monument to a Taxidermist.''
It is one of 26 such groups repre-
senting the work of a truly great
taxidermist, Julius Friesser, whose
death is reported elsewhere in
this issue of the Bulletin. The
scene is typical of the Kootenay
District in British Columbia where
these agile animals abound.
Though less widely known than
the famous Carl E. Akeley,
Friesser's huge volume of work of
superlative quality in the Museum
entitles him to a place beside the
great master of taxidermic art.
Chin, Jesselton, North Borneo — 2 fishes;
Borys Malkin, Minneapolis — 2 microscope
slides with 7 aphids, U. S. and Mexico;
Museum and Art Gallery, Durban, Natal,
South Africa — 3 birdskins, Africa and South
America; Lt. Col. S. S. Nicolay, FPO, San
Francisco — 24 salamanders, 55 frogs, 4 liz-
ards, Riu Kiu Islands; Tarpon Zoo, Tarpon
Springs, Fla. — 2 snakes, a turtle, Colombia;
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pascagoula,
Miss. — 31 lots of fishes
NEW MEMBERS
(March 15 to April 15)
Life Members
Mrs. Vernon Armour, Mrs. Laird Bell,
Carl P. Clare, Dr. Vernon C. David, Mrs.
Herbert A. Friedlich, William M. Hales, John
Woodworth Leslie, James G. McMillan,
William R. Odell, Dr. Eric Oldberg, J. San-
ford Otis, Shepherd M. Roberts, Mrs. Moses
E. Shire, Edward Byron Smith, Solomon B.
Smith, James P. Soper, Jr., David B. Stern,
Jr., Frank L. Sulzberger, John R. Thompson,
Jr., Mrs. Patrick A. Valentine, Paul G. War-
ren, Robert E. Wilson, Hampton Winston
Associate Members
Mrs. Sarah Wood Addington, Mrs. Helen
Bashore, John F. Christian, Jack A. Quigley,
Russell R. Risdon, C. B. Stateler, Charles
Vache Temple, Reuben Thorson
Annual Members
John H. Baldauf, Thomas B. Bartel, John
E. Boetcher, Paul J. Buchen, Harold Wil-
liam Burtness, B. L. Carr, Miss Doris G.
Considine, Morris M. Cooperman, William
D. Davidson, K. G. De Bolt, E. E. Ettinger,
Miss Mary K. Fitzgerald, Lester E. Frank-
enstein, Dr. Roland W. Gilchrist, William
Edward Henner, Charles C. Holloway, Clin-
ton Lambe, Theodore H. Laws, Mrs. Carl W.
Leveau, M. R. McLary, Raven I. McDavid,
Jr., Walter Mickie, Henry W. Michels, Jr.,
Glenn R. Miller, Sigfred L. Moinichen, Ray-
mond Mostek, William H. Nelson, Joseph P.
Riva, Jack E. Schimpf, I. H. Streicher,
Edwin A. Superfine, Franklin C. Wray,
F. Lee H. Wendell
May, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
ART STUDENTS TO DISPLAY CREATIONS BASED ON NATURE
Stanley Field Hall and the North Corridor
on the Ground Floor of the Museum will be
:r*i
PENSIVE GORILLA
Skillfully drawn ape by Charles Barreto of Chicago,
a student in the basic painting and drawing course of
the Art Institute. Paintings, drawings, and prints
inspired by exhibits studied in classes at this
Museum, will be displayed this month.
splashed with color this month when close
to 100 paintings, drawings, and prints by
students of the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago are hung in a special exhibit.
The show will encompass work by students
who have attended the junior and basic
adult day classes at the Museum conducted
by the art school during the past year.
Students whose work is represented range in
age from seven years through the adult
level. Their work, executed in nearly all
possible media, will reveal both representa-
tional and highly imaginative interpreta-
tions of the Museum and its exhibits.
Judges for this year's competition were
Marion Pahl, Staff Illustrator, and Mrs.
Marjorie Furr, Botany Illustrator, who
selected the work to be displayed from ma-
terial previously chosen by teachers at the
school. Instructors in the adult day school
whose students will be represented in the
show are Ethel Spears and Richard Keane.
Junior school instructors whose students
will be represented in the exhibit are Barbara
Aubin, Harry Breen, Mrs. Berta Caul, Herb
Forman, Jasper San Fratello, Angela Gre-
gory, Mrs. Adelaide Hirsh, Mrs. Martha
Larson, Marion Lukens, Dolores Nelson,
Mrs. Donald Novotny, Eugene Szuba, and
Joseph S. Young. The annual show owes
much of its success to Edithe Jane Cassady,
head of the Art Institute's Junior School.
CRANE IN PASTELS
The graceful bird above is the work of Peter Klauke
of Winnetka, Illinois, a student in the basic painting
and drawing class in the School of the Art Institute.
Klauke's pastel drawing is one of about 100 exhibited
at the Museum in May.
SCIENCE FAIR COMING
TO MUSEUM MAY 17
Junior scientists of the Chicago region
will hold their annual Chicago Area Science
Fair in Stanley Field Hall of the Museum on
Saturday, May 17. The exhibits will en-
compass accomplishments of children all the
way from sixth grade in the elementary
schools through senior year of high school.
Experience from the fairs held here in past
years leads to the expectation that some
very elaborate demonstrations of the ap-
plication of scientific principles may be ex-
pected from the youngsters participating.
Sponsored by the Chicago Teachers
Science Association, the show will be open
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is distinct
from the Chicago Public Schools Student
Science Fair, which was held in April but
was limited to public schools within the city
limits of Chicago. The show staged in this
Museum is participated in by pupils of
private and parochial as well as public
schools, and members of youth organizations
located in suburbs within a radius of 35
miles around the city are eligible to com-
pete. Each grade-level from 6 through 9
will receive prizes and awards; in the grades
from 10 through 12 other awards will be
made on a subject-area basis rather than
being restricted within these three individual
grades.
Theodore Wallschlaeger, principal of the
Palmer School and promoter of the Science
Fair, has made arrangements for several
working scientists from the professions and
industry to confer with contestants im-
mediately after the judging. They will offer
suggestions on ways to improve the exhibits
and to develop the students' interests in
science.
Visiting Hours Extended
for Summer Season
Effective May 1 and continuing through
September 1 (Labor Day) visiting hours at
the Museum are extended by one hour.
The Museum will be open daily, including
Sundays and holidays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
At the end of this period, hours will revert
to 9 A.M.-5 P.M.
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 P.M. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
You are invited to browse in the Museum
Book Shop.
MUSEUM IS HOST
TO ART GROUP
One hundred and seventeen members and
guests of the Society for Contemporary
American Art enjoyed a special evening pro-
gram at the Museum on April 8. After din-
ner in the Museum dining room, Phillip H.
Lewis, Assistant Curator of Primitive Art,
addressed the group on "What Is Primitive
Art?" The group was then conducted on
tours through the exhibition halls containing
displays of African, Melanesian, and Ameri-
can Indian art. Acting as guides were Dr.
Donald Collier, Curator of South American
Archaeology and Ethnology ; George Quimby ,
Curator of North American Archaeology and
Ethnology; Dr. Kenneth Starr, Curator of
Asiatic Archaeology and Ethnology, and
Mr. Lewis.
In his talk, Mr. Lewis asserted that "it is
not the art which is primitive — primitive art
is the art made and used by members of
primitive societies. Only after classifying
art as coming from primitive societies is it
possible to compare art forms in a meaning-
ful way."
As part of the conducted tours, the groups
were taken through the Pacific Research
Laboratory, where they were shown the fa-
cilities for study and care of the specimens.
The program was developed by Winston
Elting, president of the society, and
Robert B. Johnson, chairman of the program
committee.
MUSEUM'S STONE AGE MEN IN Wi
Confessions of Felix Krull,
Confidence Man
By Thomas Mann
Copyright, 1955, Alfred Knopf, Inc.
"Good God, what were those
small, shaggy creatures
squatting together in timid
groups as though conferring
in some cooing and hissing
pre-language about the
means of surviving and
prospering on an earth al-
ready possessed by better-
equipped and more strongly
armed creatures? Had the
spontaneous generation of
which I had been told, the
separation from the animal,
already taken place or had
it not? . . ."
"I could not tear myself away
from the Neanderthalers, but
later I had equal trouble in
leaving that eccentric who,
many hundreds of years ago,
crouched in his barren cavern
and with mysterious diligence
covered the walls with pictures
of bison, gazelles, and other
prey ... I looked at him for
a long time and yet, after we
had passed on, I wanted to
return once more to that dili-
gent eccentric."
"Then came a handsome seascape in which fishermen
were carrying on their advanced and bloodless occu-
pation by the shore, hauling in a good catch with their
flaxen net."
IN Confessions of Felix Krull the late distinguished
Mann, describes a visit to a natural history museum
character, Felix Krull, is particularly impressed by
restorations of Stone Age man. The passages Mann
observations of these prehistoric people match so exact
dioramas of Stone Age man in this museum's Hall C (s
that it would be of striking interest to pair excerpt
scriptions with photographs of the Museum's exhibits,
of the writer, confirmed our speculation and, in a lett
Alfred A. Knopf Company, said, "The people of the CJ
tory Museum are perfectly right. When we visited CJ
was deeply impressed by the Museum and visited it
obviously already then he decided to use it in connectio
Page U
W-PICTURES BY FAMED NOVELIST
"A roomy cave housed a group of Neanderthal people tending
a fire — bull-necked, thick-set individuals, to be sure — but
imagine anyone else, even the lordliest king of the forest,
coming along and making a fire and tending it! That re-
quired more than a regal demeanour; for that, something had
to be added. The head of the clan had an especially thick
bull-neck; he was a short man with a moustache and rounded
back, his arms too long for his stature; his knee had been
bloodily gashed open, one hand grasped the antlers of a deer
he had killed and was just dragging into the cave. Short-
necked, long-armed and stooped were they all, these people
around the fire . . . the woman emerging from the back of
the cave with a child at her breast . . ."
"Here we have someone . . . who is
scratching his imaginings in stone as
best he can . . ."
"Daring and valiant, however, was the
replica of a man attacking a maddened
and embattled wild boar with dogs and
spear — the boar was daring and valiant,
too, but at a subordinate level on Na-
ture's scale. Two dogs . . . they were
of a strange breed, now vanished, which
the professor called bog hounds and
which had been domesticated in the
lake-dwellers' time . . . their master was
taking aim with his spear. Since there
could be no doubt about the outcome,
we passed on, leaving the wild pig to its
subordinate fate."
delist, Thomas
re his principal
ries of life-size
otes to Krull's
ven of the nine
JIall 38), we felt
)m Mann's de-
5. Mann, widow
i the publisher,
\o Natural His-
\o my husband
sral times, and
th Felix Krull."
"Next to them, however, something
was going on quite different from
anything else . . . Stone pillars had
been raised . . . forming a hall . . .
with only the heavens as ceiling, and
on the plain beyond the sun was just
rising, flaming red, over the edge of
the world a powerful-looking man
stood with upraised arms presenting
a bouquet of flowers to the rising
sun! . . . He was in the prime of life.
And it was just the fact of his vigour
and strength that lent his action its
peculiar delicacy . . . Just let any other
creature in Nature come along and
hit on the idea of making a formal
gift of flowers to the rising sun!"
Page 5
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
May, 1958
1,268 GATHER AT MUSEUM ON MEMBERS' NIGHT
The 1,268 guests who toured the Museum
on Members' Night, April 18, certainly did
not lack an interest in science. Exploring on
their own, members viewed new exhibits and
discovered what goes on behind the scenes.
The main feature of the evening was the
learned of the scientific research, preparation
of exhibits, and other tasks done by scien-
tists, technicians, librarians, artists, editors,
and other members of the staff.
The reinstalled and new exhibits in Clar-
ence Buckingham Hall of mineralogy, recent
MEMBERS' NIGHT SCENE IN STANLEY FIELD HALL
At refreshment time hundreds of guests gathered in the main hall after seeing behind-the-scenes activities in
laboratories, offices, and workrooms usually closed to the public. More than 1,200 persons attended the affair.
recently completed fossil skeleton of Bronto-
saurus. Members thronging around the
dinosaur asked questions of Museum per-
sonnel ranging from the engineering feats of
erecting the exhibit itself to the particular
type of food consumed by the animal.
On the third and fourth floors, there was
much activity as Members visited the offices,
workshops, laboratories, and studios nor-
mally closed to the public. Here young and
old alike showed great interest as they
additions to collections in the two halls of
African ethnology, exhibits of African primi-
tive art, the synoptic "Animal Kingdom"
series of exhibits, and the new "Birds Are
Beautiful" display were also among the
highlights of Members' Night.
After a welcoming address by Dr. Clifford
C. Gregg, Director, he and President Stanley
Field greeted the guests at an informal re-
ception in Stanley Field Hall and refresh-
ments were served.
Books
ANCIENT VOYAGERS IN THE PA-
CIFIC. By Andrew Sharp. 240 pages
with 12 photographic plates of island
scenes and three maps. Penguin Books,
London, 1957. $.85.
Some years ago the late Sir Peter Buck,
part-Maori anthropologist and then Direc-
tor of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu,
wrote a book about the island peoples of the
Pacific. He called his book Vikings of the
Sunrise because the people he wrote about
had to sail across wide expanses of ocean
wastes to get to their island homes, much as
the famed Norsemen of old sailed across the
Atlantic in quest of new lands.
The word sunrise in the title refers to the
fact that the ancient sailors of the Pacific
sailed to the east in search of new lands —
toward the sunrise. Of course this is a sim-
plification, since many voyages were made
in other directions. However, because it has
been conclusively shown by students of the
Pacific that the primary direction of migra-
tion into the Pacific was from Southeast Asia
(Kon Tiki to the contrary), sunrise is an apt
way of indicating this direction in general.
The author of Ancient Voyagers in the
Pacific is not so sure that Vikings was an
entirely appropriate term for the early voy-
agers. He would amend Buck's title to read
"Vikings of the Sunrise — By Accident."
The problem of how the vast region of the
Pacific was peopled has long challenged an-
thropologists. Shrouded in the mists of
antiquity and dimly perceived through the
shadowy vistas of prehistory, the facts have
remained elusive and obscure. Linguistic,
racial, and cultural affinities, orally trans-
mitted genealogies and elements of folklore,
and a limited amount of archaeological evi-
dence have served as signposts.
Over the years, traditions were developed
that saw early man in the Pacific as a daunt-
less and intrepid explorer of the watery des-
ert we call Oceania. From these traditions
one received the impression that great flotil-
las of elegant and ruggedly seaworthy high-
prowed double-canoes, manned by hosts of
stalwart mariners, complete with their fam-
ilies, livestock, and an inventory of plants
for new island-homes, set out at relatively
frequent intervals through the centuries on
deliberate voyages of long-range exploration.
The main purpose of these ancients, ac-
cording to the traditions, was to sail stead-
fastly through the treacherous waters for
thousands of miles, plotting their courses by
the heavens until they reached suitable
island-homes not yet peopled, where they
terminated their voyages and began life
anew. It is further conjectured that not only
were deliberate voyages of exploration to far-
distant and unknown shores undertaken but
also that, having discovered a new island-
home, some navigators even returned across
thousands of miles of uncharted seas to their
points of origin to tell others of their con-
quests and to return with new flotillas.
The ancient mariners of the Pacific were
supposed to have been ardent students of the
heavens and astutely competent in combat-
ing the severely fickle weather conditions
that have long prevailed in Oceania. Moti-
vation for deliberate long-distance explora-
tion and settlement has been explained as
resulting from population pressures, political
conflict and warfare, exile, and sheer curi-
osity and adventure-seeking.
In his book Andrew Sharp brings a metic-
ulous logic, an enviable command of Pacific
geography, ethnological and archaeological
as well as botanical data, and a remarkable
awareness of the accounts of early voyages
by Europeans in the Pacific to bear on the
problem of settlement. His purpose is to
burst the bubble of traditional explanations
and he provides an extremely convincing
case for an antithetical point of view.
Sharp propounds the thesis that accidental
rather than deliberate offshore voyages were
chiefly responsible for the dispersal of man
May, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
in the Pacific. Evidence presented runs the
gamut of folklore accounts of native voy-
ages; responses elicited from islanders by
early European explorers and missionaries
with respect to navigational lore, island ge-
ography, and historic contacts; linguistic,
cultural, and racial affinities and noncon-
gruences; and the immutable vagaries of
Pacific meteorology and currents. Evidence
is cited from other parts of the world to sup-
port the claim that without modern methods
of navigation and cartography, mariners of
any part of the world were largely subject
to the whims of weather and ocean currents.
Sharp admits the validity of relatively short-
range deliberate settlement while denying it
for long-range settlement.
The basic limitations on primitive naviga-
tion seem obvious after reading Sharp's com-
ments. He points out that the heavens are
often overcast for days at a time and that
even in relatively clear weather stars do not
shine during daylight hours, which are more
numerous than those when stars can be per-
ceived. Furthermore, he says, the sun is a
very poor navigational guide.
One is compelled to agree with Sharp that
in the face of storms, variable and highly
unpredictable winds, calms, capricious shift-
ing currents, and relatively flimsy craft de-
pendent upon winds for propulsion, it is
untenable to support the traditional view
that the "locations of distant objectives
could have been established in the first place
or rediscovered when they had."
Andrew Sharp has in this small book asked
enough probing questions and suggested a
sufficient number of logical alternative ideas
to more than adequately challenge the so-
called traditional theories of Pacific navi-
gation and settlement. He has carefully
arranged his evidence so as to provide a
landmark in an extremely troubled sea of
theory and historic (as well as prehistoric)
reconstruction — a sea in which the currents
of thought perhaps may have been as mis-
leading as those oceanic currents of the vast
Pacific which loom so large in his arguments,
and comparable to them in strength.
If we must require more of the author
than he offered, we can only suggest that a
few more outline maps of specific island
groups and schematic drawings of the mi-
gration routes that are outlined in the text
would have helped the average reader whose
knowledge of the geography of the Pacific is
extremely limited.
Roland W. Force
Curator of Oceanic Archaeology
and Ethnology
(All books reviewed in the Bulletin are
available in The Book Shop of the Museum.
Mail orders accompanied by remittance in-
cluding postage are promptly filled.)
EXPEDITION TO BEGIN NEW DIG IN SOUTHWEST
Undersea views such as are seldom seen
except by professional divers are available
to everyone in the Hall of Fishes (Hall 0).
ONE of the primary things anthropolo-
gists are interested in is human be-
havior and how it got that way. It is clear
that valuable contributions to the under-
standing of man and his behavior remain to
be derived from ancient camp sites and
old beaches, in pit-houses, in the storied
pueblos, and in buried cities.
In May, the Museum's Southwest Archae-
ological Expedition returns to eastern Ari-
zona to continue its excavations and re-
searches.
As in the expedition's previous 24 seasons
of excavations in the Southwest, Dr. Paul
S. Martin, Chief Curator of the Department
of Anthropology, will be the leader. He
will be assisted by Assistant Curator John
B. Rinaldo and other archaeologists and
diggers.
The sites to be worked lie in a triangular
area that is bounded by Springerville, St.
Johns and Show Low — about 40 miles south
of the famed Petrified Forest National Monu-
ment and about 350 miles southeast of
Flagstaff. The country is an attractive
plateau at an altitude of about 7,000 feet,
close to the White Mountains. Much of the
terrain is rough with old volcanic flows pro-
truding here and there. From the expedi-
tion's camp location at Vernon, Arizona,
many ancient volcanic caves can be seen.
There are hundreds of ancient sites in the
area, a few of which will be excavated this
summer.
CULTURAL LINK SOUGHT
This area was chosen for intensive re-
searches because it was believed that a link
between the archaeological sequences of
culture established at Reserve, New Mexico,
the sequences of culture in and around
Vernon, Arizona, and one of the contem-
porary pueblo groups — such as the Hopi or
Zun i — might be established . In other words,
the work now in progress, in and near Vernon
might provide a clue as to what became of
the Mogollon Indians; as to what adjust-
ments they made when uniting with other
people; and as to whether the culture of
modern Hopi or Zuni represents in part
a blending of Mogollon and Hopi-Zuni
elements.
To obtain this information, it is neces-
sary to work out a succession of cultures on
the history of the Vernon area as completely
as possible. It will be especially valuable if
we can find out whether or not the great
burst of cultural activity in the 15th and
16th centuries among the Hopi and Zuni
Indians was due to Mogollon influences and
migrations. New insights on ancient rites
and customs would be gained.
At present, no one knows enough about
the local history of the Vernon area to be
very specific; but it is probable that there
are several periods that would date from
perhaps 1500-2000 B.C. to A.D. 1300 or 1400.
The earliest period has been named the
Concho Period, which may date from 1500
B.C. to the time of Christ. The Concho
Period is just one small part of a larger
culture called the Desert Culture which ex-
tended from Oregon to Mexico City and
from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Moun-
tains. The "Concho People" lived in skin
or brush shelters that were placed near the
shores of now extinct lakes. Food was not
abundant and consisted of wild plants such
as seeds, nuts, berries and roots; and rabbits,
deer and other small game which were
hunted with spears rather than bows and
arrows. The few tools of stone left behind
are rather crude. Pottery and agriculture
were unknown. It is assumed that sandals
and baskets were woven, and it is believed
that cookery was done in the baskets.
The next later development would prob-
ably date from about a.d. 600-800. We
have no information yet as to what was
happening in the Vernon area from about
1500 B.C. to about a.d. 600-800. In other
words, there is a gap of about 2,000 years of
which we know nothing. It is possible,
though not probable, that the area was
abandoned for 2,000 years and then re-
occupied at about a.d. 600. A more inten-
sive survey will help settle this question and
this will be undertaken in the next season
ADVANCES BECOME EVIDENT
At any rate, the next evidences of civili-
zation in the area reveal the fact that the
Indians now knew how to construct better
houses (pit-houses), and how to make pot-
tery and to plant crops. The information
concerning the pit-house period (about A.D.
600-800) is meager and will be augmented
this summer by further excavations.
From a.d. 800 on, greater progress is
assumed (judging by the appearance and
size of the ruins and by the surface debris)
although the Museum's expedition has yet
to verify this by digging.
Several sites will be opened up in 1958.
Probably another pit-house village will be
dug as well as one larger, later site. An
intensive search will be instituted for a dry
cave in the hopes that one may be found
that will yield a variety of well-preserved
objects as well as evidence of a 2,000 to
3,000-year-long occupation. This would in-
deed be a find, but the chances of discovering
such a cave are very slim.
Educational circles in recent months have
been alerted to the need for more attention
to science in our schools. In the field of
natural sciences, the Museum has two
foundations constantly co-operating with
the schools — the N.W. Harris Public School
Extension, and the James Nelson and Anna
Louise Raymond Foundation.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
May, 1958
STUDENTS LEARN HOW PREHISTORIC MAN LIVED sculptor and creation
"Workshop" gatherings of school children
at the Museum to make studies of selected
specific subjects are a recent innovation
added to the activities of the James Nelson
and Anna Louise Raymond Foundation for
Public School and Children's Lectures. In
the above photograph, Edith Fleming, Ray-
mond Foundation lecturer, is seen demon-
strating the similarities of ancient and
present-day tools to a workshop on pre-
historic man for young students. At the
lecture the children were given the oppor-
tunity to handle and examine closely actual
tools of early man. They also saw a filmed
story of man's prehistoric development, and
made a supervised study of the Museum's
Hall of the Stone Age of the Old World
(Hall C) where they saw the eight life-size
dioramas of early peoples, and many supple-
mentary exhibits illustrating details of their
way of life. The boys and girls in this group
are in sixth-grade at Oriole Park School.
STAFF NOTES
Several members of the Museum staff
have recently been interviewed on radio
programs. Emmet R. Blake, Curator of
Birds, told of his experiences on Museum
expeditions in three talks on the Art Mer-
rier Show over WBBM-CBS. In successive
weeks, on the Phil Bowman show over
WMAQ-NBC, talks on Museum subjects
were given by John R. Millar, Deputy
Director; Dr. Theodor Just, Chief Curator
of Botany; Phillip H. Lewis, Assistant Cu-
rator of Primitive Art; Dr. Eugene S.
Richardson, Jr., Curator of Invertebrate
Fossils, and Loren P. Woods, Curator of
Fishes. . . . Henry S. Dybas, Associate Cu-
rator of Insects, attended the annual meet-
ing of the North Central Branch of the
Entomological Society of America in St.
Louis Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Cu-
rator of Anthropology, attended a confer-
ence on "The Place of Museums in Higher
Education" held recently at Indiana Uni-
versity. . . . George I. Quimby, Curator
of North American Archaeology and Eth-
nology, Dr. John B. Rinaldo, Assistant
Curator of Archaeology, and Allen S. Liss,
Assistant in Anthropology, attended a recent
meeting of the Illinois Archaeological Sur-
vey, and a symposium on Woodland Pottery
held in this Museum. . . . Dr. Theodor
Just, Chief Curator of Botany, and Miss
Lillian A. Ross, Associate Editor of Scien-
tific Publications, will represent the Mu-
seum at the Second Conference of Biological
Editors to be held in Washington, D.C., on
May 3 and 4. Dr. Just is chairman of the
committee for formulation of editorial policy.
. . . Mrs. Meta P. Howell, Librarian, Mrs.
M. Eileen Rocourt, Associate Librarian,
and Miss Marjorie West, Assistant to the
Librarian, attended the recent meeting of
the Chicago Chapter of the Special Libraries
Association. . . . Miss Jane Rockwell, As-
sociate Public Relations Counsel, who joined
the Museum staff late in 1954, resigned as
of April 30 to move to New York.
Malvina Hoffman of New York, noted
sculptor, on a recent visit to Chicago came
to the Museum for conferences with mem-
bers of the staff. Our photographer induced
her to pose with the bronze figure of a Nava-
ho man, one of the 101 life-size figures, busts
and heads she made to represent types of the
Races of Mankind. Her sculptures of
modern peoples of the world, both primitive
tribesmen and highly cultured racial types,
form a series unique among anthropological
displays, and fill Chauncey Keep Memorial
Hall (Hall 3).
Tomb ... or Treasure
On the front of the Palais de Chaillot, one
of the art museums of Paris, there is an in-
scription which applies equally to all muse-
ums of the world, whether their field be art,
science or other subjects. By the French
writer Paul Valery, it reads, translated: "It
depends on him who passes here whether I
remain tomb or treasure . . . Friend, enter
not unwillingly."
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum:
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 6. The
Subspecies of the Bush Shrike Laniarius
fulleborni (Including L. poensis). By
Austin L. Rand. 4 pages. 10c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 41, No. 1. Philip-
pine Zoological Expedition 1 9^6-1 9b7,
Philippine Snails of the Family Endo-
dontidae. By Alan Solem. 12 pages,
4 illustrations. 40c.
The range of plant life from lowly bac-
teria to shining orchids is traced by the ex-
hibits in Martin A. and Carrie Ryerson Hall
(Hall 29— Plant Life).
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
June, 1 958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wii. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchbn Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
specimens for the collections) received dur-
ing the year, maintenance of the building,
the work of the Library, and the accomplish-
ments of all divisions of the institution.
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology •
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Helen A. MacMinn
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
Museum Members to Receive
Director's Annual Report
The steady progress that the Museum has
made in expansion of exhibits, despite the
unrelieved difficulties caused by the inflation
of recent years, is emphasized in the Annual
Report for 1957 of the Director to the Board
of Trustees. Copies of the Report, a volume
of 164 pages with 25 illustrations, will be
sent to all Members of the Museum within
a few weeks.
The Report stresses also the progress of the
Museum's educational activities for school
children, pointing out that no other museum
makes available to its community a lending
service of traveling exhibits comparable to
that of the N. W. Harris Public School Ex-
tension, whose 1,032 portable' exhibits are
circulated regularly among 516 schools.
Attention is called also to the notable new
record in educational work achieved by the
James Nelson and Anna Louise Raymond
Foundation, which, among many other ac-
tivities, served 4,158 organized groups aggre-
gating 178,810 students visiting the Museum
during the year.
Detailed accounts are also given of the
collecting done by 16 expeditions and field
trips in 1957, of research in many fields by
all departments, gifts (of both funds and
'Nature Around Us'
is Journey Topic
The summer Museum Journey for Chil-
dren offered by Raymond Foundation,
"Nature Around Us," is open to all boys and
girls visiting the Museum on any day during
June, July, or August. Youngsters who wish
to take the Journey will receive instructions
and questionnaires at either the north or
south entrance of the Museum. These in-
structions will tell them where to find exhib-
its in the Museum of animals, plants, rocks,
and fossils that they can look for in their own
backyards or in parks and other nearby
places. The advantage of this preliminary
survey in the Museum, the Raymond Foun-
dation staff points out, is that here "the
animals always stand still, the birds never
fly away, the plants are always green and
blooming, and you don't have to dig for the
rocks and fossils."
Children who fill in correctly the question-
naires for this Journey and three other
Journeys are eligible for awards as Museum
Travelers. After eight Journeys they may
become Museum Adventurers and after
twelve Journeys Museum Explorers.
New Assistant Appointed
in Public Relations
Patricia McAfee, a recent graduate of
Northwestern University, has been ap-
pointed Assistant in the Museum's Division
of Public Relations.
She replaces Jane
Rockwell, Associate
Public Relations Coun-
sel, who resigned to
begin a career in New
York. Miss McAfee
will work in associa-
tion with H. B. Harte,
Public Relations Coun-
sel since 1927. The
position involves press,
television, and radio
relations and assist-
ance in preparation of
the monthly Bulletin for the membership
of the Museum.
Miss McAfee, a native of Washington,
D.C., has lived in that city and its suburb,
Falls Church, Virginia, most of her life. For
a period she was employed in public contact
work and other duties in the offices of the
United States Department of Agriculture.
She received her B.A. degree earlier this year
at Northwestern, where she was enrolled
both in the Medill School of Journalism and
the College of Liberal Arts.
Patricia McAfee
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
For years the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago has joined
hands with Chicago Natural His-
tory Museum to encourage art
based on nature subjects. Classes
from both the junior and the adult
schools are sent to this Museum
for study, sketching, and paint-
ing. This Museum furnishes a
special classroom and other facil-
ities, most important of which are
its collections of animals, plants,
and other nature material that
provide the students with subject-
matter and inspiration. The
drawing of an owl on our cover is
an example of work done in these
classes. It is by Robert Erwin, of
Chicago, a young first-year stu-
dent in the adult school. Annu-
ally this Museum presents a
special exhibit of approximately a
hundred selected pictures by stu-
dents who range from children of
grammar-school age in the junior
classes to high-school, college, and
older students in the adult school.
Membership Division
Chief Named
Gloria (Mrs. Charles) Pagano has been
appointed head of the Museum's Division of
Memberships to fill
the vacancy caused by
the recent death of
Miss Pearle Bilinske,
who had been in the
Museum service since
1923 and head of the
division from 1928.
Mrs. Pagano was for-
merly in charge of per-
sonnel recruitment for
the Chicago campus
Gloria Pagano
of Northwestern Uni-
versity and had worked
in several commercial
organizations. She is a former resident of
New York and attended New York Uni-
versity.
Miss Mary Felsenheld, a former employee
of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been
appointed Assistant in the Division of Mem-
berships.
The entire geological sequence of life over
some three billion years is illustrated by the
exhibits in Frederick J. V. Skiff Hall (Hall
37 — Fossil Animals without Backbones) and
Ernest R. Graham Hall (Hall 38— Fossil
Animals with Backbones).
June, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page S
GEMS ARE RICH IN LORE
AS IN LUSTRE
By PATRICIA McAFEE
A DROP OF DEW from Heaven, or the
pearl as we know it, is the birthstone
for the month of June. The association of a
precious or semiprecious stone with a month
of the year is only one of the many age-old
customs surrounding gem stones. It is be-
lieved that the custom is based on the twelve
foundation stones of the Holy City men-
tioned in Revelation or on the twelve stones
in the breastplate of the High Priest of
Israel.
The long and occasionally infamous his-
tory of gems is older than the first written
accounts in Pliny the Elder's Natural His-
tory. But there are no records of the first
discovery of the gems of long-standing fame.
We can only imagine that the first precious
stone may have been found the same way a
small boy walking along a pebble-strewn
beach finds one that takes his fancy. It
is usually the beauty of the stone that causes
him to pick it up and pocket it, and beauty
is the first quality a gem stone must possess
today.
QUALITIES OF GEMS
Beauty, when used to describe a gem, re-
fers to transparency, brilliancy, color, lustre,
and fire. Only one of these may be present,
or all may be displayed as they are in the
blue diamond. However, beauty alone is
usually not enough. A gem must be resist-
ant to abrasion. The diamond, being the
hardest of all minerals, is the most durable.
A third quality, which is essential but does
not describe the physical attributes of the
stone, is rarity. Portability should not be
overlooked, as it is convenient for men to
represent a large investment by a small piece
of merchandise. The last determining qual-
ity of a gem is fashion or style. Temporary
fads have occasionally caused a popular
stone, such as the amethyst, to go "out of
style." Fortunately it is more common to
add to the list of gem stones.
Those qualities causing the appeal of gems
have been known to man for many years,
but their exact physical and chemical proper-
ties were discovered after the evolution of
mineralogy into a science. Practically all
gems are minerals, the exceptions being
pearls, amber, and coral, which are organic
products. The pearl is composed of car-
bonate of lime, but ranks high among the
precious stones as it exhibits several of the
qualities mentioned. Its exceptional beauty
compensates for its softness (a pearl is only
slightly harder than a fingernail).
ANCIENTS IGNORED DIAMONDS
Among the minerals considered gems the
most notable are: diamond, ruby, sapphire,
emerald, aquamarine, morganite, topaz, gar-
net, zircon, opal, jade, tourmaline, peridot,
spinel, turquois, moonstone, Amazon stone,
lapis lazuli, and varieties of quartz.
Discoveries in ancient tombs of Asiatic,
Etruscan, and Egyptian cultures revealed
the use of sapphires, emeralds, rubies, pearls,
agates, and garnets as ornaments. Appar-
ently the diamond in its natural state did
not exhibit enough beauty to warrant its use
as a gem stone. Its virtues were to remain
hidden until means of polishing and cutting
the stone were devised.
The first major source of diamonds was
India. It was not until 1727 that Brazilian
One of the finest collections of
gems in the world may be seen in
H. N. Higinbotham Hall (Hall 31)
of the Museum, where cut and
uncut specimens of nearly every
known precious and semiprecious
stone are exhibited. Ancient jew-
elry, some pieces dating back to
3000 B.C., and reproductions of
world-famous diamonds are also
included in the collection. In
addition to the Museum's perma-
nent collection the Chicago Lapi-
dary Club's special display of
handcrafted gems and jewelry will
be on view in Stanley Field Hall
from June 5 through June 29.
diamonds were discovered, and another 150
years passed before the South African de-
posits were found. Today the South African
mines yield the major portion of the world's
supply.
Romance and mystery have surrounded
the diamond since antiquity. Its durability
gave rise to the belief that the stone, if placed
on an anvil, was capable of breaking the
hammer that struckjt a blow. Another, and
even more fantastic, tale recommended soak-
ing the diamond in the blood of a male goat
or lion to lessen its hardness.
HISTORIC ROLE OF DIAMONDS
Large diamonds, though rare, have played
quite a role in history. One famous dia-
mond, the Regent or Pitt (nearly 137 car-
ats), once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon, finding myself 'short of funds,
pawned it to the Bavarian government in
order to continue his campaigns. A story
is told that Henry III, King of France, bor-
rowed the Sancy diamond (53 carats) from
his treasurer to raise money from the Swiss
government. A trusted servant was to carry
the stone to Berne, but he was intercepted
en route and murdered by robbers. The
treasurer, upon hearing of the robbery and
murder, called for the body to be exhumed.
The stone was found in the stomach of the
faithful man.
Today the diamond is a symbol of be-
trothal. It is presumed to have been chosen
(Continued on page It, column 1 )
LAPIDARIES OF CHICAGO
STAGE MUSEUM SHOW
A DISPLAY, almost complete in scope, of
nature's many varieties of gem mate-
rial is offered in the Eighth Annual Amateur
Handcrafted Gem and Jewelry Competitive
Exhibition to be held in Stanley Field Hall
at the Museum from June 5 through June 29.
The exhibit is sponsored by the Chicago
Lapidary Club.
Members of the club and other "rock-
hounds" have been collecting and preparing
material from all parts of the United States
and also from Canada, Labrador, Mexico,
Australia, Africa, and Argentina to display
in this show. A greater variety of gems and
jewelry than in any of the previous shows
has been assembled, and the exhibits are
notably improved, compared with earlier
years, as a result of the greater skills devel-
oped by many of the contestants who have
repeatedly entered.
Only those entries that have won prizes or
awards of ribbons will be included in the
Museum exhibition. The contestants in-
clude qualified members of lapidary classes
held in fieldhouses of the Chicago Park Dis-
trict throughout the past year and other
amateur lapidaries and jewelry craftsmen in
Chicago and suburbs within a 50-mile radius
of the city. Contestants are required to do
every bit of the work themselves, including
all operations involved in cutting and polish-
ing gem material, and, in the case of jewelry
items, all elements of design and of fabricat-
ing gold and silver mountings.
MANY CRAFT DIVISIONS
The two main classifications of exhibits
are: (1) the work of novice craftsmen and
(2) the work of advanced craftsmen. In
each group are ten specialized craft divisions:
individual cabochon-cut gems, individual
faceted gems, collections of gems of a certain
species, collections of gems in general, collec-
tions of polished specimens or slabs, individ-
ual jewelry pieces, sets of jewelry, enameled
jewelry, special pieces, and enameled special
pieces ("special pieces" include objects to
which lapidary and jewelry techniques have
been applied, such as gem-encrusted jewel
boxes, book ends, pen stands, letter openers,
and tableware).
The large number of medals, trophies, rib-
bon awards, and extra honors attracts hun-
dreds of entries and assures a large and varied
display. In all, 91 prizes and ribbons were
awarded, with a full quota designated for the
winners in each of the 20 craft divisions com-
prised in the two main classifications. The
winners of the five top awards are: Dalzell
Trophy (Robert A. Dalzell Memorial) for
the exhibit adjudged the "best of the show"
— J. Lester Cunningham, of Chicago, for his
All- American Agate Collection; Presidents'
Trophy for outstanding lapidary work —
Alvin Ericson, of Chicago, for an emerald-
cut golden sapphire; Councilmen's Trophy
Page i
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
June, 1958
for outstanding jewelry — Doris E. Kemp, of
Riverdale, Illinois, for a pendant of Arizona
wonderstone; Juergens Award for best lapi-
dary work by a novice — Opal Lyons, of
Chicago, for a brilliant-cut faceted synthetic
amethyst; and the Milhening Award for out-
standing jewelry by a novice — George Mar-
cek, of Chicago, for a pin and earrings with
moss agate. The trophies and medals will
be displayed at the Museum with the win-
ning exhibits.
VARIED OCCUPATIONS
The lapidary's art has a broad appeal, and
the roster of competitors includes such widely
varied occupations and professions as school
teachers, electronics experts, engineers, ad-
vertising executives, policemen, bankers,
housewives, steel-mill workers, welders, ma-
chinists, doctors, dentists, and lawyers.
In past years the Chicago Lapidary Club's
display of gems and jewelry has proved to be
one of the most popular of the Museum's
special exhibits. Many visitors have been
attracted not only from Chicago and vicinity
but also from far-distant places. This year
the Midwest Federation of Mineralogical
and Geological Societies, which is holding its
convention at Downers Grove (June 19, 20,
21), is planning a special trip to the Museum
so that its delegates may view the gem
exhibit.
GEMS ARE RICH IN LORE AS WELL AS LUSTRE
(Continued from page 8)
for this purpose because of its alleged powers
to encourage love, control tempers, and keep
harmony between husband and wife. But
the romantic powers of the diamond seem
too fanciful for our era. "Diamonds are
a girl's best friend" is an allusion to their
more prosaically realistic quality.
The sapphire and the ruby, known today
as varieties of the same mineral, corundum,
were once supposed to be entirely different
stones. The red ruby suggests passion and
warmth. The incomparable blue of the sap-
phire has been symbolic of things sacred. It
long represented constancy and truth and
was believed to have power over all bodily
sicknesses. The Greeks knew the sapphire
by the name Hyacinthus, derived from the
likeness of its color to the blue flower that
sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, a
young man accidentally killed by Apollo.
Legend has it that the gem became sacred
to Apollo and was to be worn when asking
advice of his oracles. In mediaeval times
gems were thought to reproduce. The sap-
phire, which is found in many colors, was
feminine if it was of light color and masculine
if it was dark.
LEGENDS SURROUND EMERALD
The emerald, as well as the ruby and sap-
phire, has a long history as an ornamental
stone. There is a legend, to which little
credibility is attached today, that Nero had
a glass made of emerald through which he
watched the gladiatorial fights. The stone
was reputed to restore eyesight — obviously
because of its restful and pleasing green
color. A folk tale, still occasionally heard,
relates that an emerald belonging to a woman
who has been betrayed by her husband will
turn white.
Cloaked in superstition is the lovely, but
at one time cursed, opal. The stone exhibits
a fascinating play of colors under certain
conditions. This quality has caused some
civilizations to credit it with great powers.
The Romans placed the opal in a high posi-
tion as the herald of joy. But others have
attributed powers of black magic to it and
have let the gem fall into disuse. The heroine
of Sir Walter Scott's Anne ofGeirstein owned
an opal that brought her nothing but ill for-
tune. For a time following the publication
of the book the market for opals dropped
considerably.
The white pearl, symbol of purity, was be-
lieved to have been formed by a drop of dew
from Heaven falling into the shell of the
pearl oyster at breeding time. However, all
pearls are not white. Some are tinged with
blue, pink, or yellow; others are gray or
black. The pink pearl is highly valued by
the Buddhists, who decorate their temples
with it. The natives of Chipinga, a vil-
age in southern Rhodesia, also attach a sig-
nificance to the pink pearl. They custom-
arily place one in the mouth of their dead
before cremation.
CREDITED WITH REMEDIAL POWERS
Most stones were once thought to cure
certain diseases and ailments. Amber, for
instance, could cure sore throat, chills and
fever, insanity, dropsy, and toothache. It
would also charm snakes away. Amethyst
had sobering powers, and spinel was believed
by the Persians to prevent evil dreams.
From antiquity man has known and val-
ued gem stones. He has adorned himself
with them, placed them in tombs and graves
for the afterlife, invested fortunes in them,
and woven fantastical myths around them.
ORNAMENTAL STONE OBJECTS IN GEM ROOM
In center foreground is a rare and delicately carved bowl of rose quartz crystal. In the center rear is a rock
crystal screen upon which has been carved, on a thin section of quartz, "The Finding of Moses."
CHILDREN'S MOVIES
The summer series of color motion-pic-
tures for children will be presented by
Raymond Foundation in James Simpson
Theatre of the Museum on six Thursday
mornings during July and August. There
will be two showings of each program, one
at 10 A.M. and the other at 11 a.m. The
first in the series, Walt Disney's "Living
Desert," will be on Thursday morning,
July 10. The complete schedule will be an-
nounced in the next issue of the Bulletin.
Admission is free and no tickets are needed.
Children may come alone, with adults, or in
organized groups. Seats may be reserved
for Members and their children.
June, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
FINGERPRINTS ARE CLUES TO EXHIBITS' POPULARITY
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
THE FINGERPRINTS and even the
noseprints that visitors leave in the Mu-
seum are the best clues we have to the popu-
larity of an exhibit. No one knows this
better than Jack Roberts, whose job in-
cludes seeing that the glass in front of the
exhibits is clean. The glass in front of Bush-
man, the gorilla that once lived in the
Lincoln Park Zoo, quickly is plastered with
prints; next to it is a family of hyraxes from
Abyssinia, and there is rarely a print on its
glass-sided case. It's pretty elementary de-
tecting to establish that more people are
interested in Bushman than in hyrax.
Not everyone who looks at an exhibit
leaves a print on it as a record. Most of the
prints are made by children and some of the
marks, at the bottom of the case, indicate
that the children are pretty small. But some
are made by adults. One noseprint in front
of a group of insects was level with my face,
and I'm above average height. I saw one
dignified lady point out a clam to her com-
panion and inadvertently touch the glass.
In front of an exceptionally interesting ex-
hibit with reading matter a visitor may rest
his forehead on the glass. Anyone may
leave prints. We don't really mind the
prints although it keeps Roberts busy polish-
ing, and we make a virtue of a necessity and
use these prints as automatic popularity
computers. Summertime is better for finger-
prints than winter, Roberts tells me. In
hot weather prints take better, evidently
due to the extra activity of human sebace-
ous glands.
OTHER CHECKUPS TRIED
Of course these marks do not tell us how
many of the 2,000 to 3,000 visitors in an
average day look at any one exhibit, nor
do they tell us how long those who do so
devote to it. We've tried other methods for
estimating popularity. Presenting a ques-
tionnaire to visitors as they left the Museum
was tried for a while; visitors have been
followed and their courses plotted and
timed (all very discreetly of course); an
observer has been stationed by an exhibit,
recording very unobtrusively the length of
stay of the visitors, and the comments made.
Frequently on my way to lunch I saunter
through the exhibition halls, gathering gen-
eral impressions.
But none of the methods are as reliable as
Roberts' automatic computer. It's not in-
fallible, mind you. A fingerprint on the
glass does not necessarily mean that some-
one was interested in an exhibit. This I
found by observing a "control" exhibition
case, one temporarily empty. A group of
fourth or fifth-grade boys, after looking at
cases full of snakes and lizards came to the
empty case. At once they peopled it in their
imagination with crocodiles and boa con-
strictors and called their friends' attention
to them, pointing out color and size. This
resulted in a fine crop of prints on the glass
that might have been confusing to an un-
initiated observer.
FASCINATED BY WORMS
Over a recent long holiday weekend
when we had our usual large crowds in the
Museum, we got an abundant crop of prints
and I made a quick survey of the glass in
Zoology to buttress earlier impressions.
Some of the exhibits that are most popular
are not those one might expect. This has
been especially true for the units- in the
"Animal Kingdom" exhibit that have been
on exhibition for less than a year. Of all the
groups of animals in this exhibit the most
popular were the arthropods, insects, crabs,
etc., which show much color and bizarre
shapes as well as attractive paintings. The
third most popular unit was still more of
a surprise. It was the protozoan exhibit,
with microscope and slides and greatly en-
larged replicas of the microscopic single-
celled animals carved in plastic and an
ilustrated text covering a synopsis of the
animal kingdom. This last was apparently
the real attraction, judging by the position
of the marks of foreheads on the glass.
Perhaps it was the result of the activity of
a group of students taking notes.
Backboned animals, starfish, and clams
and snails ran neck-and-neck for fourth
place, then corals and jellyfish, and sponges
last.
WORM-LIKE ANIMALS, ETC
MANY UNRELATED ANIMALS HAVE A WORM -LIKE SHAPE
17,000 SPECIES
FLAT WORMS
Phylum PLATYHELMINTHES
SOMC BOUND WO*** PARASITIZE PLAMTfl-
rn-Wwi
r
7
Phylum ANNELIDA
IJ^I
1
WORMS ARE POPULAR-IN AN EXHIBIT
This has proved to be one of the most crowd-attracting panels in the Animal Kingdom series of exhibits.
Although worms are simple in appearance and obscure in habitat, some of them have very complicated life
histories. Some also are important in relation to man as parasites of humans and other animals, or of food crops.
popular is that of the worms. Not only that,
but the section showing tapeworms and
flukes has received most attention, in which
a long tapeworm is folded back and forth in
a piece of plastic in which it is embedded,
and a liver fluke is shown with a diagrammed
life cycle passed partly in a snail's insides
and partly in those of a sheep. Next most
I went on through the other halls (ex-
clusive of habitat halls) and, in each hall,
the most popular items were as follows:
Mammals: furbearers; kangaroos; lion
Reptiles: snakes, especially the huge
python
Insects: the malaria mosquito exhibit;
the temporary beetle case
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
June, 1958
Comparative Anatomy: "Birth of a
Baby"; the very popular whale has no glass
and can't be included
Birds: eggs; fossil bird restorations
SURVEY AIDS PLANNING
From this cursory survey certain points
emerge which we must keep in mind in
planning other exhibits.
1. Interest in the subject matter may be
decisive, as indicated by the attractiveness
of snakes, Bushman, tapeworms and flukes,
and "Birth of a Baby."
There are things about which the visitor
knows before he comes to the Museum; one
of our functions is to make the visitor aware
of other things which he does not know,
while he is here.
Yet the general interest in birds and mam-
mals does not offset the greater appeal of the
worms and insects over the vertebrates in
the "Animal Kingdom" series.
2. The size of an object does not neces-
sarily influence attractiveness as indicated
by both Bushman and a tapeworm being
popular, drawing interest from both larger
and smaller animals exhibited nearby.
3. The location within a hall is not
decisive, for some of the popular snake ex-
hibits are in the center of a hall, while other
popular exhibits are at the ends. A good
location is undoubtedly an advantage, but
it can be offset by other factors, which is just
as well, for we must utilize all the space in
the Museum halls.
4. Excellence of preparation is not
a decisive factor. The very popular python
is not as well done as is the less popular boa
constrictor opposite it in the same hall.
From this we can conclude that the ex-
hibitor's interest must be subordinated to
the visitor's interest.
5. An exhibit that is different from the
others in the hall, in both material and
treatment, is likely to be popular. This is
well shown by our exhibit of eggs in the bird
hall. This question of diversity within a
hall, the relieving of monotony, is a very
important one. Also we must remember
that a striking treatment will become
monotony through repetition.
6. The aversion of people to reading long
labels is well known in museum circles. But
the long labels that give a synopsis of the
animal kingdom in the exhibit of protozoans
are popular. Perhaps the extent to which the
text is broken up by small illustrations is the
decisive factor. This must be explored
further in label writing.
7. Thoughtful, teaching exhibits are not
necessarily popular. For instance, the ex-
hibit "What is a Bird?" is not nearly as
popular as the exhibit "Fossil Birds" op-
posite it, which simply shows some restora-
tions. The striking strangeness of these
birds may be the main factor. But explana-
tory, teaching exhibits can be popular, wit-
ness the "Birth of a Baby" and the life
cycle of a liver fluke.
This survey does not try to evaluate
whole halls contrasted with other halls, and
we do know that some halls are much more
popular than others. But from comparisons
within each hall there are some generaliza-
tions possible. It appears that a wide
variety of factors determines the interest-
appeal of an exhibit. Exhibition seems to
be not a science, nor a craft, but more an
art, like writing and painting. There are
certain basic rules, and the subject matter
and space available impose limits on ex-
hibits. Standards of scientific accuracy
must be kept in mind, and there are a host
of intangibles. The treatment of these will
spell the difference between an exhibit that
will be studied and one that will be passed
without a glance.
STAFF NOTES
Dr. Theodor Just, Chief Curator of
Botany, attended a symposium sponsored by
the New York Academy of Sciences last
month, and participated in a panel discus-
sion of "The Present Status and Future
Development of Germ-free Life Studies." . . .
John R. Millar, Deputy Director, has been
in the East visiting museums of New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. . . . Dr.
Donald Collier, Curator of South American
Archaeology and Ethnology, and George I.
Quimby, Curator of North American Ar-
chaeology and Ethnology, attended the
annual meeting at Norman, Oklahoma, of
the Society for American Archaeology and
the Central States Anthropological Society.
Quimby retired as president of the Society
for American Archaeology, and Collier was
appointed review editor of the society's offi-
cial archaeological journal, American An-
tiquity. . . . Henry S. Dybas, Associate
Curator of Insects, conducted a seminar on
population ecology of the periodical cicada
for the Department of Entomology at the
University of Illinois (Urbana). . . . Dr. G.
Alan Solem, Assistant Curator of Lower
Invertebrates, was a recent guest speaker on
the Phil Bowman Show on WMAQ-NBC.
. . . Loren P. Woods, Curator of Fishes,
attended the Illinois Academy of Science
meetings at Urbana and served as a judge
of the biological exhibits of the high school
section. . . . Rupert L. Wenzel, Curator of
Insects, held a seminar on problems of the
systematics of a genus of histerid beetles for
the Department of Biology of Northwestern
University. . . . Melvin A. Traylor, Assist-
ant Curator of Birds, recently made studies
of specimens at the Museum of Comparative
Zoology at Harvard University.
BIRD EXPERT BEGINS
PERU JUNGLE TREK
Madre de Dios, Peru, an area rich in bird
life and as yet virtually unexplored by zool-
ogists, is the locale of a Museum expedition
that began late in May. This field project,
led by Emmet R. Blake, Curator of Birds,
is part of the Museum's long-range program
of South American research. Efforts on this
trip will be devoted solely to gathering a
large representative collection of the bird life
of the area.
Blake will be making his ninth trip to
tropical America but his first to Peru. He
will arrive by plane in Lima on June 1 and
will fly from there to Cuzco, where he hopes
to pick up a young zoology student from the
University of Cuzco as assistant.
A truck route leads out of Cuzco to the
head of Rio Madre de Dios, where native
canoemen, campmen, and hunters will be
hired to accompany Blake on his descent of
the river. Through this sparsely settled , j un-
gle rain-forest the party will travel in dugout
canoes almost to the Bolivian frontier.
The area to be explored is geographically
situated east of the Andes in the Amazonian
lowlands of southeastern Peru. In contrast
to the Andean section of Peru, which has al-
ready been explored by scientists, relatively
little is known of the flora and fauna of these
lowlands.
A small collection of some 100 birds from
the Madre de Dios region was received by
the Museum a few years ago. In this collec-
tion were found several birds unknown to
science. It is probable that still others will
be discovered on Blake's expedition — the
first ambitious ornithological reconnaissance
of this section of South America.
The greater part of the collection will be
gathered on the trip down river. Camps
will be set up at intervals along the bank
and occupied for several weeks at a time.
Mornings will be spent in hunting, and the
afternoons and evenings devoted to skinning,
labeling, and cataloguing the specimens.
Additional small collections will be made
in the foothills of the Andes. These speci-
mens from higher elevations will be compared
with those gathered from the lowlands. After
the trip down river is completed Blake hopes
to charter a small plane to carry him to out-
lying lowland areas where he will make spot
checks to see if the bird life is stable through-
out the Madre de Dios territory.
The expedition, which will last from five
to six months, is financed by the Conover
Game-Bird Fund, established by the late
Boardman Conover, a former Trustee and
Research Associate at the Museum.
Products of wood distillation are shown
in the Hall of Plant Raw Materials and
Products (Hall 28).
The principal facts about bird migrations,
including migration routes and a time-
table of average dates of arrival and depart-
ure, may be obtained from an exhibit in
Boardman Conover Hall (Hall 21).
June, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
HUNGER AND THIRST:
MAN AND SNAILS
By G. ALAN SOLEM
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF LOWER INVERTEBRATES
WE ALL KNOW PEOPLE who can't
last from one meal to another without
eating. While Mahatma Ghandi undertook
several 20-day hunger strikes, this was ac-
complished only by drinking water and fruit
juice at frequent intervals. No human be-
ing can live more than a few days without
water, and in a desert man can survive less
than 72 hours without drinking. Other ani-
mals are less delicate.
Recently Miss Jane Netting, an Antioch
student assigned to the Division of Lower
Invertebrates, was unpacking a collection of
Libyan desert snails purchased from Dr.
Rolf Brandt of Bengazi, Libya. The snails
had been a few weeks in passage and had
been collected several weeks before they
were shipped. Some of the shells seemwd
too heavy to be empty and Miss Netting
wondered if the animals could still be alive.
Some were, and four species of Libyan desert
snails are now living in my office on the
fourth floor of the Museum.
Without food or water, these animals had
survived the dryness of a Libyan house, the
cold of a transatlantic flight, and the wet
cold of a Chicago March. In past years
snails from Cuba, South Africa, and Europe
have arrived at Chicago Natural History
Museum still alive after intervals of up to
several months without food or drink. Lest
this seem a record, let me add that an Egyp-
tian desert snail, Eremina desertorum, re-
vived after more than four years of being
glued to a label in an exhibition case in the
British Museum, and Micrarionta veatchii, a
snail from very dry Cerros Island off west
Mexico, survived for more than six years in
a desk drawer.
LONGER RECORDS CLAIMED
Two much longer records are doubted by
some scientists, but may be accurate. Dr.
Fred Baker of Stanford University had a
specimen of Orthalicus capax (a Brazilian
tree snail) appear crawling around his home
23 years after his collecting trip, and Wal-
ter F. Webb of St. Petersburg, Florida,
stated that a European snail, Eobania ver-
miculata, given him in 1900, revived in 1920
but was dead when re-examined in 1951.
Four to six years without food or water is
remarkable, and a possible 20 to 25 years is
astounding. Behind these records lies a
means of adapting to an inescapable biolog-
ical fact — that living matter is based on
water. A jellyfish is more than 95 per cent
water and even a man is about 67 per cent
water. Life originated in the sea. When
living things colonized the land, they had to
bring their "liquid environment" along and
keep it liquid. There are many ways of
maintaining an internal liquid environment
and there are as many papers written on the
methods as there are ways. Insects, flower-
ing plants, reptiles, birds, and mammals de-
veloped a hard external covering (to prevent
evaporation of water from the body surface)
and varied internal mechanisms for conserv-
ing water. A general treatment of water
conservation in vertebrates is found in
Homer Smith's From Fish to Philosopher.
Other organisms, such as snails, most
worms, nearly all amphibians, and, at cer-
tain stages in their life cycle, mosses and
ferns, never became truly terrestrial. They
can be active only during periods when the
air is nearly saturated with water vapor.
When humidity is not high, they are inac-
tive and must wait for the return of moist
conditions. Generally they live only in areas
where optimum humidity can be found, but
% c
SHUT OFF FROM THE WORLD
The colorful Cyclophorus from Burma (top) is a
tree-living operculate snail. The specimen on the
left shows the empty shell; the one on the right died
with the operculum sealing the aperture. Helix
aperta (lower left) is a pulmonale snail from the
French Riviera. Its heavy white epiphragm (lower
right) effectively seals off the animal from the hot
summer air. The dead animal is still inside the shell.
a small number of species have adapted to
living even in desert areas. All these "non-
terrestrial" land organisms have some inac-
tive stage in their life cycle that is resistant
to drying out. The organism thus lies dor-
mant until the moist conditions return.
Even in deserts a few days each year see
heavy rains or there is a morning dew. The
active life of many desert organisms is com-
pressed into the few wet days while the rest
of the year is spent in a dormant state in
which the necessary functions of living are
still carried on, but at such a slow rate that
their condition comes close to being "sus-
pended animation."
DROUGHT PROTECTION
Each group of organisms has its own means
of surviving droughts, but only the land
snails will be considered here. Most species
of these have a large hard shell that is capa-
ble of holding the entire animal. By retreat-
ing into the shell, a snail can effectively
reduce the area of the body exposed to the
air (and thus the area from which water can
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
evaporate). In dry regions, further pro-
tection is needed. Two ways, each charac-
teristic of a major line of snail evolution,
provide the protection.
The operculate land snails, descended from
marine ancestors, have a horny or calcareous
disk on the back part of their foot. When
the animal draws into its shell, the disk ex-
actly fits the opening of the shell (see figure).
This closed door protects the snail from ene-
mies, such as insects and mice, and also pre-
vents water loss. The seal is so very effec-
tive, however, that even air is completely
excluded unless special provisions are made.
The pulmonates probably went from the
sea to fresh water and then to land. They
have no ready-made door and must build a
new one each time they wish to close the
aperture. During July and August large
brown land snails can be found in Chicago-
land woods around old logs and in leaf mold.
They are inactive and have retreated far into
their shells. Across the aperture is what
looks like a piece of cellophane. This is the
epiphragm, which serves the same functions
as the disk of the operculates. In relatively
moist regions (such as Chicago), it is very
thin and transparent. In drier regions, the
epiphragm is quite thick and opaque (see
figure). The snails are inactive over dry
periods, just as many mammals hibernate
over the cold winters.
The snail survives by restricting its activ-
ities to periods of extreme moisture and by
being quiescent through long droughts. Our
relatively impervious skin and internal wa-
ter-conserving devices enable us to be more
or less active regardless of the weather. To
maintain this activity requires constant ad-
dition of food and water, since even when
we are asleep, our body functions are oper-
ating at several hundred times the rate of a
dormant snail. Our increased activity is
maintained only by a lessened ability to go
without food and drink.
Snail and man survive and occupy their
respective ecological places in the world of
living things. Biologically, both are equally
"successful" organisms, if success is the same
as survival of the species. But man uses
different criteria to judge success in the liv-
ing world, although I'm certain that a snail
is totally unaware of such abstractions as
"progress," "beauty," "truth," or "culture."
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
June, 1958
Books
the work of later collectors. Orchids of Peru
is a part of the Flora of Peru now being pub-
lished by Chicago Natural History Museum.
ORCHIDS OF PERU (No. 1). By
Charles Schweinfurth. 260 pages, 45 illus-
trations. Published by Chicago Natural
History Museum, 1958. Bound in paper.
Price: until December 31, 1958 (if ordered
with future numbers), $4.00 postpaid;
after December 31, 1958 (or if the single
number is ordered currently), $4.50 post-
paid. No. 2 will probably be published in
1959. It is anticipated that the work will
consist of four numbers in all. A special
prepublication discount of 10% is offered
on orders for the full set placed before
December 31, 1958. Full sets bound in
heavy buckram may be made available at
approximately $2.00 additional.
Although the orchid flora of the Andes is
the richest in the world, no comprehensive
treatment commensurate with its beauty and
importance has been available until now,
when Chicago Natural History Museum has
undertaken the publication of Orchids of
Peru by Charles Schweinfurth, of which
No. 1 is off the press.
The book, expected to appear in four num-
bers when completed, will describe accurately
every species recorded from Peru. The dis-
tribution of the various species in Peru and
elsewhere is indicated, and all pertinent in-
formation is appended, especially in regard
to economically important orchids. Many
of the species are shown in line drawings.
The book is therefore useful to botanists,
horticulturists, and orchid lovers.
Thirty-five years of research and meticu-
lous scholarship have gone into preparation
of this book. It is the first detailed orchid
flora of any portion of the Andean region
and will, as such, provide a foundation for
similar studies for other Andean countries.
As a pioneering work, it will give a strong
impetus to studies of the largest family of
flowering plants.
The research on which this work is based
was done at the Orchid Herbarium of Oakes
Ames, which is housed in the Botanical
Museum of Harvard University. Charles
Schweinfurth, the author, who has been as-
sociated with this herbarium since 1915, is
now Research Fellow in Botany at Harvard
University and was for many years curator
of its herbarium. Since 1922 his major proj-
ect has been this work on orchids. The
beautiful line-drawings are the work of such
widely known botanical artists as Blanche
(Mrs. Oakes) Ames, Gordon W. Dillon,
Elmer W. Smith, Dorothy Marsh, and
Douglas E. Tibbitts.
The flora is arranged according to Schlech-
ter's system of classification, and the techni-
cal names are in accord with the International
Rules of Botanical Nomenclature. Schwein-
furth has critically evaluated the obscure
Ruiz and Pavon concepts and thus provided
a sound historical basis for consideration of
POPULAR DEITY IN JAVA
The stone sculpture shown above, exhib-
ited in Case 44 of Hall G (Peoples of the
Malay Peninsula and Indonesia), represents
Amitabha, the most popular Buddha of
Java or, in fact, of the whole Far East.
This Buddhistic deity, who was developed
in the first century of our era ; is regarded as
the personification of light. He is believed
to preside over a Paradise located in the
West, where, it is thought, his faithful vota-
ries will be reborn from lotus flowers to enjoy
a state of eternal bliss. For this reason he is
the most popular of Buddhas, and is con-
stantly invoked with prayers that express
the wish to be reborn in his paradise. Bud-
dhism developed out of Hinduism in India
and later spread to Indonesia with Indian
migrations.
The Museum has several of these stone
sculptures from Java. In character they go
back to origins in India and represent beings
belonging to Hindu and Buddhist religion
and mythology. Such sculptures are found
in many ancient stone structures, mostly in
ruins, scattered over central and eastern
Java, as at Borobodur. The Hindus appar-
ently arrived on the island shortly after the
beginning of the Christian era, but they did
not establish powerful states until the 7th or
8th century. They were overthrown by
Mohammedans in about the 16th century.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Howard Anderson, Flossmoor, 111.
— Indian artifacts
Department of Botany
From: Dr. Barbara F. Palser, Chicago —
105 herbarium specimens, 5 photographs
Department of Geology
From: National Confectioners Assn., Chi-
cago — a portable ultraviolet-light unit; Ed-
ward Olsen, Chicago — foshagite specimen,
Asbestos, Quebec
Department of Zoology
From: Mrs. Ruth Allchin, England —
8 nonmarine shells, Guatemala; Thomas C.
Barr, Jr., Lubbock, Tex. — a cave silphid
beetle, Tennessee; Eugene Dluhy, Chicago
— a butterfly, Indiana; Dr. H. M. Harris,
Ames, la. — 16 bugs of the family Antho-
coridae; Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt —
66 birdskins, 181 amphibians and reptiles;
Dr. Taiji Imamura, Mito, Japan — 25 slides
of water mites; Lester G. Rees, Chicago — a
Jagourundi cat, Mexico; Dr. F. Zumpt,
Johannesburg, South Africa — 100 slides of
parasitic mites
About 20,000 years (from 18,000 B.C.) of
the story of the American Indians, from
their arrival in the New World out of Asia
down to recent times, is covered by the ex-
hibits in seven halls of the Museum (Halls
4 to 10 inclusive).
NEW MEMBERS
(April 16 to May 15)
Life Members
A. Watson Armour III, Edwin C. Austin,
Mrs. James E. Baum, Dr. Sam S. Chrisos,
Col. Henry Crown, David W. Davidson,
Mrs. Burt J. Denman, Robert William Elich,
Ray P. Hoover, Glen A. Lloyd, Dr. Eleanor
I. Leslie, Franklin J. Lunding, Mrs. Cyrus
Mark, William A. Perry, Mrs. W. L. Phelps,
Dr. Albert L. Raymond, Mrs. Robert C.
Ross, James G. Shakman, Nathan M.
Sharpe, Louis L. Stephens, Bolton Sullivan,
James L. Taylor, Louis A. Wagner, Her-
bert P. Zimmerman
Associate Members
Joseph Allworthy, Mrs. Robert Gardner
Anderson, Edward H. Bennett, Jr., Valen-
tine H. Christmann, Carter H. Harrison,
Jr., Edwin E. Hokin, Peter Witherspoon
Otis, Paul S. Warren, John P. Wilson, Jr.,
William M. Witter
Sustaining Member
Robert C. Sale
Annual Members
Donald J. Addis, Mrs. Florence B. Ander-
son, M. R. Aronson, Roy E. Blomberg,
Herbert F. Bruning, D. E. Carmine, Wal-
ter W. Cruttenden, Jr., John F. Detmer,
William Elfenbaum, Thomas Erwin, Hol-
den K. Farrar, Paul Fellingham, Hermann
Frauen, Russell A. Graham, Edgar A. Jones,
Roger Kimber, M. D. King, Jr., Bertram Z.
Lee, E. C. McAllister, Martin McGowan,
Edwin R. Moore, Emil Noel, Hugh L. Ray,
Lon W. Ramsey, Dr. Frank E. Rubovits,
Milton S. Samuels, Tobias Schaden, John T.
Sherman, Louise Sonoda, Dr. Nels M.
Strandjord, Paul W. Stryck, R. E. Swenson,
C. G. Wright, Richard H. Wise, Harry M.
Ziv
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
CHICAGO
NATURAL*
HISTORY
MUSEUM
Suuetin
Vol. 29
4958
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
July, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair Wiluam H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Helen A. MacMinn Patricia McAfee
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
IN PURSUIT OF DARKNESS
By EUGENE S. RICHARDSON, Jr.
curator of fossil invertebrates
PERHAPS you think that the scientists
who work behind the scenes at the Mu-
seum are always seeking to cast light on their
special fields of natural history. Well, so we
are, but recently Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Cura-
tor of Fossil Reptiles, and I have been assid-
uously pursuing some darkness.
This came about because we are not chem-
ists, and we have not been able to persuade
a chemist to work on our particular problem.
The problem sounds simple: How black is
our black shale and how much variation is
there in its blackness?
The black shale in question is a thin bed
lying above Coal IIIA in Parke and Vermil-
lion counties, Indiana, and in the last several
years we have been endeavoring to learn
about the conditions under which it was de-
posited. Since it contains an unprecedented
number of exceedingly rare fossil sharks and
armored fishes, beautifully preserved, we
have been seeking to unravel the clues in
the shale that might tell us how these extra-
ordinary fishes came to live and to die where
we now find their remains.
One of the most obvious clues to the van-
ished environment lies in the composition of
the shale itself. It is black. The black is
due to heavy carbon compounds, bitumens,
derived from the partial decay of vegetation.
We have long noticed that in the blackest
layers are the most fossils, and we want to
be able to chart this in detail so that we can
say (if indeed this is so) that the quantity
of fossils and fossil debris in a given level is
in a definite proportion to the bitumen con-
tent of that level. If the proportion is defi-
nite, one conclusion may result regarding the
environment; if it is variable, another con-
clusion may be forced on us.
Although this determination is of consid-
erable interest and value in our work, it is
not one of the major points, and we felt that
we would not be justified in employing a
high-priced chemical laboratory to analyze
the bitumen content of the shale. Analysis
of a single sample would cost in excess of
$200 and we have more than a hundred
specimens to be determined. So we have
attempted to find our own answer.
The process has been long and perhaps
roundabout, and a play-by-play description
of it may serve to illustrate some of the prob-
lems that sometimes are behind an appar-
ently simple scientific statement.
FIRST STEP: WEIGHT LOSS
First we attempted to measure the loss of
weight when a sample of shale was ground to
a fine dust and then heated to a temperature
that would destroy the bitumens. The dif-
ference in weight before and after heating
should have told us how much organic mat-
ter had been present. But the results were
not encouraging, for the simple reason that
some of the clay minerals in the shale also
lost weight at the temperature we had to use.
We then tried dissolving the bitumens from
the finely ground shale, but found that none
of the available solvents would remove them.
So we abandoned the direct attack on the
bitumens.
It then occurred to us that we could meas-
ure the opaqueness of the shale to X-rays.
We knew from studying our X-ray pictures
of the fossils that the bitumen in the shale
was transparent to X-rays and the clay min-
erals were not. But on second thought we
had to abandon this method too. For we
remembered some chemical analyses that
had been made for us at the University of
Chicago that showed a notable amount of
heavy elements present in the shale. Now
the heavier an element is, the more opaque
to X-rays it is, and we had in the shale vari-
able amounts of such heavy atoms as ytter-
bium, tin, silver, and uranium. If the
amount were the same in all levels of the
shale, we could accept it as a constant with
respect to the bitumens, but it was not.
Farewell, then, to the X-rays. Could we
measure some other character of the shale
that might give us a value for the bitumen
content? We settled next on color and de-
cided that if we could measure the darkness
of the shale we would know its relative bitu-
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
The head of a carved wooden
figure from Africa is shown on our
cover. The figure is one of the ob-
jects selected for a special exhibit
"What Is Primitive Art?" that will
be on view in Stanley Field Hall
from July 1 to September 30 (see
page 3). This figure, which is 43
inches tall, was made and used
about 50 years ago by members of
one of the Cameroons tribes.
Probably it represented a female
ancestor of the person for whom
the carving was made and was
used as part of an ancestral shrine.
men content in the 35 levels that we were
investigating.
Thus began our search for darkness. We
attempted first to photograph a set of small
samples and to measure the relative density
of the resulting photographic negative in the
parts corresponding to each sample. But
we could not be sure that the lighting was
uniform, and in any case it was difficult to
distinguish enough shades of gray to make a
worthwhile chart.
At this point we discovered that the Mu-
seum's Division of Photography was using a
very sensitive photoelectric cell for measur-
ing the amount of light on the ground glass
of a camera — a device known as a Densi-
chron, which was lent to the Museum by
John Maurer of Chicago. We borrowed the
Densichron. Then it was necessary to ob-
tain a uniformly bright vertical source of
light. Again this was found in the Museum,
an Ultrapak illuminator used by the Divi-
sion of Insects for photographing microscopic
beetles. And again an important piece of
equipment was borne into the geology dark-
room.
Meanwhile it was necessary to prepare the
shale samples for examination. We could
not trust the random reflections that might
rise from a naturally broken surface of the
shale, so we ground our samples with a fine
carborundum powder on a plate-glass sur-
face, producing a set of about a hundred
small pieces of black shale with a uniform
matte surface. Next, it was necessary to
mount these samples so that they would lie
horizontally under the Ultrapak illuminator.
After several hours of manipulating, we
finally had them all fastened temporarily on
glass microscope slides, with the upper sur-
face of the shale measured exactly parallel
to the bottom of the slide.
REFLECTIONS MEASURED
Having mounted the photoelectric cell
above the Ultrapak, shielding it from ex-
traneous light with a camera bellows, we
(Continued on page 8, column 1)
July, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
"WHAT IS PRIMITIVE ART?" -ANSWER TOLD IN EXHIBIT
BY PHILLIP H. LEWIS
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF PRIMITIVE ART
A SPECIAL exhibit entitled "What is
Primitive Art?" will be shown in Stan-
ley Field Hall from July 1 until the end of
September. This exhibit will serve as an
introduction to the increasingly popular field
of primitive art by attempting to answer the
title question.
In addition the exhibit shows the scope
and quality of the huge art holdings of the
Museum. Civilized societies, such as China,
Egypt, and Rome, as well as the many
have neither purpose nor function. When-
ever it is possible to discover the meaning
of primitive art objects, it is clear that they
are useful. Therefore uselessness as a cri-
terion for art is completely wrong — it would
eliminate from consideration most of the art
of the world.
It is the peculiar way in which art objects
are made and used that points to an es-
sential quality of art. An ax must have
certain physical characteristics so that the
implement can be grasped, held, and manip-
ulated by human hands. A pottery vessel,
NEW GUINEA ART
Wooden bench carved by artists of tribe living on the banks of Sepik River.
primitive societies of the world are repre-
sented at the Museum. The great collections
from North and South America, the enor-
mous and excellent Melanesian collections,
the Malaysian collections, including that
from Madagascar, and the Cameroons and
Benin collections from Africa form an aggre-
gation of primitive art unequaled in most
museums of the world.
The exhibit defines art by comparing it
with non-art. It also shows the distribution
of the Museum's collections containing art,
compares primitive art with the art of
civilized societies, and deals with the dating
of primitive art objects.
Primitive art is the art that is made and
used by members of primitive societies. To
understand this answer to the question
"What is primitive art?" we must first de-
fine art (visual art, not music, literature, or
the dance) and then explain what is meant
by a primitive society.
ART ALWAYS HAS PURPOSE
An art object is first of all an artifact,
which means that it is a product of con-
scious human design. Art is produced only
by human beings — "chimpanzee art" not-
withstanding. As products of conscious and
deliberate design, art objects are therefore
purposefully made. Only in civilized so-
cieties can anyone pretend that art objects
to be used, must hold liquids and resist heat.
The design of an art object — the imposition
of physical form upon the material — is de-
termined by one factor. Art functions by
being seen.
Art, therefore, is, in part, a matter of
shapes and surfaces that present visually
apparent forms to human eyes. When such
art forms are seen, they can communicate
ideas, as in depicting real or supernatural
beings, in recording historical events, and
in commenting on real or imaginary happen-
ings of life. Decorative art embellishes
objects of everyday use, perhaps to bring
magic protection or power to such objects
by making visible to other men the fact that
the object has magic qualities.
ART DEFINED
Art is the conscious design or elaboration
of material objects that enables them to be
used primarily by visual perception. Visual
art has to be seen, and that necessity deter-
mines its form. Art objects must contrast
with their physical surroundings. Their
component lines, flat planes, solid volumes,
colors, and textures must be arranged into
rhythmic and harmonic compositions. These
are elements of which systems of visual art
have been made by all men in all known
times.
There can be varying degrees to which the
design of art objects succeeds. Craftsman-
ship and artistry vary among members of
all human societies, among primitive as well
as civilized ones. Thus there is good and
bad art, just as there are well-made and
poorly made tools. To make aesthetic
judgments of primitive art objects we are
faced with the considerable task of deter-
mining how well the visual design has suc-
ceeded in meeting the artist's intent, of
knowing how well the design conforms to the
traditional style, and, most important, of
knowing how well the object functions in
its social context.
Let us now consider the word "primitive"
as applied to art. It has come to mean
various things: an early period of art of
a civilized society, or the work of supposedly
naive artists who live in civilized societies, or
the art of non-European civilized peoples.
PRIMITIVE SOCIETY
In anthropological use the word "primi-
tive" refers to societies with a certain kind
of social organization and way of life. When
anthropologists speak of primitive societies
we mean that these societies are small, inti-
mate, isolated, self-contained, self-sufficient,
and homogeneous. They have no writing
and few or no political institutions. Primi-
tive societies are held together by bonds of
kinship and by the sharing of common tra-
ditions of thought and action. Specializa-
tion is rare in primitive societies. Except
for the fact that there is work for women
and for men and work for young and for
old, everyone does much what everyone
else does.
Artists in primitive societies stay at
home, often just a few feet from where they
were born. They work at their art when not
engaged in subsistence tasks. They often
work while being watched by other people,
who do not hesitate to direct the progress of
the work or to comment on what has been
done. The sharing of traditional thought
affects the primitive artist's treatment of his
subject matter. The natural and super-
natural environment that the artist pictures
in his world is known to all. The problem
of being original or different does not exist
for primitive artists, except as one to be
avoided. Everyone, including the artist,
knows what the art ought to look like, and
expects that it will indeed turn out that way.
ARTIST CONFORMS
The public for whom the primitive artist
works is often comprised of his own relatives.
He must meet their demands — they are his
own kinsmen and must be treated as such.
Revolt against a patron of art in a primitive
society would be the same as disobedience
of one's own father or uncle, who at the
same time might be a chief or clan leader.
The isolation of primitive societies is such
Page k
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
July, 1958
that outside influences rarely reach the
artist. The organization of primitive so-
cieties is such that, if such influences do
reach him, he probably would reject them.
Changes in art styles in primitive societies
thus proceed very slowly and by processes
that are not apparent to the people. When
strong foreign influences do intrude, they
disrupt much of the society's activities, in-
cluding the art. Under such circumstances,
change can occur rapidly.
A very important difference between the
art of primitive and of civilized societies is
in the attitude of the people towards the
idea of art. Only in civilized societies do
there arise elaborations of art schools, art
critics, art historians, art collectors, art
museums, and the like — all, of course, are
in addition to those almost forgotten crea-
tures, the artists themselves.
In primitive societies there are but two
divisions of artistic endeavor — the makers
and the users of art. It frequently happens
that one individual acts in both roles.
We can thus see that the differences be-
tween primitive art and the art of civilized
societies lie in the social and cultural back-
ground of the art and in the places of geo-
graphic origin. Such differences are not
readily apparent in the form of art objects.
The art of the world must be classified into
categories of the place of origin, kind of so-
ciety, and function. Then it will be possible
to deal more meaningfully with the familiar
categories of technique and form. It is
hoped that the exhibit "What is Primitive
Art?" will serve as a start in that direction.
ABUNDANCE OF ANIMALS DEFIES CALCULATION
KARL P. SCHMIDT FUND
COMMITTEE NAMED
The Karl P. Schmidt Fund (see March
1958 Bulletin) has completed its per-
manent organization and the selection of its
permanent committee, which includes Dr.
Alfred E. Emerson of the University of
Chicago, Harry G. Nelson of Roosevelt
University, and Dr. Theodor Just, Dr.
Rainer Zangerl, George I. Quimby, and
D. Dwight Davis of the Museum staff.
Dr. Robert F. Inger of the Museum staff
has been selected as permanent chairman.
The permanent committee has the re-
sponsibility of awarding grants to aid natu-
ralists who desire to visit Chicago Natural
History Museum for study. The committee
has turned over $4,900 to the Museum for
investment, but grants will be made at the
sole discretion of the committee.
To date approximately 300 persons and
a few institutions have contributed to the
fund in memory of the late Dr. Schmidt.
Noteworthy among the latter is a contri-
bution from the Institut des Pares Natio-
naux du Congo Beige.
Contributions in honor of Dr. Schmidt
may be addressed to The Karl P. Schmidt
Fund in care of the Museum.
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
I DOUBT that anyone has been bold
enough to guess how many individual
animals there are in the world. And if they
have, the total number would be so large as
to be meaningless. Not only mammals (ani-
mals in the vernacular) but fishes, frogs,
birds, worms, crabs, insects, sponges, jelly-
fish, starfish, and amoebas are animals, too.
And there are a great many more of those of
tiny or microscopic size than the few larger
ones we see in a day in the country. For ex-
ample, many millions of animals of various
sizes, and perhaps three times as many plants
have been estimated to live in the soil of an
acre of meadowland in the eastern United
States. In the sea, animal life is still richer.
In a quart of sea water, there may be one
million one-celled animals and plants, per-
haps one-quarter of them animals.
Among the protozoans, or one-celled ani-
mals, most of which are microscopic, is
Euglena, scarcely visible to the naked eye.
Yet it may be abundant enough to color the
water of a pond green. Other species can
tinge glaciers pink, cause red snow, and help
make sea water red. Other protozoans may
cause the phosphorescence that lights the
oceans's surface at night.
Tiny shelled-amoeba, such as foramini-
fera, are so abundant in the sea's surface
water that the shells of the dead animals
falling to the bottom have covered a large
part of the ocean depths with ooze. The
bulk of these shells that has accumulated
over the years is nowhere more apparent
than in the white cliffs of Dover and the
1,000-foot thick chalk deposits of Mississippi
and Georgia, which are composed entirely of
the remains of these creatures.
PARASITES BY THE BILLION
The abundance of microscopic one-celled
parasites is illustrated by the one that causes
malaria. It is introduced into the human
blood stream by a mosquito whose salivary
glands may contain 200,000 parasites. In a
man's blood they feed on the red blood cor-
puscles and multiply until there are 40,000
of them in a cubic millimeter (there are about
25 millimeters to an inch) of the victim's
blood (and a man has about five quarts of
blood). There is another protozoan of the
order Spirotricha that lives in the digestive
system of cows, and it is estimated there may
be as many as 50 billion of them in a single
animal.
Sponges do not seem so impressive in den-
sity of population. But an interesting nu-
merical note is sounded by the numbers of
other animals that lived in the crevices and
canals of one sponge, about a yard across,
that came from Florida waters. It harbored
some 17,120 other animals, including a num-
ber of fishes.
Perhaps none of the living animals are
quite as impressive in their massed abun-
dance (aggregate bulk) as the coral (Coelen-
terates, relatives of jellyfish and sea anem-
ones). This is seen in the reefs they build
— coral reefs that are composed of the living
skeletons of certain small kinds of polyps,
as this type of coelenterates is called. The
most famous reef of this sort is the Great
Barrier Reef of Australia that stretches for
more than 1,000 miles along the east coast
of Australia and extends scores of miles off
shore in places. On the west coast of Mada-
gascar is another, where I've sailed for days
JELLY FISH, HYDRAS, CORALS, ETC.
Px*u,.. COEIENTERATA
CORALS AND THEIR RELATIVES
One of the panels in "Synopsis of the Animal King-
dom." Tiny coral animals may be so abundant that
their skeletons form reefs extending a thousand
miles, as in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, a
section of which is shown in the exhibit.
inside the reef. The reef-building corals are
all inhabitants of warm, shallow seas, and it
is off our Carolina coast, in Bermuda, that
the farthest north of these reefs exist.
Some worm-like animals of diverse sorts
are parasitic and have a tremendous repro-
ductive potential: a liver fluke may produce
a half-million eggs; a large female round-
worm that parasites humans may contain
27 million eggs. The complicated life his-
tories of some of these parasites, with trans-
fers from host to host and development in
more than one kind of animal, undoubtedly
result in the loss of most of them. But that
they can still be very numerous is indicated
by a species of roundworm which exists at
one stage in swine; an ounce of heavily in-
fected sausage may contain 100,000 of their
encysted larvae. The minute free-living
roundworms of the soil may reach 3 billion
in the upper part of an acre of ground.
The most familiar of the worm-like ani-
mals is probably the earthworm, which may
July, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
exist in tens of thousands to the acre, and
whose activities in loosening and fertilizing
the soil may improve its crop potentialities
greatly. Among the arthropods, the insects
on the land and various crustaceans in the
sea are obviously abundant. You only have
to think of the swarms of mosquitoes that
rise as you walk through a swamp, the fire-
flies that rise from a field of ripening wheat
on a summer evening, the lacewings feebly
fluttering above an alfalfa field like a shim-
mering mist at sunset, the swarms of flying
ants, or of the grasshoppers (or locusts) that
devastate crops in eastern Asia or in our
American west.
In California in winter, two people can
collect 50 to 100 pounds of massed hibernat-
ing ladybird beetles in a day — a collection
that would probably contain 1 to 2}4 million
ladybirds. A hive of bees in summer may
contain 60,000 bees. It may be necessary to
unwind 25,000 cocoons to get one pound of
silk thread.
NUMBERLESS CRUSTACEANS
On some tropical mud beaches, and in
mangrove swamps the crabs may be the con-
spicuous and common animals in sight. But
the crustaceans of the plankton in the open
ocean are in more enormous numbers. The
copeopods, that feed on microscopic floating
plants and are themselves only a small frac-
tion of an inch long, are so abundant that
the whalebone whale (which may reach a
length of 100 feet) feeds on them, straining
them out of the water with its baleen-fringed
mouth. It is said that two tons of tiny
copeopods were found in the stomach of a
large blue whale.
Mollusks may lie side by side on a shallow
sea bottom or buried in the bottom. On
some Florida west coast beaches, if you make
a scratch in the sand where the waves are
breaking, the little coquina clams will simply
pour out into the retreating wave. On the
bottom of the North Sea there are miles of
banks where 1,000 to 8,000 bivalve mollusks
per square yard are estimated. On oyster
beds as many as 400 to 500 million oysters
have been harvested annually from a bay
with an area of about 60 square miles. In
the stomach of a fish about 35,000 small
snails have been found. *
The echinoderms are of moderate size, so
one wouldn't expect the great numbers you
find in smaller animals. But crinoids (sea-
lilies) are common enough that a dredge has
brought up, in one haul, 10,000 of them, and
the brittle stars are sometimes as abundant
as 18 to the square foot in some places on
the ocean bottoms.
The fishes are probably the most numer-
ous vertebrates. Standing on a Lake Mich-
igan pier I've seen the emerald shiner pass in
what seemed endless schools. Perhaps no
fishes in the sea are caught in such numbers
as the herring. One fishing boat may catch
a million in a day. In northern and western
Europe an estimated 7 l A billion herring have
been taken in a year.
Mammals are sometimes extremely con-
spicuous parts of the scenery as were the big
game animals of the east African savannas.
In America the herds of bison were once im-
pressive. Now, especially in our western
parks, herds of elk and in a few places bison
can still be seen. But it is the smaller mam-
mals that are-actually more common. Red-
backed mice of the spruce and pine forests
have been estimated at 16,000 per square
mile; and meadow mice at 70,000 per square
mile.
SEVEN BILLION BIRDS IN U.S.
There are places in North America where
water fowl congregate, and it is possible to
see a million birds at once on the California
wintering grounds, or the great Bear Lake
marshes. But over much of our country the
breeding bird population is only about two
pair of birds per acre or perhaps 7 billion
birds in the United States. By contrast
there are only between two and three dozen
whooping cranes left alive, and probably be-
tween 1,000 and 2,000 trumpeter swans.
I've tried to refrain from hyperbole, from
adjectives which would lose their force by
repetition in writing of animal numbers.
When we discuss the actual numbers of mi-
croscopic and very small animals they are so
great that their numbers actually surpass
those of the leaves of the trees, of the blades
of grass, and perhaps of the grains of sand.
As a general rule we can say that small ani-
mals tend to be more abundant than large
ones. Space and food that can support one
cow will support six sheep, many more rab-
bits, still more meadow mice, and still more
grasshoppers along with still smaller things
such as angleworms, roundworms, and pro-
tozoans in the soil. Predators must be less
common than their prey species and are usu-
ally larger, as robins are larger than angle-
worms, or foxes than mice. Internal para-
sites are obviously smaller than their hosts,
and often very much smaller as well as very
much more numerous.
When we go into the countryside near Chi-
cago, the plants, the grasses, and the trees
are the obviously abundant living things, no
matter how common swarming black birds,
grasshoppers or mosquitoes may be. How
different it is on a coral reef. In these beau-
tiful sea gardens the corals form the substra-
tum, with sponges, crustaceans, and fishes
everywhere. Nowhere on the globe is ani-
mal life more obviously abundant.
In closing, let us remember that an acre of
meadow may have a total population of ani-
mals, of various kinds and mostly very small,
much more numerous than the human popu-
lation of Chicago.
RADAR MAY BECOME
BIRD-STUDY TOOL
The "spurious echoes" now called "angels"
that began to plague the operators of radar
sets as they became more powerful are now
regarded as caused by birds. This was first
demonstrated in 1941 in Britain, but most
physicists continued to believe that "clouds
of ions" were responsible. Security consid-
erations restricted the exchange of informa-
tion for some years. The facts have been
rediscovered independently several times
during the past few years, in Britain and
Switzerland, and the evidence seems incon-
trovertible.
The use of radar equipment as a new tool
for studying bird migration opens wonderful
new vistas. Where knowledge of actual vol-
ume, height, direction, and speed of night
migration has been limited to observations
through telescopes trained on the moon or
to deductions from deaths at radio towers,
we may now get data from ornithologists
watching migration on radar tubes.
Ibis, 1958
STAFF NOTES
If your Museum visit coincides with
lunchtime, don't forget there is a cafeteria,
open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
An honorary degree of doctor of laws was
conferred on Dr. Clifford C. Gregg, Di-
rector, on June 6 by the University of Cin-
cinnati (of which he is a graduate). . . . Dr.
Sharat K. Roy, Chief Curator of Geology,
who since last September has been conduct-
ing a research project on meteorite collec-
tions in foreign museums, under the joint
auspices of the National Science Foundation
and the Museum, has completed his work
in London, Paris, and Calcutta. He will
next proceed to Vienna, Frankfort, and
Helsinki, and possibly to Moscow and
Leningrad. . . . Henry S. Dybas, Associate
Curator of Insects, is engaged in field work
in southern Illinois. . . . Dr. Alan Solem,
Assistant Curator of Lower Invertebrates,
has begun a survey of collections in mid-
western museums. . . . Dr. Robert H. Deni-
son, Curator of Fossil Fishes, recently lec-
tured at a seminar on evolution at the Uni-
versity of Illinois and also at a seminar on
paleoecology at the University of Chicago.
. . . William D. Turnbull, Assistant Cu-
rator of Fossil Mammals, recently lectured
at the University of Illinois. . . . D. Dwight
Davis, Curator of Vertebrate Anatomy,
Philip Hershkovitz, Curator of Mammals,
and Miss Sophie Andris, Osteologist, at-
tended the annual meeting of the American
Society of Mammalogists in Tucson, Ari-
zona. ... J. Francis Macbride, Curator
of Peruvian Botany, was made an Honorary
Professor of the University of San Marcos
during the recent South American Botanical
Congress in Lima, Peru. . . . D. S. Rabor,
Field Associate in Zoology, has been named
Associate in the Division of Birds.
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
July, 1958
MASTODONS AND MEN IN THE UPPER GREAT LAKES AREA
By GEORGE I. QUIMBY
CURATOR OF NORTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY
AND ETHNOLOGY
WHO were the first settlers of the
Upper Great Lakes region? At the
present time direct archaeological evidence
is lacking. Nevertheless, as will be shown
subsequently, a good circumstantial case can
be constructed by using evidence from fields
of natural history.
The first settlers in the Upper Great
Lakes area probably were the Paleo-Indians
are fluted on both faces, but some are fluted
on only one face. Generally the basal parts of
fluted points have been dulled and smoothed
by some sort of grinding.
USED TO HUNT MAMMOTHS
In the West, Clovis fluted points were used
by Paleo-Indians who hunted mammoths
(elephants) that lived in the lush grasslands
that prevailed long ago in that region. There
is some evidence indicating that the western
Clovis points belong to a period older than
Maps by G-stai Dalstrom
CHANGING ENVIRONMENT OF PALEO-INDIANS
Upper left: region at about 10,000 B.C. during retreat of glacier and at end of Glenwood stage of glacial Lake
Chicago. Upper right: region at about 9500 B.C. during retreat of glacier and Bowmanville low-water stage.
Lower left: region at about 9000 B.C. during advance of glacier and the Calumet stage of glacial Lake Chicago.
Lower right: region from about 8000 B.C. to 7000 B.C. during glacial Lake Algonquin.
who hunted mastodons and used spears
pointed with fluted blades of chipped stone.
Fluted points are unique and easily recog-
nized because they have longitudinal grooves
or channels. There are several varieties of
fluted points.
Clovis fluted points are the type most
commonly found in the Upper Great Lakes
region. They are lanceolate points with par-
allel or slightly convex sides and concave
bases. They range in length from one and
one-half to about six inches. The longitudi-
nal flutes or grooves sometimes extend al-
most the full length of the point but usually
no more than half-way from base to tip. The
flutes are most often produced by the re-
moval of multiple flakes. Most Clovis points
8000 B.C., and many archaeologists have as-
sumed that the fluted points found in the
eastern half of North America are as old as
those found in the West.
Although large numbers of fluted points
have been found in the eastern portions of
the United States, there are very few known
sites and these have not yet been radio-
carbon-dated.
Upwards of 200 fluted points have been
found in the Upper Great Lakes region. Un-
fortunately no sites attributable to the Paleo-
Indians who used these points have been
discovered so far. All of these points were
surface finds.
Fortunately the distribution of these fluted
points and the specific places they were found
can be related to radiocarbon-dated geolog-
ical events in such a way as to provide a
generally dated period during which the
Paleo-Indian makers of these fluted points
lived.
For instance, where certain areas were cov-
ered by glacial ice or by waters of a glacial
lake, they were inaccessible to Paleo-Indians.
These first settlers could only have lived
and hunted in regions available to them.
Local areas of the Upper Great Lakes did
become available to these Paleo-Indians as
the ice retreated and the glacial lake waters
receded. And by knowing where these first
Paleo-Indians were and were not, it is pos-
sible to estimate the period during which
they lived and hunted in the region.
AFTER 10,000 B.C.
Fluted points have never been found in
Michigan north of the Port Huron Moraine,
a system of glacial deposits that indicates the
front of the glacial ice as late as about 10,000
B.C. So the Paleo-Indians who used fluted
points could have been and presumably were
inhabiting available areas south of the glacial
ice at this time.
Some fluted points have been found in
places on an old bed (Glenwood stage) of
glacial Lake Chicago that was in existence
until about 10,000 B.C. Therefore these par-
ticular points were left there some time after
10,000 B.C.
Other fluted points have been found in
Wisconsin north of the southern limits of
Valders till, reddish clay glacial deposits that
were left by melting ice about 9000 B.C.
These points could not have been placed
where they were found until some time after
BIG GAME OF EARLY HUNTERS
Mastodons, now long extinct, were contemporary
with Upper Great Lakes Paleo-Indians and undoubt-
edly were hunted by the early tribesmen. The photo-
graph shows a restoration in a mural painting by
Charles R. Knight. It is one of a series in Ernest R.
Graham Hall of Historical Geology (Hall 38t.
the retreat of the Valders glacier. There-
fore they date from a time later than about
9000 B.C.
One fluted point was found on an old bed
(Calumet stage) of glacial Lake Chicago that
July, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
was coeval with the Valders glacier of 9000
B.C. This point, therefore, would have
reached the spot where it was found some
time after about 9000 B.C.
Some fluted points found on the old bed
of later Lake Oshkosh, a glacial lake in Wis-
consin formed by the retreating Valders gla-
cier, must have been deposited after about
8500 B.C., the approximate terminal date of
later Lake Oshkosh.
No fluted points have been found on the
old bed of glacial Lake Algonquin, but fluted
points have been found on the landward side
CHICAGO-AREA ARTIFACT
Fluted spearpoint of chipped flint from Great Lakes
area near site of Chicago. The point is probably
more than 9,000 years old. It is two and one-quarter
inches long and typical of its genre.
of fossil beaches of this glacial lake. Since
the Lake Algonquin stage was terminated
about 7500 or 7000 B.C., fluted points must
be earlier than this date.
ERA OF MASTODONS
The distribution of these fluted points and
their relationships to radiocarbon-dated geo-
logical events as well as evidence gleaned
elsewhere, indicates that the Paleo-Indians
who used fluted points were in the Upper
Great Lakes region in the period from about
10,000 B.C. to about 7500 or 7000 B.C. This
is also the period in which mastodons were
most abundant in the region.
Mastodons, like mammoths, were mem-
bers of the elephant family and are now ex-
tinct. Those in the Upper Great Lakes area
were similar in size and appearance to mod-
ern Indian elephants but lower and longer
in relative proportions, and probably were
hairy. Mastodons, unlike mammoths, were
browsers. They ate leaves, stems, and twigs.
They lived in forests and seem to have been
most concentrated around swamps and the
lowland areas near streams, rivers, and lakes.
The distribution of mastodon remains in
the Upper Great Lakes Area indicates that
they are all more recent than the maximum
of the last glacial period. Some mastodon
remains have been found in deposits on top
of an old lake bed (Glenwood stage) of gla-
cial Lake Chicago that was abandoned about
10,000 B.C. Such mastodon remains, being
in place on top of the old lake bed, must date
from a period more recent than 10,000 B.C.
Other mastodon remains have been found
on top of a later bed of glacial Lake Chicago
(Calumet stage) that was abandoned slightly
after 9000 B.C. These particular mastodon
remains, therefore, must represent masto-
dons that were living some time after 9000
B.C.
FOSSILS RADIOCARBON-DATED
Three fossil mastodons found in or near
the Upper Great Lakes region have been
radiocarbon-dated by the University of
Michigan. One of these found in Noble
County, Indiana, had a radiocarbon date of
10,676 B.C., another from Madison County,
Ohio, has a date of 7645 B.C., and one from
Lenawee County, Michigan, had a radio-
carbon date of 7613 B.C.
Thus the evidence from distribution and
geological situation as well as radiocarbon
dates shows that mastodons lived in the Up-
per Great Lakes region during the period
from about 10,000 B.C. to 7500 B.C. or 7000
B.C., the same period during which lived the
Paleo-Indians who used fluted points.
Despite the lack of direct evidence, these
Paleo-Indians who used fluted points must
have been elephant (mastodon) hunters.
The western Paleo-Indians who used fluted
points were elephant (mammoth) hunters
par excellence and it seems inconceivable
that similar Paleo-Indians dwelling in the
Upper Great Lakes during the time of the
mastodons would not also be elephant hunt-
ers. Consequently it looks as if the first
settlers of the Upper Great Lakes, the Paleo-
Indians who used fluted points, were masto-
don hunters.
These Paleo-Indians made their living by
hunting. Among the animals available to
them were not only the mastodons but also
the giant beavers, deer, elk, and caribou.
NOMADIC TRIBES
The first settlers of the Upper Great Lakes
were nomadic by necessity. In order to ob-
tain food, shelter, and clothing by hunting,
they would have had to range over wide
areas of the region. Their shelters probably
were made of sapling poles covered with bark
or skins. They wore clothing made of ani-
mal skins and made tools and weapons of
chipped stone and probably bone and wood.
Nothing is yet known of their burial customs
or of their physical appearance because no
skeletal remains have been found.
What is known of their culture and habitat
suggests that these Paleo-Indians were soci-
ally organized in small bands and that polit-
ical and religious institutions were lacking.
Probably they possessed simple religious
ideas based upon awe of nature, attempts
to control their luck in hunting, and philo-
sophical adjustment to their habitat.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
At the time these Paleo-Indians lived in
the Upper Great Lakes region the environ-
ment was much different from what it has
been in recent times. A large continental-
type glacier was present in the region
throughout the period. This glacier, in re-
treat at about 10,000 B.C., advanced south-
ward at about 9000 B.C. and then retreated
northward leaving the northeast shore of
Lake Superior about 7000 B.C.
The Lake Michigan and Lake Huron ba-
sins at first had high water-levels. In the
Lake Michigan basin the surface water was
60 feet above its present level. With retreat
of the glacier, low eastern outlets became
available and the water levels in the lake
basins were lowered some hundreds of feet
by drainage. Then with the advance of the
glacier and the subsequent closing of the low
eastern outlets by ice, the water levels rose
again. In the Lake Michigan basin the sur-
face water stood 40 feet above its present
level. During the final retreat of the glacier
the surface water-levels in the Huron and
Michigan basins became stabilized for a long
time at a level 25 feet above the present one.
The climate was colder and moister than
that of modern times. The forests were
dominated by spruce and fir trees. The ani-
mals that lived in the forests included the
mastodons, giant beavers, deer, elk, and
caribou. In the Lake Huron basin there
seemed to have been whales and walruses,
probably in very small numbers.
ADVENT OF WARMER CLIMATE
By the end of the period, about 7000 B.C.,
the climate was getting warmer. The con-
tinental glacier was retreating rapidly and
the spruce-fir forest was waning as pine trees
advanced their hold over the land. The
mastodons were disappearing, too, either
becoming extinct or moving northward in
decreased numbers.
With the disappearance of the spruce-fir
forests and mastodons, fluted points also
disappeared. Perhaps some of the Paleo-
Indians who used fluted points went north-
ward following the spruce-fir forest and the
dwindling supply of mastodons. Others re-
maining in their old areas underwent cul-
tural change in response to changes of habitat
and the arrival of other Paleo-Indians with
a different technological tradition.
Whatever the cause, the cultural stage
based on fluted points, mastodons, and
spruce-fir forest ended by about 7000 B.C.
and was succeeded by the Aqua-Piano cul-
tural stage of Paleo-Indians in the Upper
Great Lakes region.
De-salting Nasal Gland
The nasal gland of cormorants acts as an
accessory kidney, and is important in excret-
ing salt from the body, according to ex-
perimenters from Duke University. This
function of the gland in birds is unique
among higher vertebrates. It may be an
adaptation for cormorants living on the edge
of the sea, where they are said to drink salt
water.
— American Journal of Physiology, 1958
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
July, 1958
2 LECTURE-TOURS DAILY
IN JULY AND AUGUST
Morning guide-lecture tours, as well as the
usual daily afternoon tours, will be given
during July and August. There will be no
tours on Saturdays or Sundays (or on July 4) ,
but the Museum will welcome visitors on
those days during the regular hours, 9 a.m.
to 6 P.M.
The morning tours, at 11 o'clock, will be
devoted, except on Thursdays, to the exhib-
its of a single department. All the afternoon
tours, at 2 o'clock, and also the 11 o'clock
tour on Thursday mornings, will include out-
standing exhibits in all departments. Lec-
turers of the Raymond Foundation staff con-
duct the tours. Following is the schedule for
each week during July and August:
Mondays: 11 a.m. — The World of Plants
2 p.m. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Tuesdays: 11 A.M. — The Earth's Story
2 P.M. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Wednesdays: 11 A.M.— The Animal King-
dom
2 P.M. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Thursdays: 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. — Highlights
of the Exhibits
Fridays: 11 a.m. — People and Places
2 p.m. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Museum a Summer Spot
for All Children
With the closing on June 27 of Chicago
public schools, the Museum issued its annual
invitation to children and parents to use its
facilities during the long summer vacation.
Dr. Clifford C. Gregg, Director, calls the
attention of fathers and mothers to the
Museum as a safe, cool, and absorbingly in-
teresting haven where children may visit for
a few hours or for a whole day.
The forty-nine large exhibition halls offer
a world to discover and explore. Indians,
dinosaurs, strange animals and plants, mum-
mies, and countless other things provide end-
less adventure for active minds. Admission
to the Museum is always free to children,
and there is ample material to occupy them
for as many Museum visits as they can make.
PURSUIT OF DARKNESS-
(Continued from page 2)
then measured and recorded the amount of
reflection of the standard illumination from
the various prepared surfaces. This was
somewhat complicated by casual variations
in the city electrical voltage and by a fairly
rapid "aging" of the light bulb in the Ultra-
pak when it was freshly installed. But by
adjusting the light meter and by frequently
referring to a block of standard blackness,
we finally developed a chart of the darkness
of the shale.
As we expected, the darkness is significant.
We are still exploring the conclusions that
may be drawn from comparing it with the
amount of fossil debris in our many levels
of black shale, but we have come to some
tentative conclusions that promise to be very
helpful. Using the darkness curve in com-
bination with other data that we have ac-
cumulated in the laboratory and in the field,
we think that it may be possible to say how
long it took to deposit the shale, when there
were periods of high and of low water, and
what the biological condition of the muddy
sea-bottom may have been at various times
during the deposition.
In this case, we feel that a search for dark-
ness has helped us to cast some light on a
difficult aspect of our total problem.
NEW MEMBERS
(May 16 to June 15)
Life Members
Tappan Gregory, Mrs. Frank P. Hixon,
Lester B. Knight
Associate Members
John D. Andersen, Dr. Robert W. Carton,
Clarence T. Gregg, Mrs. Robert Hixon,
George S. Isham, Mrs. Edward Boylston
Lanman, Creighton S. Miller, Edward A.
Mosher, Dr. Paul J. Patchen, Alfred B.
Solomon, Dr. Sol Tax, Dr. John T. Wegrzyn,
Mrs. Ernest B. Zeisler, Russell A. Zimmer-
mann
Sustaining Member
Eric Bender
Annual Members
Varian B. Adams, Eugene M. Adler, Miss
Lilace Reid Barnes, Charles J. Barnhill,
Carl J. Bohne, Jr., Leonard R. Capuli, Ray-
mond W. Clifton, E. T. Collinsworth, Jr.,
Charles M. Fallon, Norman E. Heyne,
Ralph Holmes, Miss Martha Imes, William
E. James, James H. Jarrell, Ernest L.
Johnson, Karl S. Kiszely, Jr., Henry B.
Kreer, Glen E. Massnick, Andrew McNally
III, Clarence Mohr, Mrs. F. M. O'Callag-
han, O. Earl Palmer, A. B. Rand, Norbert
G. Rennicke, George S. Rieg, Owen Rogers,
Frank B. Sanders, Elroy C. Sandquist, Jr.,
Percy Sawyer, Gilbert H. Scribner, Jr.,
Charles M. Stafford, A. O. Turek, A. W.
Vaughan, Jr., Mrs. Willoughby G. Walling,
John Wielgus, Grant H. Wier, Albert D.
Williams, George H. White, Philip J. Wood
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: H. Otley Beyer, Manila — stone
implements, Philippine Islands; E. D. Hes-
ter, Chicago — 3 stone implements; Dr. Fred
Eggan and E. D. Hester, Chicago — sherds,
Thailand; E. J. Grumbecker, Chicago —
modern Japanese sword and sheath, Japan
Department of Botany
From: Holly Reed Bennett, Chicago— 230
MOVIES FOR CHILDREN
ON 6 THURSDAYS
Children are invited to six free programs
of color motion-pictures to be presented by
Raymond Foundation in James Simpson
Theatre of the Museum on six Thursday
mornings in July and August. The series
will open on July 10. There will be two
showings of each program, the first at 10
and the second at 11 or 11:15 (see schedule
below). No tickets are needed. Children
may come alone, accompanied by parents or
other adults, or in organized groups. Fol-
lowing are the dates and titles:
July 10 — The Living Desert
(10 and 11:15 a.m.)
One of Disney's "True-Life Adventure"
movies (repeated by request)
July 17 — SlNBAD THE SAILOR
(10 and 11 a.m.)
The adventures of Sinbad, the beggar boy
of Baghdad
Also a cartoon
July 24 — Dumbo (10 and 11:15 a.m.)
Disney's story of a baby circus-elephant
(repeated by request)
July 31 — Bear Country (10 and 11 a.m.)
One of Disney's "True-Life Adventure"
movies (repeated by request)
Also a cartoon
August 7 — A Trip to the Moon
(for older children)
(10 and 11:15 a.m.)
Also a cartoon
August 14 — Vacation Special
(10 and 11 a.m.)
Vacation fun in your own backyard and in
the wilderness
Also a cartoon
phanerogams, Montana; Florida State Uni-
versity, Tallahassee — 40 phanerogams; Dr.
E. E. Sherff, Hastings, Mich. — 33 phanero-
gams, Hawaii, and 32 herbarium specimens,
Arkansas; Dr. Alfred Traverse, Houston,
Texas — 313 phanerogams
Department of Zoology
From: C. E. Dawson, Wadmalaw Id., S. C.
— one sea-snake, Persian Gulf; Sgt. Edward
Fobes, Chicago — collection of marine shells;
Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt — 80 mam-
mals; A. Lindar, Chicago — 2 landsnails,
Haiti; J. I. Menzies, London — 77 frogs,
Sierra Leone; Dr. William W. Milstead,
Lubbock, Texas — 23 frogs, Brazil and Ar-
gentina; Dr. Jeanne S. Schwengel, Scarsdale,
N. Y. — collection of shells; Miss Nancy
Traylor, Winnetka, 111. — cottontail rabbit;
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Brunswick,
Ga. — 2 fish specimens; Vernon L. Wesby,
Chicago — a fish specimen, Alaska
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
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CHICAGO
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Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
August, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Su au at K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Patricia McAfee
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
SUCCESS IN LOVE AND WAR
ATTRIBUTED TO MAGIC
An abiding faith in the efficacy of charms
— for success in love, in war, in curing
afflictions, even in thievery — is held by one
of the peoples who inhabit the Gazelle Pen-
insula of New Britain, in Melanesia (South
Pacific area near New Guinea). An exhibit
of these strange devices to which are at-
tributed magical powers is in Hall A (Case
71), a hall that houses the world's most
comprehensive collections representing the
cultures of Melanesia. Among the most
elaborate of these charms are the thieves'
amulets, which, when waved back and forth
over a victim, are supposed to put him in
a sleep so deep that the thief can steal with
ease whatever he desires. The thieves of
Gazelle Peninsula must have great faith in
these amulets, for they spend much time
in designing and making them. The handle
is of wood, often with a pig's jaw attached,
over which a mass of mashed Parinarium
nuts, modeled to represent a grotesque face,
is placed.
One form of love charm for men is a girdle
made of shell disks, Nassarius shells, and
teeth of a small marsupial something like
an opposum joined on wide belts and grass
ropes. The effectiveness of these charms
upon women is believed to vary with the
arrangement of the various parts, which
leads to much experimentation in design.
Furthermore, the wearing of several different
kinds of these girdles at one time is thought
to increase their very powerful effect in
gaining the affections of a woman. The
truly smitten swain, therefore, will appear
heavily burdened with a multiplicity of
girdles, and the state of his mind and heart
will be recognized by everyone. Love being
a major concern of the makers of charms,
other kinds are also used. One, particularly
favored by young men, is a hair ornament
of nautilus shell, which, when well oiled
before being placed upon the head, is
believed to be almost irresistible to members
of the fair sex.
Another charm of interest is a flaxy-
looking wig, which, instead of making its
wearer conspicuous as one would suppose,
is believed to make him invisible and there-
fore is considered valuable in making a sneak
approach upon an enemy to do violence or
for kidnaping. The Museum exhibit in-
cludes also charms to prevent or cure
disease, to protect one in war, and to imbue
the wearer with both courage and strength.
NEW PHOTO EXHIBIT TELLS
STORY OF LIFE IN IRAN
"Impressions of Iran," a special exhibit of
photographs of Iranian life, architecture,
and landscapes, will be displayed on the
'THE PORCH OF XERXES'
Winged and bearded figure, half man and half beast,
carved in stone at Persepolis. One of the photo'
graphs in "Impressions of Iran" by Joseph Kostal.
The special exhibit will be shown through Sept. 1.
ground floor of the Museum in Hall K (Hall
of Babylonia) through Labor Day (Septem-
ber 1). The 45 black-and-white scenes are
from the private collection of the photog-
THIS MONTH'S COVER-
Can you identify the clay figu-
rines shown on our cover? If you
think they look rather old, you are
on the right track. But where are
they from? Egypt, or ancient
Mesopotamia? ... or China, or the
cliff-d welling region of Arizona?
No, they are not from any of these
places. They were made by the
Chupicuaro Indians of Mexico
about 500 B.C. These people lived
in the southern part of the present
state of Guanajuato during the
Archaic or Formative period. These
and other pottery figurines are
displayed in a newly installed ex-
hibit in Hall 8 (Ancient and Mod-
ern Indians of Mexico and Central
America). It is thought that the
figurines were used in family
shrines and were connected with
fertility rituals.
rapher, Joseph Kostal, who took the pic-
tures while living in Iran from 1936 to 1957.
The collection includes a variety of subject
matter which ranges from sensitively han-
dled portraits of native Iranians to Persian
rug-weavers, street scenes, and ancient Per-
sian and modern Iranian architecture. Isfa-
han, one of the most beautiful cities in Iran,
and Persepolis, one of the world's oldest
cities, are featured. Mr. Kostal's architec-
tural photographs show clearly the detailed
decoration of the buildings.
Mr. Kostal, a Czechoslovakian by descent,
now lives in New Jersey. His work has been
displayed in Europe and the Middle East,
as well as in various cities in the United
States.
CURATOR TO COLLECT
OCEANIC FISHES
Additions to the Museum's collections of
deep-water fishes from offshore areas of the
Tropical Atlantic will be sought by Loren P.
Woods, Curator of Fishes, on a cruise aboard
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service motor
vessel Oregon. Woods will fly to Trinidad
early in August and there board the ship.
He will sail along the coasts of the Guianas
where the crew of the Oregon will be trawling.
The cruise will then continue to the eastern
or outer edges of the Lesser Antilles to the
Virgin Islands, and finally to San Juan,
Puerto Rico, whence Woods will fly back to
Chicago late in September. The mission of
the Oregon personnel is a search for new
shrimp and groundfish beds and tuna schools.
This is the 52nd exploratory cruise of the
Oregon and the sixth cruise since 1951 in
which Curator Woods has participated on
behalf of the Museum.
August, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
FROM OUTER SPACE?-ORIGIN OF TEKTITES IS A MYSTERY
By ALBERT W. FORSLEV
ASSOCIATE CURATOR, MINERALOGY AND PETROLOGY
EVENTS of recent months have focused
considerable scientific interest on the
behavior of objects entering the earth's at-
mosphere from outer space. Scientists have
concentrated on the study of extraterrestrial
material known to have landed on our planet.
There can be no doubt that meteorites are of
cosmic origin since they have been observed
to fall from time to time and are commonly
picked up on radar screens. Study of the
surface, shape, and composition of meteo-
rites has afforded valuable information to
the scientists and engineers engaged in de-
signing rockets, missiles, and artificial sat-
ellites.
Meteorites are generally classified accord-
ing to their composition; thus we have iron,
iron-stone, and stone meteorites. Another
class of objects that many people believe also
to be meteoritic in origin is the tektites.
These are small pieces of silica-rich glass
found in widely scattered parts of the world.
Whether or not they are cosmic in origin is
still highly problematical since no one has
ever seen them fall and there is evidence fa-
voring both a cosmic and a terrestrial origin.
Tektites have been found in southern Aus-
tralia, Czechoslovakia, the Ivory Coast,
Java, the Libyan Desert, the Philippine Is-
lands, and Texas. Specimens from most of
these localities are in the collection of Chi-
cago Natural History Museum and a collec-
tion of 200 Philippine tektites has recently
been donated to the Museum by Prof. H.
Otley Beyer of the University of the Philip-
pines. According to Prof. Beyer this collec-
tion is the best representation of Philippine
tektites yet deposited in an institution out-
side the Philippines with the exception of the
Koenigswald collection at the University of
Utrecht in Holland. It is planned to exhibit
these tektites in Clarence Buckingham Hall
(Moon, Meteorites, and Minerals — Hall 35),
which is presently being reinstalled.
Tektites occur in sedimentary deposits of
Eocene to Pleistocene age and seem to be
otherwise unrelated to these deposits. Gen-
erally, tektites are rather small; most of
them are less than an inch in diameter and
weigh only a few ounces. They are usually
found in great numbers at each locality (ap-
proximately 20,000 have been found at the
Australian locality alone), but only in the
case of the Libyan Desert material do the
true size and shape of the strewn field appear
to be known. The tektites are relatively un-
weathered and may be rounded, elongated,
or irregular in form. The glass composing
them is green, brown, or black and the sur-
faces of many of them exhibit "flow pat-
terns," an indication that they have solidi-
fied from a viscous melt.
Scientists engaged in research on tektites
have proposed various hypotheses for their
origin. Those which seem most practical are
summarized herewith.
VOLCANIC ORIGIN
Tektites are very similar in appearance to
the volcanic glass, obsidian. Their chemical
composition, however, is quite different from
it and other volcanic rocks. Also, the water-
content of tektites is approximately one-
: T r r i
TEKTITES-A NATURE MYSTERY
These are some characteristic forms of strange
glassy objects suspected to be of extraterrestrial
origin. Their shapes indicate that they have cooled
from a molten state.
tenth of that of obsidians, indicating that
they were formed in a water-free environ-
ment or at a very high temperature (over
2000° C.) on the earth's surface. This, cou-
pled with the fact that they are found in
areas where there is no associated vulcanism
make a volcanic origin seem very unlikely
to most investigators.
"impactite" origin
One possibility is that tektites were formed
as a result of the collision with the earth of a
large meteorite, which fused and scattered
terrestrial rock material when it hit. This
hypothesis is supported to some extent by
the fact that tektites are similar in chemical
composition to certain terrestrial sedimen-
tary rocks, and the forms exhibited by tek-
tites could have resulted from such an event.
A similar hypothesis that has been suggested
is that the head of a comet collided with the
earth and produced the tektites by also fus-
ing terrestrial material.
"LUNAR IMPACTITE" ORIGIN
It has been proposed that the collision of
a meteor with the moon would produce fused
material similar in nature to the tektites, and
if the scattered molten material entered the
earth's gravitational field it could account
for the tektite-strewn fields observed. Astro-
nomical calculations are now being pro-
grammed for electronic computers in order
to ascertain whether or not this is a valid
hypothesis.
METEORITIC ORIGIN
The idea that tektites are meteoritic mat-
ter originating from the disruption of another
planet has been entertained by many scien-
tists for years. The low water-content of
tektites and a radioactivity that could have
been induced by cosmic rays seem to sub-
stantiate the hypothesis. Since it is difficult
to account for their distribution and occur-
rence on geological grounds, this fact has
also been used as evidence for a cosmic ori-
gin. Many scientists consider it very un-
likely, however, that a swarm of particles
would stay so close together on their flight
through space as to produce the small, tek-
tite-strewn areas on the earth's surface. On
the other hand, some have suggested that a
solid glassy meteor would break up into
smaller molten particles upon hitting the
earth's atmosphere and thereby account for
the small areal distribution of the tektites.
The difference in chemical composition of
tektites from that of known meteorites is ex-
plained by assuming that the tektites are
fragments of a thin crust of a disrupted plan-
etary body, perhaps similar in composition
to our terrestrial rocks.
The question of whether these glassy bod-
ies are of cosmic or terrestrial origin is by no
means settled. Much work remains to be
done to establish the validity or nonvalidity
of each of the above hypotheses. This in-
cludes the accurate mapping of the pattern
of distribution of tektites on the earth's sur-
face, field observations on the association of
tektites with meteor craters, volcanoes, and
other geologic features. Chemical analyses
of many more tektites must be carried out in
order for a valid comparison to be made be-
tween their composition and that of terres-
trial materials and meteorites. A comparison
of tektites with known "impactite" glasses
may also provide much useful information.
Primitive Art Special Exhibit
Continues Through September
The special exhibit entitled "What Is
Primitive Art?", which opened July 1, will
remain on view in Stanley Field Hall through-
out August and September. The display,
which has proved especially popular with
visitors, aims to provide an answer to the
question in its title, and serves as an intro-
duction to the vast collections of primitive
art from many parts of the world scattered
through the halls of the Department of An-
thropology. Art objects from African
tribes, peoples of Pacific islands, Indians of
the Americas, and other primitive societies
are included in the exhibit.
HOW WE DIG -MUSEUM'S ARCHAE
What lies hidden here? Higgins Flat Pueblo, a typical site
• as it appeared before Museum archaeologists excavated.
Rooms of ancient pueblo are uncovered down to a fe|
• above the floor. Each layer is a little older than one at
Worker Thomas Alder digs ou t un-
broken pot with trowel and brush.
An ancient burial is unearthed. Remains re-
'• veal much data about vanished Mogollones.
Completed excavation
• of structure that hous'
FOR 24 years the Museum's Archaeological Expeditions to the Southwest, led
by Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology, have been excavating
sites inhabited by prehistoric Indians as long ago as 4,500 years. The diggers
have worked in Colorado and New Mexico, and this summer they are engaged in
their third season in Arizona. Each year, upon return to the Museum, Dr.
Martin and his chief field associate, Dr. John B. Rinaldo, Assistant Curator of
Archaeology, devote themselves to research upon the ancient pottery, tools,
weapons, clothing fragments, skeletal remains, and other artifacts recovered.
From this evidence they have been able to dispel much of the mystery surround-
ing the history of the long-vanished Mogollon tribe.
Page 4
)LOGISTS AT WORK IN SOUTHWEST
aches
3Wi
• Wa
th a small handpick, field assistant
Wayne Gaines cleans masonry walls.
4.
Soil removed in excavating site is screened to make sure that no
pieces of Indian pottery or stone tools are overlooked.
8 (Left) Dr. Paul S. Martin, expedi-
• tion leader, aided by Tod Egan,
uses surveyors' instruments to map
pueblo village.
Wiggins Flat Pueblo reveals standing walls
community of Indians about 700 years ago.
9 (Left) Caves
• too, once
used as habita-
tions, are ex-
plored by the ex-
pedition. In them
are often found
well-preserved
perishable arti-
facts not yielded
by pueblo exca-
vations.
-J r\ (Right)
-I- \J • Vivian
Broman (at left)
and Elaine Bluhm
catalogue arti-
facts in workroom
of base camp. All
specimens are
carefully listed
before shipment
to Museum. Data
to guide later re-
search is in-
cluded.
Page 5
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
August, 1958
NESTLING TO NUISANCE
-BIRDS MAKE NEWS
By AUSTIN L. RAND
CHIEF CURATOR OF ZOOLOGY
SOME TIME AGO I made a "Bookish
Christmas Bird Census" (BULLETIN,
Feb., 1956), an attempt to evaluate people's
interest in birds. My material was supplied
by the magazines and papers on my coffee
table one evening just before Christmas.
My results, which yielded 27 birds, were in-
conclusive. Since then I have made another
survey, more restricted in area but covering
more time.
I have on my desk 250 newspaper clip-
pings from the four Chicago dailies, a two-
year harvest gleaned in a desultory manner.
A survey of them gives gratifying evidence
that today people are indeed bird-conscious.
The amount of bird material presented is
amazing. Every two or three days an item
appears (exclusive of the nature columns and
the material in the Sunday supplements and
the sporting pages). They range in length
from a few lines to a half-column or more.
Many are illustrated. The subject matter
covers a wide variety of bird news, and 130
kinds of birds are mentioned. The public
reached by these stories is the combined daily
circulation of the four papers, totaling more
than 2,500,000. Such an audience dwarfs
into insignificance the 3,000 specialized read-
ers of the quarterly bird journal, The Auk,
and the 30,000 readers of Audubon Magazine,
the popular nature periodical.
Ornithology would seem to have achieved
a signal success in making birds and their
ways familiar to the man in the street; in
making its findings the material of everyday
reading and conversations; in making the
general public aware of birds as part of its
environment; and in putting bird-lore in the
public's domain. This is one of the ultimate
goals of any science. What better measure
of this success than seeing what the daily
press presents to its urban readers?
LOCAL STORIES PREDOMINATE
As one would expect, almost half the bird
news is local. People like best to read about
themselves, and after that, about their neigh-
bors. Thus it is no surprise to find that the
pigeon gets the most attention. It feeds in
city streets, eats peanuts on elevated railway
stations, and perches on statues in city parks.
The young hatch on window ledges; a nest is
in too dangerous a place for a boy to climb;
there are too many pigeons, so professional
trappers are hired; they race; a military pig-
eon, AWOL, is recovered; and a wanderer
comes aboard a ship at sea and is rescued.
One newspaper call that took a photographer
to record a "pheasant" on a city roof re-
sulted in a photograph of a pigeon, but this
in itself made a story.
The robin, best known and best liked by
city people, is a runner-up of the pigeon for
attention, but its coverage is different. The
robin has troubles in the spring when snow
covers the ground; it drops eggs on lawns;
young birds fall out of the nest and are hand
raised, and then, tame, they will not leave
on migrations.
People like to read about far places and
strange birds, and they like to look at their
photos. We have stories of such exotics
as penguins in Antarctica, kookaburras
from Australia, and sacred cranes from Ja-
pan. Photogenic subjects include also fla-
mingoes; a closeup of an owl's eyes; and an
adjutant stork from India, apparently deeply
sunk in thought. Local birds are also photo-
genic: we have a Japanese-looking heron in
a local pond; local purple martins, ready to
migrate, lined up on telephone wires; and
ducks, in flight, in an ice-rimmed pond, or
standing on the ice.
Visiting personalities from the country,
especially when they are photogenic, get
space. They range from night herons on
city roofs, and owls in trees in city yards
and down chimneys, to a woodcock that
came in through an office window.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Foreign visitors have their place, too.
Some came under their own power, like the
African cattle egret and the European red-
shank. New arrivals at the zoo might be
just a list of strange names if it were not for
the thumbnail sketches of their habits or
their appearance that help to make them en-
tities, as the Malee fowl of Australia that
buries its eggs in an earthen mound, and the
Egyptian plover or crocodile bird, which,
since Herodotus' time, has been reported to
clean the teeth of crocodiles that open their
mouths to allow the birds to perform this
office. This report is now in disrepute.
Miscellaneous accounts of personalities
range from the white storks of Europe to the
California condors, the oil bird of caves in
Peru, and crows that pull clothespins off the
line and let the wash drop.
Much current news has to do with disas-
ters and mishaps. Birds share in these. An
oil slick appeared on Lake Michigan and
distressed ducks and grebes, coated with oil,
began to drift ashore daily. This made news
for days. Another feature story related the
poisoning of migratory shore birds on an
industrial-waste dump.
Lesser troubles found their place, too:
sparrows huddled under the eaves out of the
icy rain; an Egyptian goose in a park was
shot with an arrow; 150 baby chicks were
victims of a traffic accident, and a duck was
killed by hailstones.
CASES FOR THE POLICE
Police stations and police court news had
their bird incidents: a swan disrupted traffic
at a busy intersection and went to a police
station cell; a lost wren came by itself to the
station and liked it so much that it stayed
four days; Joliet police procedure in handling
the case of a woman bitten by a rooster.
Petty "crime" did not always reach the
police court. An English crow that "stole"
800 golf balls was eliminated. In Ontario
a Canada jay stole a workman's glasses when
he laid them aside for a moment.
To round out the extent of the coverage,
I will mention just a few of the many sub-
jects: parakeets and myna birds figuring in
divorce court cases; pet parakeets turning up
in all sorts of strange places, nesting in vacu-
um cleaners, getting lost, being given courses
at the local YMCA for $6 per series; Easter
chicks dyed pink not to be used as play-
things; the fate of abandoned nestlings; and
a 21-year-old tanager.
That young things are appealing is abun-
dantly demonstrated. There are photo-
graphs of young pigeons hatched in a March
snowstorm; a truck driver trying to hatch a
robin's egg; birds' nests on fire escapes, on
electric lights, on a mop, and in traffic lights;
young mallards in city parks; sparrows' nests
in traffic lights and on a school bus in use;
and a doves' nest that delayed a construc-
tion job.
MANY OTHER ASPECTS
There are stories on conservation; on spar-
rows suffering when automobiles replaced
horses; on bird behavior and its instinctive-
psychological aspects; on bird migration; on
woodpeckers damaging buildings and insur-
ance against it; city starlings' roosts disturb-
ing citizens, and nesting albatrosses disrupt-
ing airplane service on a Pacific island ; Dutch
elm disease and its treatment killing birds;
live bird trade in India; and birds killed at
airport ceilometers.
The general impression one gets is that
city people are interested in birds. These
clippings represent real happenings. The
standard of accuracy in all these accounts is
high. The reporters knew what they were
writing about, or consulted those who did
(often they called the Museum). The
educational, conservational, and economic
importance or furthering-of-science aspects
of birds are of interest only as they are
news. The stories are not aimed at the
hobbyist or the bird-lover who has his spe-
cial column. Birds are reported as interest-
August, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
ing beings: their birth, life, and death. Silly
and tragic things happen to them. They get
mixed up with the police, are lauded, or
joked about; their private lives, their com-
ings and goings, and how they affect the
community in which they live are all reported
as they happen. We can hardly say that
birds are on the way to becoming citizens,
but the citizens are certainly becoming aware
of them. As far as birds are concerned, the
newspaper reading public has a chance to be
biologically literate.
PRE-GUTENBERG PRINTING FOUND IN MEXICO
FOSSIL COLLECTORS COMB
WYOMING AREA
For the third successive season, a paleon-
tological expedition is working in the upper
and lower formations of the Washakie Basin
in Wyoming. Leader of the expedition is
William D. Turnbull, Assistant Curator of
Fossil Mammals. He is accompanied by
David Collier, a volunteer assistant.
Objective is the collection of more fossil
mammals of the middle Eocene epoch (about
50 to 45 million years ago). The 1956 and
1957 expeditions to the Washakie, a circular
area of about 400 square miles, were highly
successful, and the prospects of the present
excavations to obtain additional species of
the ancient fauna are promising. It is ex-
pected that fossil reptiles, fishes and other
animals, as well as mammals, will be obtained.
Two More Free Movie Shows
Offered for Children
The final two programs in the Raymond
Foundation's free summer series for children
will be given on the first two Thursday morn-
ings in August. There will be two showings
of each program, the first at 10 a.m., and the
second at 11 or 11:15 as per schedule below.
No tickets are required. Children are in-
vited to come alone, accompanied by par-
ents or other adults, or in organized groups.
Following are the dates and titles:
August 7 — A Trip to the Moon
(for older children)
(10 and 11:15 a.m.)
Also a cartoon
August 14 — Vacation Special
(10 and 11 a.m.)
Vacation fun in your own backyard and in
the wilderness
Also a cartoon
Albinism Thwarted
A robin that was partly albinistic, with
underparts mostly white, mated with a nor-
mal bird, and raised two broods of normal
young. It then moulted into a plumage that
was nearly normal, according to a report
from Salt Lake City.
— Condor
By ALFRED LEE ROWELL
DIORAMIST, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A RECENTLY INSTALLED EXHIBIT
, in Hall 8 (Ancient and Modern Indians
of Mexico and Central America) deals with
the Totonac people who lived in the central
Veracruz region of Mexico from a.d. 900 to
1500. This exhibit includes several stamps
made of pottery clay, fired like any other
piece of pottery, that were used for printing
designs on fabrics or on the human body.
These stamps, essentially devices for sav-
ing labor and time, are based on the same
principle as all printing since and even before
the time of Gutenberg. Our textile industry
also uses the same principle in producing mil-
lions of yards of printed fabrics. A type-
writer is really a highly efficient machine for
applying small stamps to a suitable surface.
NOTEWORTHY IN DESIGN
These Totonac stamps have interesting,
well-designed faces, probably with symbolic
or mystical meanings that we do not com-
prehend because we do not have a complete
understanding of the mental and spiritual
background of the people. Two of the
stamps, dating from about the 12th cen-
tury, were selected to show their imprint as
it would be made in actual use. One of these
has a strong, bold design of heavy black
lines, showing the traditional feathered ser-
pent. The other, which is smaller, with a
more complicated design of lighter lines,
shows the wide-open jaws of a feathered ser-
pent and a monkey. Both are highly styl-
ized. The design of the monkey is unusually
well conceived and gives a better expression
of the nature and character of the subject
than a photographically realistic drawing.
It compares favorably with the best of our
present-day designing.
Another interesting feature of these stamps
is their method of manufacture, especially
the smaller one, as we learned in making
plastic reproductions of them. These repro-
ductions were made to avoid discoloring the
originals in the printing process. We first
made a squeeze, or impression, in Duron
plastic, hardening it by baking it in place on
the stamp at a temperature of 300° F. for
about one hour. This provided a mold, or
matrix, for casting a replica of the original
stamp by pressing Duron into it and baking
it in place. A dusting of talc acted as a sep-
arator. The cast replicas were used for mak-
ing the prints shown in the exhibit.
It was immediately apparent from the
Duron impression of the smaller stamp that
it had been made by squeezing moist clay
into a mold, or matrix, that had been formed
by pressing the black parts of the design into
moist clay, evidenced by the pushing up of
the material. After this mold for making
stamps was dried and probably fired, it could
then be used for turning out an unlimited
number of stamps in a primitive mass-pro-
duction or for making replacements for
broken stamps. The slabs of moist clay
bearing the design could be bent into con-
cave or convex forms, as might be required
for printing on various surfaces. It is prob-
POTTERY STAMP FOR PRINTING
Used by early Totonac tribesmen of Mexico for
transfering design to fabric and sometimes to their
own skin. The stamp is about three inches long.
able that the concave form shown in the ex-
hibit may have been used for printing a
fabric stretched across the thigh of the user
or for printing on the skin of arms or legs.
LABOR-SAVING METHOD
This method of making the stamp was an
example of labor-saving practicality, since it
is easier to press a line into clay than it is to
ea art. «uv eji at% c/v
r
iVvT'utiva VpxruxQc
IMPRESSION OF STAMP
The design imprinted on cloth shows a monkey (at
right) and the gaping jaws of a serpent (left).
build up a line, but there was further evi-
dence of the same ingenuity. The small S-
shaped elements in the border of the design
had been pressed into the clay of the matrix
by using a small stamp or die. There is no
way of knowing how this die was made —
whether it was carved from wood or other
material or made of clay and fired.
Thus it is clear from these 800-year-old
stamps that Totonac craftsmen were not
lacking in creative ingenuity and that they
had worked out labor-saving methods for
accomplishing their purposes.
The world's largest model of the moon is
exhibited in Hall 35.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
August, 1958
MALE BIRD ASSUMES
MOTHER ROLE
A soft-wing on the way to feed its young
may sit quietly for two hours with an insect in
its bill. This is an indication not only of the
lethargic temperament of the bird but also
of the patience and perseverance of the nat-
uralist, in this case Dr. Alexander Skutch of
Costa Rica who studies soft-wings.
Puffbirds, of which the soft-wing is one,
are among the least-known tropical Ameri-
can birds. Relatives of the woodpeckers,
they act like forest kingfishers and nest in
burrows in the forest floor. Skutch's recent
studies reveal that some facets of their be-
havior are most unusual. The male incu-
bates all afternoon and all night. When the
young are small it is the male, not the fe-
male, that broods most of the day and all
night, while the female brings food! When
the young are partly grown and left alone at
night they use part of the dead-leaf nest to
barricade themselves in the underground
nest chamber. — Ibis, 1958.
STAFF NOTES
Roland W. Force, Curator of Oceanic
Archaeology and Ethnology, has returned
from London where he has been engaged for
several months on a special project for the
Museum. The results of his mission will be
announced at an early date. . . . With regret
the Museum records the death of Matthew
S. Moroney, Captain
of the Guard, on
July 9. Mr. Moroney
had been a member of
of the Guard Force
since September 1,
1952, and was ap-
pointed Captain in
October, 1957. He was
a native Chicagoan,
born December 9, 1885,
and prior to joining the
Museum personnel he
had been employed for
more than 40 years by
the Illinois Bell Telephone Company from
which he had retired in 1948. . . . Harry
Hoogstraal, formerly a Field Associate in
the Department of Zoology, has been elected
by the Museum's Board of Trustees as Re-
search Associate in Insects. For several
years he has been collecting in Egypt and
other areas of Africa. Harry G. Nelson,
of Harvey, Illinois, has been appointed an
Associate in the same division. . . . Dr. Erik
N. Kjellesvig-Waering, who is associated
with the Pan Venezuelan Oil Company in
Caracas, has been elected a Research Asso-
ciate in Invertebrate Paleontology by the
Museum's Board of Trustees. He is a lead-
ing student of eurypterids in the Western
Matthew S. Moroney
Hemisphere, and has assisted in determi-
nation of Museum collections. . . . Harry
Changnon, Curator of Exhibits — Geology,
and Albert Forslev, Associate Curator of
Mineralogy and Petrology, served as judges
at the recent Midwest Gem and Mineral
Show in Downers Grove, Illinois. Mr. Fors-
lev also attended a Chicago conference on
microscopy. . . . George Langford, Curator
of Fossil Plants, was honored at a meeting
in Downers Grove of the Earth Science Club
of Northern Illinois on the occasion of the
club's publication of his book, The Wilming-
ton Coal Flora. . . . Philip Hershkovitz,
Curator of Mammals, is in London studying
South American mammals in the British
Museum (Natural History) in continuation
of the project "A Check-list of the Land
Mammals of South America" sponsored by
Chicago Natural History Museum under a
grant-in-aid from the National Science Foun-
dation. He also attended the International
Zoological Congress. . . . Mrs. Meta P.
Howell, Librarian, and Mrs. M. Eileen
Rocourt, Associate Librarian, attended the
Special Libraries Association's recent con-
vention. Mrs. Rocourt was elected Vice-
Chairman of the Museum Division.
Delegate to Americanists' Congress
Dr. Donald Collier, Curator of South
American Archaeology and Ethnology, flew
from Chicago July 14 for San Jose, Costa
Rica, as official delegate to represent both
the Museum and the American Anthropo-
logical Association at the 33rd International
Congress of Americanists. Following the
meetings, he went to Mexico to study col-
lections in various museums.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: E. D. Hester, Chicago — 18 ancient
bracelets, Philippines
Department of Botany
From: Dillman S. Bullock, Angol, Chile —
2 herbarium specimens; Dr. Rolla Tryon,
Cambridge, Mass. — 53 ferns, Peru
Department of Geology
From: Prof. H. Otley Beyer, Philippines —
200 tektites; Jerry Zehrung, Warsaw, Ind.
— a lower jaw of mammoth
Department of Zoology
From: William J. Gerhard, Chicago —
1,065 Hemiptera (true bugs) Colombia; Dr.
Robert E. Kuntz, APO 63, San Francisco —
18 frogs, 12 lizards, 6 snakes, Formosa and
Pakistan; Dr. Graham Netting, Pittsburgh
— collection of sea shells, Oregon ; Dr. Charles
H. Seevers, Glen Ellyn, 111.-2,131 Termi-
tophilous Staphylinid beetles; Fraser Walsh,
La Paz, Bolivia — 22 birdskins; Dr. F. Zumpt,
Johannesburg, South Africa — 140 flies
AUGUST LECTURE-TOURS
SLATED TWICE DAILY
Guide-lecture tours remain on a two-a-day
schedule until the end of August. The tours
are given daily except Saturdays and Sun-
days (on weekends the Museum is open to
visitors, however, during the regular hours,
9 A.M. to 6 P.M.).
The morning tours, at 11 o'clock, will be
devoted, except on Thursdays, to the exhib-
its of a single department. All the afternoon
tours, at 2 o'clock, and also the 11 o'clock
tour on Thursday mornings, will include out-
standing exhibits in all departments. Lec-
turers of the Raymond Foundation staff con-
duct the tours. Following is the schedule for
each week:
Mondays: 11 A.M. — The World of Plants
2 p.m. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Tuesdays: 11 A.M. — The Earth's Story
2 P.M. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Wednesdays: 11 A.M. — The Animal King-
dom
2 p.m. — Highlights of the Exhibits
Thursdays: 11 A.M. and 2 p.m. — Highlights
of the Exhibits
Fridays: 11 a.m. — People and Places
2 p.m. — Highlights of the Exhibits
NEW MEMBERS
(June 16 to July 15)
Life Members
James R. Offield, Hugh Robertson
Associate Members
Stanton L. Ehrlich, Carl D. Guldager,
Allen D. Holloway, Edmund Kutchins, Dr.
William J. Schnute, George R. Steiner,
Joseph Wegrzyn, Frank H. Woods
Sustaining Member
Robert S. Adler
Annual Members
Robert Ackerberg, Jr., Milburn P. Akers,
Craig T. Allen, Jr., Dr. Herbert L. Anderson,
Edward D. Benninghoven, George Benisek,
Joseph L. Bernardi, James Carroll, Nor-
bert L. Chaplicki, Dr. J. A. Chenicek, Ron-
ald J. Chinnock, Thomas R. Coyne, Walter
Dabasinskas, Stanley P. Dodd, James H.
Dunbar, Jr., Robert T. Dyer, Joseph R.
Ernest, Walter H. Flinn, Jr., Dr. Smith
Freeman, Raphael N. Friedman, Lincoln R.
Goward, Howard E. Green, David J. Harris,
John M. Hill, Sidney R. Hill, Stephen Y.
Hord, Schuyler Dean Hoslett, Harold Hy-
man, Harvey A. Jacobs, Russell B. James,
Carl M. Jelinek, David M. Kennedy, L. H.
Kramer, William E. Roberts, George E.
Rodman, R. G. Rowe, Karl F. Vollmer,
Charles J. Whipple, Mrs. Connie Wilander
The important part of the Plant Kingdom
in human existence and in the world's eco-
nomics is strikingly portrayed by exhibits in
the halls of the Department of Botany.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
September, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wh. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Patricia McAfee
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
MYSTERIES OF LIFE
FAR IN OCEAN DEPTHS
Far down in the depths of the oceans
exists a world unexplored by man. The
ocean depths remain very much a mystery
in spite of the fact that recent years have
brought about more widespread exploration
resulting in an increased recognition of the
importance of the sea as a sustainer of life.
A single bottom haul made in the Gulf of
Mexico by the United States Fish and Wild-
life Service vessel Oregon bears out this
point. On May 26, 1955, the Oregon brought
up a haul from 1,150 to 1,200 fathoms that
contained 72 specimens of fish belonging to
7 families, 14 genera, and 17 species. These
specimens were sent to Mrs. Marion Grey,
Associate in the Division of Fishes at the
Museum. In the collection were discovered
two new species of fish. Also included were
nine other species never before found in the
Gulf of Mexico. Seven of these were un-
known from western Atlantic waters. A full
description of the collection will be found in
Mrs. Grey's forthcoming work, Descriptions
of Abyssal Benthic Fishes from the Gulf of
Mexico.
It is not extremely unusual that species
of deep-water fish unknown to man were
brought up by the Oregon, although the
haul was quite a fruitful one. But it is
significant that this and other hauls in off-
shore waters are contributing to a more
complete understanding of the unknown
fauna of the seas.
STAFF NOTES
ECONOMIC GEOLOGIST
JOINS STAFF
Bertram G. Woodland has been appointed
to the Museum staff as Associate Curator of
Economic Geology, and began his duties in
August. Mr. Woodland, a native of Wales,
is a graduate (B.Sc.) of the University of
Wales in Cardiff, and has been engaged in
graduate studies at the University of Massa-
chusetts. From 1943 to 1946 he was experi-
mental officer, first with the Ministry of
Home Security and later with the Air Min-
istry of Great Britain. From 1946 to 1954
he worked with the Manchester and London
offices of the Ministry of Housing and Local
Government as research officer in national
surveys of natural resources. From 1954
until this year he has been an assistant pro-
fessor, teaching geology, first at the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, and later at Mount
Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachu-
setts. He has also acted as a consultant for
Petroleo Brasileiro Depex of Rio de Janeiro,
and in geological mapping for the Vermont
Geological Survey. His field work has in-
cluded geological studies in central France
and Great Britain.
"Yellowstone," a film made by John
Moyer, head of the Museum's Division of
Motion Pictures, has been chosen by the
educational division of the State Depart-
ment as one of a small group of outstanding
travel pictures to represent the United States
in showings at the current international
world's fair in Brussels. . . . Dr. Francis
Drouet, Curator of the Cryptogamic Her-
barium, resigned as of July 31 to accept a
research position in the Department of Biol-
ogy at New Mexico Highlands University
(Las Vegas, N.M.). . . . Chin Chen, a tem-
porary field assistant in paleontology, has
been awarded a Sohio Petroleum Company
scholarship to continue graduate studies at
the University of Cincinnati where he is a
doctoral candidate. . . . Dr. Theodor Just,
Chief Curator of Botany, attended the an-
nual meeting of the American Institute of
Biological Sciences at Indiana University
(Bloomington) in August. The Department
of Zoology was represented by Dr. Rob-
ert F. Inger, Curator of Amphibians and
Reptiles, and Hymen Marx, Assistant in
Reptiles.
Back From Eternity
A bird, the short-tailed albatross, has been
named a national monument of Japan. For
years this bird which once visited our Pacific
Coast was thought to be extinct. But it has
been discovered again on an island south of
Japan. In 1953 there were 23 adults there
and in the 1956-57 season eight young were
raised - (Auk, 1958, p. 82)
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 P.M. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
There will be no tour on September 1
(Labor Day), but the Museum will be open
to visitors.
THIS MONTHS COVER-
This month's cover by Staff Artist E. John Pfiffner was inspired by one of the
outstanding specimens in the Fuller Collection (see page 3). It is a carved wooden
rest for supporting the long spears which leaned against the front of Hawaiian chiefs'
houses as emblems of prestige and elevated rank. The rest is actually a very contorted
anthropomorphic figure seen here in outline draw-
ing at a slightly oblique angle. The posture de-
picted by the Hawaiian carver a century or two
ago is one in which the torso is bent backwards —
breast upward, arms upraised, with the face in-
verted in the cover view. Actually, the figure in
a horizontal position as shown here, was attached
to the side-wall of the house in such a way that
the outstretched hands held the leaning spears and the face of the figure looked sky-
ward. Mr. Pfiffner's skillful treatment of the figure (in a vertical position) was adapted
from a simple sketch made in 1898 by James Edge-Partington, from whom the speci-
men was acquired by Captain and Mrs. A. W. F. Fuller. The background design is
that of an early piece of rare Hawaiian tapa cloth.
Other drawings, on pages 3 and 4, are by Mr. Pfiffner, Marion Pahl, and Roland
W. Force, Curator of Oceanic Archaeology and Ethnology.
September, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 3
MUSEUM OBTAINS LAST OF GREAT OCEANIC COLLECTIONS
By ROLAND W. FORCE
CURATOR OF OCEANIC ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY
ONE AFTERNOON in 1896 in a London
auction room a boy in his early teens
sat with his father watching the sale. On
the block that day were a miscellaneous lot
of items, one of which happened to be a war
club from the Fiji Islands in the South Seas.
The boy went home with the club that was
to form the nucleus of a collection of Pacific
Island ethnological specimens that ultimately
became known the
world over as the
finest of its kind out-
side museum walls.
Sixty-two years
later on August 2, 1958
a Norwegian freighter,
the S. S. Rutenfjell, left
London and sailed
down the Thames,
bound across the At-
lantic for Chicago via
the Great Lakes — the
route of the new im-
proved Seaway now
nearing completion.
Packed securely in one
of her holds were 15
tons of boxes filled
with more than 6,500
specimens destined
for Chicago Natural
HistoryMuseum. The
shipment arrived at
Chicago's Calumet
Harbor on August 25.
At Bulletin press
time the crates were
being moved into the
Museum's Pacific Re-
search Laboratory.
The youngster who bought his first speci-
men in 1896 was A. W. F. Fuller, who, for
well over a half-century — in collaboration
with his wife, Estelle Winifred Fuller, and
aided in the early years by his father, the
Rev. A. Fuller — continued to haunt the fa-
mous auction rooms of London in search of
outstanding specimens. Sales in private
homes, the selling-out of the inventories of
small provincial museums throughout the
length and breadth of England and Scot-
land, and the shops of dealers both in Britain
and on the continent were the sources of the
pieces which went into the collection. Though
he was trained in the law and became a so-
licitor, A. W. F. Fuller's first loyalties were
to his collecting, and with the exception of
an extended period of military service during
and immediately following World War I,
from which he emerged with the permanent
rank of captain, he devoted himself almost
exclusively to this interest.
BEGAN WITH BUTTERFLIES
Captain Fuller was much influenced by
his father and developed his bent for scien-
tific investigation and
collecting during a
childhood in which
books, butterflies, and
boomerangs were a
part of his everyday
life at home. For close
to 30 years Captain
Fuller's father, the
Rev. Mr. Fuller, a
naturalist who spe-
cialized particularly in
insects and within this
field Lepidoptera es-
pecially, provided in-
spiration and collabo-
ration in the forma-
tion of the Fuller Col-
lection of Ethnological
Materials. Through
the years, discrimina-
ting purchases of out-
standing specimens,
which had found their
way back to England
in one way or an-
amassed in England by these intrepid indi-
viduals who ventured into the "savage South
Seas" during the era when the inhabitants
first came into contact with Europeans and
when pristine island cultures first felt the
impact of a vast sweep of cultural change —
change which was destined to wipe out the
old ways and even, in some cases, the island
peoples themselves. Because of these catas-
trophic developments, materials collected
DOCUMENTING THE COLLECTION
For months in London, Curator Roland W. Force (left) conferred almost daily
with Captain A. W. F. Fuller, to compile the vast amount of data pertinent to
the thousands of Pacific island specimens now transferred to the Museum.
other, resulted in the
formation of this superb collection. Some
specimens were acquired from missionaries,
explorers, and traders or their descendants.
An enormous wealth of "native" objects was
CULTURE CARGO COMES VIA SEAWAY
The famed Fuller Collection of Pacific ethnological
materials, comprising some 15 tons of specimens
packed in 71 crates, was shipped direct from London
to Chicago via the Atlantic-Great Lakes route aboard
the Norwegian cargo vessel "Rutenfjell."
during these early days could never be dupli-
cated.
For a number of years Captain Fuller held
a post at the British Museum where he came
to know the excellent Pacific collections
there intimately. Through the years he
competed for specimens with the keepers of
all of the major museums in England. He
early became a Fellow of the Royal Anthrop-
ological Institute and served on its council
for several years. Most of the illustrious
names in British anthropology belonged to
men he counted as personal friends.
His colleagues were not confined to Eng-
land, however. As the Fuller Collection be-
came larger, its scope and worth became
known abroad, and scholars from New Zea-
land, Hawaii, America, and Europe visited
the Fuller home to study the collection. A
number of scientific institutions became in-
terested in acquiring the collection, of course,
Page b
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
September, 1958
and through the years a number of overtures
were made. None came to fruition.
ESCAPED WAR BOMBS
During World War II the collection mirac-
ulously escaped destruction in the "blitz."
Certain extremely valuable specimens were
removed to Wales, along with British Mu-
seum collections, and spent the war years
deep in a coal mine. The major portion of
the collection, however, survived V-bomb
raids, which leveled neighboring houses and
which severely damaged the Fuller home
where they were housed.
A curious chain of events resulted finally
in the purchase of the Fuller Collection by
Chicago Natural History Museum. The
chain began just after
the turn of the century
when the Fullers be-
came acquainted with
Percy H. Edmunds, a
British subject who
was the Chilean gov-
ernment's representa-
tive on isolated Easter
Island in Polynesia.
Mr. Edmunds' parents
placed an advertise-
ment in a London
newspaper requesting
information about
the island where their
son was stationed.
Captain Fuller answered the inquiry and
thereby began an acquaintance — at first by
mail — which has lasted for 50 years. For
half of this period Mr. Edmunds collected
specimens on Easter Island for the Fullers.
Such a protracted period of "on-the-spot"
collecting has rarely, if, ever, been dupli-
cated.
Following World War II, Mr. Edmunds
retired and made his home in Tahiti. It was
there that he happened to meet Robert
Trier, a former Chicago resident who is a
Contributor to the Museum and whose in-
terest in the institution is of long standing.
During a period of residence in Tahiti, Mr.
Trier learned of the Fuller Collection through
Mr. Edmunds. Later he visited Captain
and Mrs. Fuller in London in order to view
the collection. Following his report of this
visit to Museum officials, Mr. Trier was re-
quested to make inquiries as to the possibil-
ity of acquiring the Fuller Collection while
on another visit to England in early 1957.
When it was reported that Captain and Mrs.
Fuller were interested in housing their collec-
tion in a major museum which afforded facil-
ities for both exhibition and scientific study,
plans were made for an inspection by a mem-
ber of the Museum staff.
Accordingly, Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief
Curator of Anthropology, recommended that
the writer be sent to England to inspect the
collection. After a three-week period of in-
spection in August of 1957, a recommenda-
tion to acquire the collection was immedi-
ately made to the Museum administration.
Under the leadership of President Stanley
Field and Director Clifford C. Gregg a pur-
chase fund was established and donors re-
sponded within a very short time. Particu-
larly generous assistance and support is being
supplied to this growing fund by members
of the Museum's Board of Trustees.
In late January of 1958 the writer de-
parted for London and in early February
began with Captain and Mrs. Fuller the
documentation and preparation of the col-
lection for shipment to Chicago. Until mid-
July taped records of basic catalogue data
were made and information relating to indi-
vidual specimens was transcribed. It is
especially fortunate that we have been able
to secure such complete documentation from
the collectors concerning the provenience,
use, function, and historical background
of the individual pieces in the collection.
WEALTH OF MATERIALS
While the Fuller Collection contains mate-
rials from all three of the major subdivisions
of the South Pacific (Polynesia, Melanesia,
and Micronesia), certain areas are especially
well-represented. Particularly desirable as
adjuncts to the Museum's already outstand-
ing Pacific collections are specimens from
areas of Polynesia heretofore not as strongly
represented as those from Melanesia in gen-
eral. Fuller Collection materials from New
Zealand, Easter Is-
land, Hawaii, Tonga,
the Marquesas, and
the Cook Islands are
truly exceptional.
Australia and certain
parts of Melanesia
such as the Torres
Straits, Solomons,
New Hebrides, New
Caledonia, the Bis-
marck Archipelago,
the Admiralties, and
mainland New Guinea also are included.
Materials from these areas will either add
specimens not previously present in Museum
collections or will augment areas already rep-
resented through the addition of unique or
otherwise remarkable pieces. In addition
to the wealth of materials from the areas
mentioned above, there are also numerous
specimens from the Polynesian outliers whose
cultures are considered as primarily Polyne-
sian although the islands lie in what anthro-
pologists generally term Melanesia. Fiji and
the Micronesian Islands to the north also
have contributed to the collection.
Throughout the formation of the Fuller
Collection careful attention has been paid to
technology, the delineation of regularities
and differences in design and motif, specific
stylistic emphases, authenticity, historical
background, and literary reference.
Virtually every material available to is-
landers for the manufacture of tools, weap-
ons, clothing, utensils, implements, and
ornaments is included in the collection.
Shell, wood, stone, bone, coral, and vegeta-
ble fibers are all present. These materials
have been worked for the most part by so-
called "stone- age" artisans whose workman-
ship is all the more
remarkable because it
was carried out with-
out benefit of metal
tools. Stone and shell
adzes, knives of shell,
stingray skin rasps,
and various abrasives,
such as sand, com-
prised the tool-kits of
Pacific craftsmen who
lived before contact
with the Western
World produced vast
changes, among which
were alterations in
style and techniques
that occurred follow-
ing the introduction of metal tools.
In addition to important sub-collections
in the form of series, the Fuller Collection
contains some remarkable individual speci-
mens. For example, several items of sculp-
ture in wood from Hawaii are excellent. One
in particular, a carved statue of a god, is
exceedingly rare. It formerly was a part of
a very old 18th century collection which, of
course, means that it dates back to the days
of the early voyages of exploration by Brit-
ish seafarers in the Pacific.
Also from Hawaii is a small feather-head
idol — one of the so-called war-gods or Kukai-
limoku. Only about a dozen such idols
are known to exist today and only a few of
these have retained their feathers. Most are
in European museums and are attributed to
Captain Cook's third voyage (1776-80).
Equally outstanding
from the historical
standpoint, but less
rare, are two feather
capes formerly worn
by Hawaiian royalty.
One of these is espe-
cially interesting from
the standpoint of his-
tory since it was
brought to England in
1821 by Kamamalu
(wife and sister of Li-
holiho, Kamehameha
II) and given by her
to King George IV.
It was on this "state
visit" to England that
the King and Queen
of Hawaii were taken
fatally ill.
From the Marquesas Islands come an ex-
ceedingly rare carved drum, which is in excel-
lent condition, and an ancient trophy skull.
Easter Island materials include stone figures
(Continued on page 7, column S)
September, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
NEW PUEBLO IN ARIZONA BROUGHT TO LIGHT
By HOWARD ANDERSON
ASSISTANT, SOUTHWEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION
THE SITE presently under excavation
by Chicago Natural History Museum's
1958 Southwest Archaeological Expedition
lies approximately one-half mile east of St.
Johns, Arizona. It is a gradually sloped
mound about 30 feet high, 200 feet long,
and 150 feet in width.
Near this mound, from which a pueblo is
being excavated, stands an "altar" of rock.
It is a large, flat-topped, table-like rock
resting on a center pedestal, also of rock. On
doubtedly a chimney — something not found
at the earlier sites of similar construction.
Such an inconsistency as this makes it very
difficult to formulate a simple concept of
the cultural development of this pueblo.
The presence of late Hopi Yellow wares
indicates that trade was carried on in the
region until about a.d. 1450* — a full 250
years later than previously conjectured.
This time difference places the group under
study in the region very close to the Spanish
conquest of the Southwest in 1540.
The earliest known native occupation,
dating approximately at a.d. 750, is revealed
PREHISTORIC RITUAL SITE
Member of Museum's Archaeological Expedition to the Southwest inspects an "altar" that may have been
used to collect sacred rain water in grooves and pockets carved into its top surface. In background is the
mound from which archaeologists are excavating an ancient pueblo. The many rooms uncovered have yielded
human burials, vast amounts of pottery, and other evidence of the life of the early Arizona Indians.
the upper surface of this altar are grooves,
and pockets or holes, chipped out by the an-
cient Indians. These varied types of indenta-
tions were possibly used to collect sacred rain
water, but their actual use is unknown.
However, the peculiar shape of the rock plus
the obviously man-made grooves and holes
lead to the conjecture that it had a sacred
use. (A photograph of the altar accompanies
this article.)
The area was occupied intermittently by
the descendants of the Mogollon Indians
for a period of about 750 years. As revealed
to date, the architecture indicates that the
dwellings of the later period were composed
of small single-story rooms displaying an
ostensible paradox in structural ideas. The
stone placement in the foundations, to a
large degree, is reminiscent of a period about
700 years earlier than the one that con-
cerns us at this time. Within one room,
however, we have unearthed what was un-
to us by the recognition of a White Mound
Black-on-White bowl found with a burial
under one of the floors.
glazed pottery a clue
The presence of many types of Zuni glazes
and various polychromes brings into the
picture the technological and artistic abili-
ties of the later inhabitants of the site. In
spite of the temptation to speculate re-
garding these arbitrary matters, I feel that
it is best to remain attached to the evidence.
Since much of the glaze ware discovered
ranges from poor to a relatively high grade
— as far as firing techniques and decorations
are concerned — we may safely assume that
a period of experimentation took place. The
presence of the chimney indicates that these
Luminosity in Birds
From the Gulf of Mexico, J. Y. Christmas
reports terns appearing luminous during a
night rainstorm. The more distant birds
were formless spots of pale light that recalled
sea stories of St. Elmo's fire playing about
the masts of sailing ships. Birds that were
closer, their forms and beating wings plainly
visible, glowed with a clear steady light.
Apparently the birds, disturbed by the night
storm, had been splashed with luminous sea-
water. The luminosity, or phosphorescence,
is caused by light-producing, one-celled or-
ganisms in the sea-water adhering to the
birds' feathers.
Though no birds produce light, there is
another type of secondary luminescence.
Owls that sleep in hollow trees may become
luminous through light-producing fungi of
rotten wood adhering to their feathers.
Auk, 1958.
* Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology
and leader of the expedition, notes that the date will be
confirmed later by means of tree-ring or Carbon 14
methods.
Change in Visiting Hours
On September 2, the day after Labor Day,
the autumn schedule of visiting hours, 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m., will go into effect at the Museum
in place of the 9-to-6 summer hours. After
October 14, the closing hour will be 4 P.M.
people may have discovered the principle of
forced draft firing that was needed to pro-
duce such pottery. Without this knowl-
edge, consistent glazing could not occur.
The plain wares, like the painted wares,
vary a great deal in design and method of
construction. One point of difference be-
tween the two resides in the fact that the
general style of the plain ware may have
a life span of from 200 to 300 years, while
the life of a painted type is usually not
more than 50 to 75 years. It is because of
this finer sensitivity that the painted wares
constitute the backbone of our chrono-
logical deductions.
WHY DID THEY LEAVE?
It is most difficult to ascertain the reasons
for final evacuation of this area. The abun-
dance of charred corn cobs about the size of
a man's little finger, may indicate a pro-
longed drought. The plausibility of this
idea, however, must remain in "suspension"
since the excavation is not yet completed
and all the evidence brought to light.
Many avenues of thought may be used in
a study of this nature. Bringing to life once
again a culture that has ceased to exist re-
quires much more than the compiling of
dead statistics. It necessitates a knowl-
edge of the human mind and its reaction to
the various types of pressure which it may
encounter. Certainly the deceased Indians
who are now under our microscope of history
had no concern about income taxes, atom
bombs, and the like; but nevertheless, they
were human beings like ourselves, and
possessed the same spirit.
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
September, 1958
POISONS SAVE OUR TREASURES FROM PESTS
By PATRICIA McAFEE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
AUTUMN — the prelude to icy cold weath-
L.er — is approaching, and soon the boxes
and trunks packed with winter clothes will
be brought from storage. Just as winter
woolens and furs are packed away in moth-
balls during the summer months, so must
Museum collections be protected from
varieties of insects eager to attack every-
thing from hides and textiles to the insect
collections themselves.
Museum collections, however, are not
taken out of mothballs when fall arrives.
They remain year-round in treated storage-
study rooms or in specially prepared cabi-
nets. In fact, moth crystals are useful only
as a repellent. Stronger chemicals are
needed to destroy insect pests that may
have made their home on new specimens.
From department to department the pre-
ventive measures vary, but the result is the
same — destruction of harmful insects. All
collections housed in the Museum are valu-
able and will still be valuable years from
now. One small beetle the size of a grain of
rice may crawl into an exhibition case and
deposit her eggs. These eggs — if they are
not destroyed — develop into larvae which
can destroy many specimens.
ANTHROPOLOGISTS BATTLE MOTHS
The chief insect-enemies of Anthropology
collections are moths — insects commonly be-
lieved to be more attracted by dirty ma-
terials than clean. This is not true. What
actually happens is that the cleaning pro-
cedure destroys the larvae that were al-
ready on the material. Therefore specimens
are cleaned, whenever possible, before filing.
Certain articles cannot withstand cleaning
— a primitive mask, for instance, may be
painted with a substance that would be
harmed in the process.
After cleaning of perishables, which in-
clude hair, feathers, hides, mummies, tex-
tiles, and furs, they are stored in poison
rooms. These rooms offer protection from
dust as well as insects. Twice a year two
gallons of ethylene dichloride and carbon
tetrachloride are placed in open containers
in each of Anthropology's seven poison
rooms. The gaseous vapor emitted by these
chemicals is deadly — not only to insects but
to man. It is of a cumulative nature and
will produce little effect, other than a head-
ache, upon a person entering the room for a
short time. But a continuous exposure could
cause serious ill effects. Therefore, no risks
are taken; anyone entering a poison room is
equipped with a gas mask. If extensive work
is to be done in any of the poison rooms a
blower is turned on for 24 hours beforehand.
This removes all of the fumes, but necessi-
tates repoisoning when the work is completed.
Textiles that can be stretched flat are not
stored in the poison rooms with other perish-
ables. They are kept in special study collec-
tions in custom-made steel cabinets. The
repellent used is paradichlorobenzene — the
same chemical found in some commercial
moth crystals.
Unlike Anthropology, Zoology maintains
no poison rooms. Small mammals and bird
study-skins are kept in cabinets protected
against insects by paradichlorobenzene and
naphthalene crystals, which are renewed
twice a year. Suspect specimens receive a
concentration of the same poisons that is
twice as powerful. The birdskins are also
given the anti-insect treatment when they
are made up in the field.
The large furs are stored in a room that
has been treated with paradichlorobenzene
and naphthalene too. But they are also
poisoned while they are being prepared.
After the flat hides have been shaved,
tanned, and oiled they are soaked in drums
filled with a solution of eulan (a moth- off)
and arsenic (one ounce of arsenic to the
gallon). This method, plus periodic clean-
ing, assures the safety of the furs.
Of major concern to Zoology is a small
beetle called the Dermestes. This creature
feasts upon skin and does not seem much
concerned with hair or feathers. The lar-
vae attack the remaining fatty parts of the
specimens, and, unless arrested, will leave
nothing but a mass of feathers or fur.
IRONY AND ODDITY
Ironically enough the Dermestes also ren-
ders a great service to the Museum. A
colony of them is kept by Osteology to clean
the bones of animals later to be placed on
exhibition or in study collections. They
work efficiently, are more sanitary than
other small scavengers, and they leave the
bones intact.
The Division of Insects has — you guessed
it — one insect menace which causes 99 per
cent of their control problems. This little
creature, called the "odd beetle," was dis-
covered in 1903 by Mrs. Annie Slossen, an
entomologist. Mrs. Slossen, who found the
insect in her collection, named it Ignoltis
aenigmaticus or the enigmatic unknown. In
later years it was colloquially referred to as
the "tissue paper bug" due to its appearance
in bits of tissue paper tucked away in the
corners of closets. The female is wingless
and looks much like an insect in the larval
stage, while the male is equipped with wings.
The "odd beetle" needs very little to live
on — a piece of dust in the corner is quite
satisfactory. Man supplies the perfect en-
vironment for the family of insects, known
as Dermestidae, to which both the "odd
beetle" and the Dermestes used by Osteo-
logy belong.
To protect collections from the "odd
beetle," specimens are placed in a chamber
containing ethylene dichloride and carbon
tetrachloride for 24 to 48 hours. After fumiga-
tion they are enclosed in cases with naphtha-
lene fumes in them. Collections are in-
spected once a year and if there is suspicion
of damage the entire drawer is fumigated
twice.
The methods used to protect botanical
specimens differ again from those used by
Anthropology and Zoology. If field work
covers a long period of time the plants are
poisoned before they reach the Museum. The
unpoisoned plant specimens received from
the field are first heated for eight hours in
a chamber 160 degrees F. Then the dried
plants are dipped in a solution of 95 per cent
ethyl alcohol and bichloride of mercury.
They are blotted and dried, and after the
alcohol has evaporated they are put in dust-
proof cases, which have been treated with
the same chemical used by Anthropology in
storing textiles and Zoology — paradichloro-
benzene. If plants are not adequately dried,
however, they are subject to further damage
from mold growth.
Bichloride of mercury is a highly toxic
stomach poison and effectively does away
with any beetles that chance to nibble upon
a plant specimen. Since it is so strong, an
exhaust fan is kept running during the
poisoning process, and rubber gloves are
worn and forceps used to prevent the solu-
September, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
tion from touching the skin of the poisoner.
Only one department in the Museum is
free from insect worries. Geology specimens
do not contain organic matter that would
interest the scavengers. The Divisions of
Reptiles, Fishes, and Lower Invertebrates
have no insect problems because their speci-
mens are preserved in an alcohol solution.
All of the exhibition cases with anything
subject to insect attack in them are treated
alike. With the exception of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology, which handles its
own poisoning, the cases are poisoned annu-
ally by the Division of Maintenance with
ethylene dichloride and carbon tetrachloride.
In the Museum insects are studied, not
exterminated, but if certain precautions
were not taken no collections would remain
for study.
NEW SHELL COLLECTION
ACQUIRED BY MUSEUM
Chicago Natural History Museum has just
received the shell collection formed by the
late Archibald Christopher Billups of Law-
renceburg, Indiana. About 5,700 sets of
shells with approximately 75,000 specimens
are included.
Mr. Billups was born in England in 1865
and soon after coming to this country settled
first in Louisville, Kentucky, then moved to
Lawrenceburg. Through the influence of
friends at the Cincinnati Society of Natural
History, he became interested in the land
and freshwater shells of the Ohio Valley.
Over the years he made many extensive col-
lections in this area and used duplicate speci-
mens to exchange with other collectors in all
parts of the world.
The activities of man have altered the
rivers of the Ohio Valley. Many of its fresh-
water shells are now extinct and much of the
Billups collection could not be duplicated
today.
For several years Mr. Billups served as
Honorary Curator of Conchology at the
Cincinnati Museum of Natural History.
Since his death in 1914, the collection has
been stored in the attic of his son's home in
Lawrenceberg.
NEXT MUSEUM JOURNEY:
'PLANTS INDIANS USED'
Many years ago the Indians who lived in
North America used many plants in their
daily life. In fact some of them are even
used today. The fall Museum Journey,
"Plants the Indians Used," provides the
opportunity for boys and girls to see and
learn how plants supplied the Indians with
food, household articles, and medicines. The
Journey, offered by the Raymond Founda-
tion, may be taken any day in September,
October, or November during regular visit-
ing hours. Instructions and questionnaires
are available at either the north or south en-
trance of the Museum. After visiting the
exhibits and answering the questions the
journey sheet may be dropped in a barrel at
either door.
A child is eligible for an award as a Mu-
seum Traveler after successfully completing
four different Journeys. The completion of
eight different Journeys entitles him to a
Museum Adventurer award and twelve dif-
ferent Journeys a Museum Explorer award.
A special award, which will be announced
later, will be given for sixteen successful
Journeys.
Exhibit of Orchids
Set for October
The first annual orchid exhibition spon-
sored by the Illinois Orchid Society will be
held October 4-12 in Stanley Field Hall of
the Museum. More than 250 living orchid
plants in bloom are expected to be submitted
by about seventy-five exhibitors. In addi-
tion to a floral display of individual plants,
there will be special exhibits of different
types of orchids, of hybridization in orchids
showing parent stock as well as resulting
crosses, and of the life cycle of an orchid.
Books
GUPPIES. By Herbert R. Axelrod and
Wilfred Whitern. 64 pages. Sterling Pub-
lishing Co., New York. $1 paper cover,
$2 cloth binding.
In this handbook on the special require-
ments for keeping, breeding, showing, and
judging fancy varieties of guppies, many of
the available varieties are illustrated both in
monochrome and in color plates (the latter
rather dull and the colors not correct). The
methods of selective breeding to produce dif-
ferent strains are described. Detailed in-
structions are given on feeding to maintain
the strains.
Loren P. Woods
Curator of Fishes
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum :
Fieldiana: Anthropology, Vol. 48. Marianas
Prehistory. Archaeological Survey and Ex-
cavations on Saipan, Tinian and Rota. By
Alexander Spoehr. 187 pages, 89 illustra-
tions. $4.50.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 7. A New
Species of Ant-Thrush from Peru. By
Emmet R. Blake. 3 pages. 10c.
Fieldiana: Geology, Vol. 10, No. 30. A Re-
study of the 1917 Eruption of Volcan Boque-
ron, El Salvador, Central America. By
Sharat Kumar Roy. 20 pages, 21 illus-
trations. 75c.
OCEANIC COLLECTION-
(Continued from page i)
and an emaciated birdman of the highest
quality carved in wood. A lizardman figure
stands as an example of the best workman-
ship known from the island. Perhaps the
only complete tapa cloths in existence from
Easter Island are also included. Wooden
pillows or neck- rests from the Society Is-
lands, paddles and ceremonial adzes from
the Cooks, an ancestral idol or god from
Tonga, and the finest Maori toki or nephrite-
bladed adze now in existence all qualify as
exemplary pieces.
Similarly, two molded skulls from the Sol-
omons are new additions to Museum mate-
rials from this island group. Up to this time
the Museum has had no such specimens.
One of the outstanding new specimens that
derives from an area not at all well repre-
sented in Museum collections may well be
the finest mask of its kind. It is from the
Torres Straits between New Guinea and
Australia and is made of tortoise shell and
human hair. Not only is it outstanding be-
cause of its large size, but its condition and
the quality of the workmanship that went
into its making are truly magnificent.
The extraordinary pieces contained in the
Fuller Collection are too numerous to list
here, but in every case they will expand and
round out the existing collections in the
Museum, and will contribute to this insti-
tution's eminent position in the field of
Pacific ethnology.
RESEARCH POTENTIAL
Beyond the fact that numerous specimens
from the Fuller Collection will ultimately be
placed on exhibition in the Museum's Oce-
anic halls, the research potential of the col-
lection is considerable. Relatively few of
the objects which comprise the collection
have been the subjects of publication. One
segment, for example, comprises an extremely
comprehensive series of clubs. These speci-
mens constitute an exceedingly valuable
source for comparative study of design ele-
ments in ornamental surface carving and in
general over-all configuration. The portion
of the collection devoted to fishhooks is
probably the most complete series extant.
Likewise, weapons from Australia, New
Guinea, New Zealand, the Admiralties, and
the Solomons form individual series which
will allow fruitful scientific treatment. As
an addition to the Museum's Pacific Re-
search Laboratory the Fuller Collection will
encourage the future use of this excellent
study-storage facility by Museum staff mem-
bers and by other Pacific scholars as well.
The details of ancient Babylonian cylinder
seals are brought out in a frieze of impres-
sions, enlarged 25 times, around the walls of
Hall K, containing exhibits of the civiliza-
tions of the ancient Near East.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
September, 1958
Film Travel for Adults . . .
LECTURES ON SATURDAYS
BEGIN OCTOBER 4
Finland and the Congo are among the
places to be featured in color films and lec-
tures on Saturday afternoons when the
Museum's 110th series for adults begins in
October. The autumn series, presented un-
der the provisions of the Edward E. Ayer
Lecture Foundation Fund, will be given on
each of the nine Saturday afternoons in Oc-
tober and November. All of the programs
will begin at 2:30 p.m., in the James Simpson
Theatre of the Museum. Programs for Oc-
tober are:
October 4 — Marsh Mysteries
C. J. Albrecht
October 11— Kayaks Down the Congo
John Goddard
October 1 — The Country Beyond
Henry Briggs
October 25— Finland
Harry R. Reed
A complete schedule of the lectures will
appear in the October Bulletin. A section
of the Theatre is reserved for Members of
the Museum, and each is entitled to two re-
served seats for each program. Requests
should be made in advance by telephone
(WAbash 2-9410) or by mail. Seats will be
held in the Member's name until 2:25 P.M.
on the day of the lecture.
Each of the two divisions includes three
subclassifications: Animal Life, Plant Life,
and General. The General group is for
scenic views, geological formations, clouds
and other natural phenomena which would
not fit into either the animal-life or plant-life
sections.
NATURE PHOTO SHOW
ENTRIES WELCOME
Although the deadline for entries in the
Fourteenth Annual Chicago International
Exhibition of Nature Photography does not
occur until January, the present season is a
good one to select pictures made on vaca-
tions which might qualify for the contest.
The exhibition, sponsored by the Nature
Camera Club of Chicago, will be held at the
Museum in February.
This annual contest ranks as the largest
held anywhere in the world in the field of
nature photographs exclusively, and one of
the largest photo competitions of any kind.
Medals will be awarded for prints and
color slides adjudged the best in several
classifications, and many ribbons will go to
those deserving honorable mention. In ad-
dition to the awards made by the Nature
Camera Club, there will be special prizes
from the Photographic Society of America.
Contestants are permitted to submit up to
four entries in each of two divisions: (1)
prints, and (2) color slides. Prints may be
either in color or black-and-white. Entries
should be sent directly to the Museum,
which will furnish entry forms upon request.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Botany
From: Illinois State Museum, Springfield,
111. — specimen of Lipocarpha maculata
Department of Geology
From: Olin D. Atwood, Wheatland, Wyo.
— moss agate nodules; Dr. Richard Koni-
zeski, Missoula, Mont. — Diceratherium jaw
Department of Zoology
From: Mrs. Ruth Allchin, Solihull, Eng-
land — land snails, Guatemala and England;
Dr. J. Bequaert, Cambridge, Mass. — 2 land
snails, Chisos Mts., Tex.; Michael Duever,
Riverside, 111. and Thomas O'Neill, Chicago
— a turtle, Africa; Dr. Henry Field, Coconut
Grove, Fla. — 3 frogs, a centipede, a whip
scorpion, a Cerambycid beetle, land shells
and sowbugs, Bahamas; Fish and Wildlife
Service, Brunswick, Ga. — fish specimen, At-
lantic Ocean; Raymond Grow, Gary, Ind. —
a birdskin; James A. Hartman, Chicago —
3 velvet ants, Nebraska; John R. Hendrick-
son, Singapore — 2 bats, 3 flying squirrels;
Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt — embryos
of hedgehog, 47 birdskins; Dr. Libbie Hy-
man, New York — 5 land slugs; Ralph Jack-
son, Cambridge, Md. — land snails, Argentina;
Morris K. Jacobson, Rockaway Beach, New
York — non-marine shells, North America
and West Indies; Dr. N. L. H. Krauss,
Honolulu — 4 lizards, non-marine shells,
freshwater shrimp, Guam, Saipan and Mari-
ana Islands; Dr. Robert E. Kuntz, APO 63,
San Francisco — non-marine mollusks, 96 fish
specimens, Formosa, Pakistan, East Paki-
stan; Willard Mohorter, Cincinnati — marine
shells, worldwide; Dr. Juan A. Rivero, May-
aguez, Puerto Rico — a frog; Dr. Jonathan D.
Sauer, Madison, Wis. — snails, Jamaica and
Cuba; Standard Oil Co., Whiting, Ind. — a
blue heron; A/lc Tom F. Whismant, APO
231, New York— 9 frogs, 28 lizards, 12
snakes, Libya
NEW MEMBERS
(July 16 to August 15)
Life Members
Miss Hedwig H. Mueller, Albert Pick, Jr.
Non-Resident Life Member
S. Lloyd Nemeyer
Associate Members
Dr. Leon J. Aries, Eugene D. Buchanan,
J. S. Clifford, Mrs. Harriot W. Eldred,
John W. Evers, Robert S. Foster, William G.
Knapp, Frank F. Kolbe, Mrs. Walter D.
Larkin, Harry Lasch, Dr. Clayton J. Lundy,
Robert C. McNamara, Cleo Edwin McPher-
Movies for Children . . .
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE
ON SATURDAY MORNINGS
"Marshland Mysteries," a color film of
the sights and sounds in a swamp, and a
story told by naturalist C. J. Albrecht, for-
merly a member of the Museum staff, will
open the Museum's fall series of motion pic-
tures fcr children on October 4.
These free programs, which are sponsored
by the James Nelson and Anna Louise Ray-
mond Foundation, will be held every Satur-
day morning during October and November
at 10:30 in the James Simpson Theatre of
the Museum. Children are invited to come
alone, accompanied by adults or friends, or
in groups.
In addition to "Marshland Mysteries" on
October 4, the October programs will in-
clude:
October 11 — Mexico
October 18 — Siam
October 25 — Our Friend the Atom
A complete schedule of the children's pro-
grams will appear in the October Bulletin.
Special Primitive Art Show
Goes Into Last Month
September is the last month for "What
Is Primitive Art?", the special exhibit
which opened in Stanley Field Hall in July.
The display provides a synopsis of the Mu-
seum's permanent collections of art objects
from such places as Africa, Pacific islands,
and the realms of aboriginal inhabitants of
North, Central and South America.
son, Mrs. Dorothy Stone Mills, Daniel E.
Noble, Dr. Henry B. Okner, George Spatta,
Dr. Manuel Spiegel
Sustaining Member
Donald C. Brock
Annual Members
Mrs. Christine Adams, George L. Adams,
Dr. Walter A. Adams, Mrs. Alfred S. Al-
schuler, Sr., H. Leslie Atlass, Glenn E.
Autenrieth, Hec Barth, Mrs. Hugh Bartlett,
Dr. Harry B. W. Benaron, George R. Ben-
son, Jr., Henry A. Billsten, Mrs. Melvin
Boruszak, Dr. L. L. Braun, Miss Elizabeth
Browning, Marvin Chandler, Carl F. Clau-
sen, George Cobden, Dr. Robert C. Cosbey,
Dr. Loran H. Dill, Miss Grace E. Elliott,
D. H. Fairweather, Dr. Z. Z. Godlowski,
Paul J. Greenfield, Joseph Grossner, R. P.
Gwinn, Irving B. Harris, Miss Hatti Hayes,
Miss Lenore Helmich, Edward Keating,
Howard G. Klehm, James P. McLaughlin,
Harold W. Meyer, Darwin M. Rummell,
Bruce Sagan, O. K. Sensenbrenner, Elmer
Stone, Donald Strathearn, Jr., Walter A.
Symons, John W. Taylor, Dr. Hans von
Leden, Morrison Waud, Bernard H. Witt-
mann, Arthur M. Wood, William T.
Young, Jr.
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
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Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
October, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sh arat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Harte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Patricia McAfee Assistant in Public Relations
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
HOW SHARK ATE SHARK
IN ANCIENT INDIANA SEA
By RAINER ZANGERL and
EUGENE S. RICHARDSON, Jr.*
WHAT is the strange image pictured on
this page? It is an X-ray of a fossil
shark in a piece of Pennsylvanian black shale
from the Museum's Logan Quarry in Parke
County, Indiana. Besides being an excep-
tionally fine skeleton, this specimen is also
a remarkable document of a different sort.
It shows that the shark was eaten and soon
thereafter disgorged by an ancient predator.
How do we know? Among the many hun-
dreds of specimens that we have collected
from our two quarries in Parke County the
vast majority are preserved in a peculiar
manner that set us to wondering. There are
heads with all their bones in place, but the
bodies missing; there are bodies with the
scales where they belong, but the heads are
missing. Many times we have found por-
tions of more than one kind of animal
scrambled together on a small area of shale.
This kind of disarray cannot be explained
by simple bacterial decomposition of the
creatures after death. Some other factor
must have been at work. In some of these
specimens, bones and cartilage show a kind
of corrosion such as we see in the coprolites
(fossil dung) that are very common in our
black shale. These observations have led us
to the conclusion that most of the specimens
from the Logan and Mecca shale quarries
represent prey spat out by the predators in
various stages of digestion.
Of the various kinds of fishes preserved in
the shale only a few species of sharp-toothed
sharks can be regarded as fish predators; the
rest fed on crustaceans, mollusks and fry,
and were themselves eaten by the predators.
In many instances the predators were not
successful in swallowing the prey whole, but
♦Dr. Zangerl is Curator of Fossil Reptiles; Dr.
Richardson is Curator of Fossil Invertebrates.
X-RAY BARES SHARK'S TRAGEDY
Paleontological detective work reveals fossil in a
piece of black shale in curved position and with
other evidence indicating it was eaten and disgorged
by an ancient predator.
simply bit off a mouthful and let the rest
sink to the bottom. This has resulted in our
collection being quite rich in odd skulls and
tail fins.
Apparently it was the practice of the pred-
ators to regurgitate partially digested food,
perhaps because the food supply was plenti-
ful, or possibly for the purpose of getting rid
of hard parts such as bones and scales. Cer-
tain modern sharks disgorge freshly eaten
prey when faced with an unlimited food
supply; and owls, for example, clear their
stomachs of hard-to-digest materials, thus
producing the well-known owl pellets.
Under ordinary circumstances, such ma-
terial would have little chance of escaping
scavengers and bacterial decay on the sea
floor. As conditions prevailed in Parke
County, however, there were no scavengers,
and mud rapidly covered anything lying on
the bottom, preserving the remains from
bacterial destruction.
Look again at the X-ray picture. The
■THIS MONTH'S COVER-
"Goin' courtin' " is an appro-
priate title for our cover picture.
It shows a male prairie chicken
"booming" before a hen. Boom-
ing is a form of courtship ritual —
an ecstatic dance accompanied
by musical cooing. During its
performance the cock's air sacs
are inflated, its feathers are fully
spread, and its movements are as
abandoned as those of a calypso
dancer. The bird postures with
head held low and body parallel
to the ground. The long neck
tufts stick up like ears, and the
tail stands up at the other end,
making the cock appear astonish-
ingly like a rabbit. The spectacu-
lar display and nervous behavior
of the cock contrasts with the
quietness of the hen (in left upper
background of the picture). The
photograph was made in Wiscon-
sin by D. Dwight Davis, Curator
of Vertebrate Anatomy, from a
camera blind on a cold dawn.
Davis tells the story of his experi-
ence on page 5.
large shadow is the head of the shark with
its mouth agape; next to it lies the bottom
lobe of the tail fin, its tip beneath the snout
of the shark. Behind the head we see the
pectoral fins and various scattered parts of
the skeleton. The backbone curves beyond
the limits of the picture, loosely joining head
and tail. Clearly, we would not expect to
find a fish in this peculiar position if it had
died without help and had quietly settled
onto the mud; yet we have found more than
one specimen in this position. Some of these
have obviously been digested more thor-
oughly than others, making it possible to
line them up in a series that demonstrates
progressive stages of digestion.
Last year (August, 1957, Bulletin) we
reported the discovery of a very large shark
in this same quarry. Could this have been
the predator? We think not, because our
large shark has a rather small head, and
banks of blunt teeth that would undoubtedly
have crushed the skull of the prey animal.
On the other hand, we found in the same
quarry a pair of very large jaws (16J^" in
length), armed with few, minute teeth, which
belonged to a shark with an enormous mouth.
Such a creature could have engulfed a speci-
men as large as the one in the picture without
damage to its skeleton.
In previous articles in the Bulletin we
have stressed the enormous concentration of
fossils, especially vertebrates, in the Mecca
and Logan quarries. The animals buried
here were not killed in a single calamity,
{Continued on page 8, column 3)
October, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 8
SATURDAY AFTERNOON FILM-LECTURES TO BEGIN OCT. 4
FAR CORNERS of the earth will be
brought within the compass of the Mu-
seum's James Simpson Theatre for audiences
attending the 110th series of free illustrated
lectures on travel and science, provided by
the Edward E. Ayer Lecture Foundation
Fund.
The lectures, all illustrated with color
motion-picture films, will be given on the
nine Saturday afternoons during October
and November at 2:30. Admission is free.
Museum Members, who are entitled to two
reserved seats on request, are urged to make
early reservations for all the following dates
and program subjects:
October 4 — Marsh Mysteries
C. J. Albrecht
More than ten years were required to film
in color this around-the-year story of all the
life surrounding a marsh from moose to
goose. The photographer-lecturer, C. J.
Albrecht, is a zoologist and explorer who has
made 31 expeditions, and for years was a
taxidermist at this Museum. The popula-
tion, both permanent and migratory, of the
marshland he studies in this film is most
varied, ranging from frogs and toads to
buck deer. In the film you see them all:
creatures from the air, and inhabitants of the
land, in all seasons and all phases of their
lives.
October 11 — Kayaks Down the Congo
John Goddard
This film recording the first expedition
successfully to paddle the entire 3,000-mile
length of the Congo River was made by a
man who has devoted most of his life to
exploration in almost impenetrable regions.
John Goddard's color pictures show the most
savage and treacherous rapids known, which
he had to traverse in native "dugouts." In
the most luxuriant jungles he captured on
film the richest variety of bird and insect life
as well as such large animals as gorillas, chim-
panzees and okapi. There are meetings with
picturesque primitive tribes. The journey
starts at the Congo's farthest distant source
below Lake Tanganyika in northern Rho-
desia, and ends at its mouth on the Atlantic.
October 18 — The Country Beyond
Henry W. Briggs
This is the most recent film of the meticu-
lous nature-photographer, Henry W. Briggs,
well-known for the time and care with which
he makes his pictorial studies. It tells in full
color the story of the great tract of wilder'
ness that lies between Mount Katahdin,
Maine, and the Canadian border — a region
largely accessible only by plane, on foot, or
in canoes. Here are deer, moose, and bears,
and a great profusion of birds and plants, all
of which play their roles in Briggs' pictures.
To make the film, Briggs and his companions
lived in the woods just as the Indians did.
October 25 — Finland
Henry R. Reed
A remarkable documentary account of
life in this small Scandinavian country,
noted for the pride and fortitude of its
people, has been achieved in the films of
Harry R. Reed. It is a story with socio-
logical as well as historic significance. At-
his audiences. Exciting are the scenes in
which bighorn sheep and their lambs are
seen jumping the mountain rimrocks, and
grazing on flower-carpeted slopes. Herds of
lordly elk feed on the velvet green of a valley
floor. Sharp-tailed grouse and prairie chick-
ens strut and dance a ritual all their own.
The film ranges in scenic grandeur from the
REINDEER TAXIS MEET THE AIRLINER
In Lapland the visitor may arrive on modern wings and round out his journey with primitive means of trans-
portation. This scene at the airport of Rovaniemi is from the lecture-film "Finland" to be given October 25.
tention is given to the work, play, and daily
life of the Finns, as well as to the country's
agriculture, industry and architecture. The
story of the rugged life of Lapland is in-
cluded. There are many beautiful scenic
sequences.
November 1 — Rocky Mountain Rambles
Emerson Scott
High in the rugged peaks of Colorado and
among the foothills are to be found some of
nature's most colorful phenomena. Emerson
Scott brings a color-film record of these to
RESERVED SEATS
FOR MEMBERS
No tickets are necessary for ad-
mission to these lectures. A sec-
tion of the Theatre is allocated to
Members of the Museum, each of
whom is entitled to two reserved
seats. Requests for these seats
should be made in advance by
telephone (WAbash 2-9410) or in
writing, and seats will be held in
the Member's name until 2:25
o'clock on the lecture day.
lofty peaks of snow-capped mountains to the
turbulent rapids of swift-running canyon
rivers.
November 8 — North to the Polar Seas
Arthur C. Twomey
In a film rich in the color and romance of
the Far North, Dr. Arthur C. Twomey,
noted scientist of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mu-
seum, presents an account of an expedition
he led, 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle.
He covers the remote Mackenzie River delta
of extreme northwestern Canada, and intro-
duces his audience to the Indians, Eskimos
and wildlife in this fur-trading area. The
expedition was made in quest of the rare
Tule goose. Vast colonies of other birds are
also shown — lesser snow geese, golden plover,
Arctic tern, and whistling swan. A visit is
made to Eskimo whaling camps, and the
people are seen engaged in the hunting of the
great sea mammals, and in preparation of
the meat for winter food and the hides for
clothing and shelter.
November 15 — The New Guatemala
James Metcalf
Made entirely during and since the over-
throw of the former Communist regime,
(Continued on page 8, column 1 )
Page k
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
October, 1958
AUDUBON SOCIETY OFFERS
SUNDAY SCREEN-TOURS
Six Sunday afternoon screen-tours, accom-
panied by lectures, will be presented under
the auspices of the Illinois Audubon Society
during fall, winter and spring months in the
James Simpson Theatre of the Museum.
The series will open on October 5 with
"Land of Early Autumn" by Cleveland
P. Grant. Grant, a former member of the
Museum staff, has been acclaimed as a natu-
ralist-lecturer for some 25 years, and has
frequently appeared here. His newest film
ranges from Wisconsin through the wilder-
nesses of the Canadian Rockies and Alaska.
His "cast of characters" — the animals whose
inner lives he has penetrated with his cam-
eras — include grizzly bears, bull moose,
caribou, mountain goats, elk, bison, coyotes,
as well as many birds. This program, and
all the others in the series, will begin at
2:30 P.M.
The other lectures scheduled in the series
are as folows:
November 15 — Kiwi Commonwealth
Patricia Bailey Witherspoon
January 4 — Outdoor Almanac
Charles Mohr
February 22 — Animals at Night in Color
Howard Cleaves
March 8 — Secrets of the Sea
G. Clifford Carl
April 19 — Animals at Home and Afield
Robert C. Hermes
Seats in the reserved section of the Theatre
are available to Members of the Museum,
as well as Members of the Illinois Audubon
Society, on presentation of membership card
of either organization.
EDGAR ALLAN POE,
'GHOST WRITER*
By G. ALAN SOLEM
ASSISTANT CURATOR, LOWER INVERTEBRATES
The literary works of Edgar Allan Poe are
known to every high school student in the
country. It is not widely known, how-
ever, that a small book on seashells, The
Conchologist's First Book, appeared with
Poe as author in 1839 and was reprinted in
a second edition in 1843.
As early as 1850, it was recognized that
this was a pirated book, with Poe being
responsible only for the preface and for a
paraphrase of an introduction taken from a
book by Thomas Brown published in 1833.
The text is not taken directly from Brown,
but originates partially from Georges Cuvier
and mainly from Thomas Wyatt who pub-
lished a handbook on shells in New York in
1838. The description of shells and lists of
species follow Wyatt even to copying typo-
graphical errors.
In fact, this is probably a case of "ghost-
writing" rather than piracy. Apparently
the book was organized by Thomas Wyatt,
then Poe's name added in order to increase
the sales.
If one considers the number of books by
celebrities published today that are actually
written by a "ghost," such an arrangement
should not be surprising. Nevertheless, the
use of a "ghost-writer" in the 1830's is an
interesting sidelight on conchological and
literary history.
STAFF NOTES
Dr. Robert F. Inger, Curator of Am-
phibians and Reptiles, and Hymen Marx,
Assistant in Reptiles, attended the recent
annual meeting of the American Society of
Ichthyologists and Herpetologists at Bloom-
ington, Indiana. . . . Dr. Fritz Haas, Cu-
rator of Lower Invertebrates, and Dr. Alan
Solem, Associate Curator of the same divi-
sion, attended the annual meeting of the
American Malacological Union, at Ann Ar-
bor, Michigan. . . . Allen Liss, Assistant in
Anthropology, recently participated in exca-
vations of the Anker Site, an area in Cook
County that was occupied by a community
of prehistoric Indians.
Winter Visiting Hours
Effective October 15, the winter schedule
of visiting hours, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., will be
observed at the Museum. On Sundays the
hours will be 9 a.m. to 5 P.M. This schedule
will remain in effect through February 28.
NEW MEMBERS
(August 16 to September 15) .
Life Members
Mrs. Clarence A. Burley, Ainslie Y. Sawyer
Associate Members
Julius J. Abler, Richard R. Armstrong,
DeForest Paine Davis, Todd A. Ebbers,
A. C. Ketzler, Mrs. J. J. Lewis, Henry W.
Meers, Roswell W. Metzger, Mrs. C. S.
Pillsbury, Stephen Polyak, Jr., Mrs. Henry
Pope, Jr., Judd Sackheim, George S. Sandler,
Carl J. Weitzel, Jerome P. Whiston
Sustaining Member
Vincent B. Dickson
Annual Members
Frederick P. Ackerman, Dr. Walter A.
Adams, Louis Ancel, Dr. James M. Brooks,
William H. Bye, Arthur C. Cody, Dr. Ed-
ward L. Compere, Colby A. Cogswell, Clif-
ford B. Cox, Andrew C. Graham, Arthur
Grossman, Robert S. Hanson, Lewis Y. L.
Hayley, Dr. Edwin N. Irons, Reinhardt H.
Jahn, Mrs. Norma O. Johnson, Thomas H.
Knorr, Miss Phyllis C. Laubscher, Richard
Luce, Marvin L. Mass, Frank A. Priebe,
Lawrence S. Spitz, Sydney J. Ward, Thomas F.
West, Jr., Dr. Philip C. White, L. Ylvsaker
FILMS ON SATURDAYS
FOR CHILDREN
On the nine Saturday mornings during
October and November, at 10:30, free pro-
grams of motion pictures will be given for
children in the James Simpson Theatre of
the Museum. This is the annual autumn
series presented by the James Nelson and
Anna Louise Raymond Foundation.
Children are invited to come alone, in
groups, or with parents or other adults. No
tickets are needed. Following is the schedule:
October 4 — Marsh Mysteries
The sights and sounds of a swamp, in color
movies. C. J. Albrecht, of Homewood,
Illinois, maker of the film, will tell the
story
October 11 — Mexico
Movies of this colorful country will show
a small girl's birthday celebration in Patz-
cuaro; popular arts and crafts; where and
how orchids grow (tying in with special
exhibits of living orchids to be displayed
in Stanley Field Hall)
Also a cartoon
October 18 — Siam
A Disney "People and Places" color-movie
showing the tropical faraway land now
called Thailand
Also a cartoon
October 25 — Our Friend the Atom
A Disney movie that tells how atomic
science helps people. Film includes views
of a model of the Nautilus, the world's
first atom-powered ship
November 1 — The Great Adventure
The adventures of two children on a Swe-
dish farm. Made by Arne Sucksdorff,
this film won the Edison Foundation's
1955 award for best children's film
November 8 — Where Mountains Float
Danish film showing Greenland, a primi-
tive hunter's world, as seen by a 12-year
old Eskimo boy
November 15 — Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll's humorous classic presented
in a Disney color-movie
November 22 — Winter Fun
Things to look for and things to do in
the winter
Also a cartoon
November 29 — Panama: Land of Con-
trast
Murl Deusing, of Milwaukee Public Mu-
seum, will appear in person to tell the
story of his film
The story of 4,000 years of civilization's
development in ancient Babylonia is pre-
sented by exhibits in Hall K.
October, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
11 BOY.BIRDS FLOCK TO WOO ONE LITTLE PRAIRIE HEN
In order to photograph prairie chickens, once
common around Chicago but now extinct in
this area, Curator D. Dwight Davis recently
spent three days as a guest of Dr. and Mrs.
F. N. Hamerstrom (Fred and Fran in the
story herewith), near Plainfield, Wisconsin.
The Hamerstroms are engaged in a long-term
study of prairie chickens, on which the Wis-
consin Conservation Department will base a
management program designed to prevent this
spectacular bird from becoming extinct in
Wisconsin. Mr. Davis's article describes a
morning in one of the observation blinds.
By D. DWIGHT DAVIS
CURATOR OF VERTEBRATE ANATOMY
IT WAS AN HOUR before dawn that April
morning. The temperature was only 25
degrees and it felt very cold. The sky was
starry clear except for a bank of low clouds
in the east. The clouds disturbed me be-
cause they meant there would be no sunrise
and the blackness would hang on for perhaps
half an hour longer than it should, making
the cameras useless that much longer. If
they spread a little there would not be
enough light for picture-taking before the
birds left the booming ground. The field as
I started across it was flat and featureless
without a tree or even a bush but only
stubby grass that made a soft sound against
my shoes. Somewhere up ahead was the
blind and as I stumbled toward it, eyes
bugged with the strain of trying to see in
the darkness, the heavy tripod banged
against my leg and the camera bag pulled
heavily on one shoulder. The motion-pic-
ture camera was in one hand and the clip-
board and sniperscope in the other. I felt
weighed down and clumsy like a soldier in
full battle dress.
The clipboard and sniperscope belonged
to the Conservation Department and were
for data the Hamerstroms are compiling on
the prairie chickens. Fred had briefed us at
a long session the night before, as we sat
with hot coffee around a long table in the
big farmhouse Fred and Fran live in and use
as headquarters for their work. There were
several teams of observers going out the next
morning, all students who had come up the
night before from the University of Wiscon-
sin. Fred had assigned each team to a par-
ticular booming ground, and we listened
intently to the long and careful instructions
because none of us had ever seen a booming
prairie chicken and it was all very strange.
I had a booming ground to myself because
of the cameras, but a clipboard and sniper-
scope had been issued to me and I was ex-
pected to use them.
IN THE DARK
"There is a fence over there," Fran had
said, pointing as I got out of the car. "Walk
straight back about a block, keep parallel to
the fence and you should hit the blind. I
will pick you up about 8 o'clock."
After going about a block I stopped and
looked around without seeing the blind so I
went on another hundred feet, beginning to
fear I had missed it in the darkness. At the
briefing session Fred had said "If you don't
find your blind, get down and look for it
against the horizon." I did, and there it
was off to the left a bit and in the darkness
it looked as big as a house. Inside the blind
it was black, and I noted on the clipboard
"entered blind 4:31," feeling with my fingers
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BLIND FROM BEHIND
The prairie chickens performed in the grassy area
in front of the blind, while early-morning motorists
passed along the road in the distance.
for the edge of the paper and wondering if
the invisible scrawl would be legible in day-
light. I sat there alone on the low bench
surrounded by the familiar odor of canvas.
The two peepholes in the front of the blind
were just visible against the sky. Nothing
was happening and I felt foolish, because
sitting there waiting in the empty darkness
it seemed improbable that prairie chickens
would really choose to come to this particu-
lar field. It was silent except for the liquid
bubbling of prairie horned-larks flying over-
head in the darkness, and I did not know
how long I would have to wait.
I had not been in the blind ten minutes,
still fumbling with setting up the cameras in
the darkness, when there was a startling
great whirr of wings, a great but brief cack-
ling, and then a chorus of low cooings that I
knew must be the booming of the cocks.
The cooing sounded like blowing across the
mouths of many empty bottles. It was not
at all what I expected, and it seemed inex-
cusable to call such musical sounds "boom-
ing." I looked out through a peephole, still
half incredulous about the prairie chickens.
I could just barely see them. In the half-
light they looked as big as turkeys, and I felt
a fine glow of excitement because they were
out there in front and very close and they
did not know I was there.
The light was coming up fast but it was
still too dark to see much. The cold was
already beginning to get through the heavy
Air Force flight pants and the sheep-lined
jacket, and my feet were numb. I shifted
my legs, carefully because of the tripods,
but the blind was too small to straighten
them and it was very cramped.
THE AIR RESOUNDS
After fifteen minutes the birds were clearly
visible but still colorless and only moving
silhouettes against the stubble. I counted
eleven of them — from their behavior all were
cocks — scattered over an area perhaps a hun-
dred yards across and all dancing and boom-
ing almost continuously. The air was filled
with the fine sound. Each cock held his
head low and his body parallel to the ground,
and with feathers fluffed and the long neck
tufts sticking up like ears and the tail stick-
ing straight up at the other end, they did
not even look like birds but were so rabbit-
like that I was astonished and very pleased.
It is sad that this splendid thing is gone from
what once were the prairies of America, ex-
cept in a few places, such as the one we were
working, where the soil is too poor to culti-
vate. For a long time I watched and listened
and waited for the light to come up; this was
something I long had wanted to see. It was
much better than I had imagined, and very
pleasant.
While I watched, a hen suddenly moved
quietly among the cocks, and her presence
intensified the tempo of the booming; the
cocks postured lustily in front of her as she
moved about. It was light enough inside
the blind to read my watch now and I noted
on the clipboard "Hen appears 5:12." I then
put the sniperscope on her to see if she was
banded, but her legs were bare. Each time
a cock boomed now his vivid orange air sacs
and his orange eyebrows were visible in the
gaining light, and there was a furious drum-
ming of his feet. It was still ten minutes
before sunrise, but in my eagerness to start
shooting, and in spite of the clouds, it seemed
bright enough to shoot wide open and at a
slow shutter speed, but when I took a light-
reading the needle barely moved and I had
to wait. The closest bird was never less
than 30 feet away, so while waiting for the
light I broke out the biggest telephoto lens
and connected it to the Exakta. In the
viewer and through the lens the nearest cock
looked big and sharp and I could see him
better than with the naked eye. I wanted
a few pre-dawn pictures, so I took several
and then ran off a few feet with the motion-
picture camera.
The blind was really punishing me, and
finally even the excitement of seeing the
booming birds and the light, now nearly
enough for good pictures, did not drown out
the cramping pain and I had to shift my legs.
My foot struck a tripod leg and the camera
fell against the side of the blind, making a
dull thud. I waited tensely for the birds to
flush and spoil everything, but the nearest
ones only turned their heads momentarily
and looked at the blind. Then suddenly the
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
October, 1 958
sun came out, making long shadows behind
the birds but lighting them on the side
toward the cameras, and it was high time to
start shooting. It was late because the
clouds had hidden the sun. My luck had
already been pushed too far and I was be-
ginning to fear the birds would leave before
I had anything.
A TENSE MOMENT
Through the big lens and in the morning
sun the nearest cock made a fine sight. In
the viewer his image seemed almost to fill
the field, and as he moved around his terri-
picture camera and worked him over with it.
The sun was beginning to warm the rear
of the blind and it felt good on my back.
The canvas was very warm when I touched
it with my hand, but the front wall was still
cold and clammy and it was still chilly in-
side. By the time I had shot a roll of film
and a hundred feet with the motion picture
camera, the steam had gone out of the birds
and they were all resting or eating quietly
and only occasionally stirred up when one
cock stepped across the line into another's
territory. Long ago the hen had left as quietly
as she came. There was no more shooting,
COCKS 'BOOMING' BEFORE A HEN
Both cocks caught at the moment of full display, with air sacs inflated and feathers fully spread.
tory, nervous as a cat, I had to swing the
camera like a machine gun to keep it on him.
He was strutting and booming every few
seconds and I followed him in the viewer a
couple of times to fix the pattern and get the
feel of it before shooting. The moment to
shoot was at the end when he lowered his
head and boomed, and for a second was
fluffed out and spread in full display, but it
was difficult because he always pivoted
around and often as not ended up with his
backside facing the camera. I held the cable
release and waited tensely, watching him in
the viewer. The next time he came up
broadside and the image looked sharp so I
tripped the shutter. When I rechecked the
light and the camera settings they were all
right and it was a beautiful shot. I was
sweating a little in spite of the cold, but with
one good picture safely in the camera the
strain let up a good deal. I shot several more
pictures of the cock but none was as good
as the first. Then I switched to the motion
but the birds were still there and I could not
bring myself to flush them because they be-
longed there and I did not. I sat there plan-
ning what to do from the blind the next
morning, wishing the birds would leave so I
could get out and stand up. It was still cold
and the thought of the big coffee pot and
the hot stove back at the house tortured me.
A few cars were passing now on the road at
the end of the field, but it was only 7:30 and
still too early for Fran to be in any of them.
Suddenly there was a whirr of wings and I
looked out quickly, but the field was bare.
A moment later a marsh hawk passed low
over the field and from the blind I could see
his eyes.
COLD AND SORE
After ten minutes the birds had not re-
turned so I tipped the blind up and crawled
out. The muscles in my legs were sore when
I stood up and the sun felt warm, but an icy
wind had come up and I put my gloves on.
In the full light of day and without the birds
the field looked drab and the blind looked
absurd in the middle of the empty field. It
seemed faintly ridiculous that an hour ago
prairie chickens had been booming on the
spot where I stood. The birds had left little
coils of white dung on the ground and one
of them had dropped a feather. By the time
I had packed up my gear and started for the
road, Fran's car pulled up.
"How did it go?" she asked as she opened
the door.
"Fine," I said. "I was afraid the sun
wasn't going to make it."
"Did you have any chickens?"
"Twelve. One was a hen."
"Was the hen banded?" she asked quickly.
"No," I said, wishing I could say yes be-
cause I knew they particularly wanted data
on the hens.
"I hope you got your pictures."
"Oh yes. They were still performing after
the sun came out."
"Good."
The warm air from the car heater felt very
good. In fifteen minutes we were back at
the big old unpainted book-filled farmhouse.
The yard was filled with cars because we
were the last ones in. When we entered
Fred was already going over the report
sheets, checking with each team back from
a different booming ground. The room was
filled with people, and papers were piled on
the table along with coffee cups and a box
of sweet rolls. There were paintings of
prairie chickens on the walls and silhouettes
of them on the lampshade. Everyone except
Fred was excited and talking about prairie
chickens.
Fran had gone out to trap hawks for band-
ing. The students left as soon as they had
finished their reports and it was very quiet
and empty after they had gone. It was 10:30
by my watch, and I was dead because I had
been up since 3, and the cold and the excite-
ment had drained me. Fred stacked the
papers carefully and laid them on a desk in
the next room.
"I don't know about you," he said quietly,
"but I am going to hit the sack until lunch
time."
This was more than I had dared hope for,
and I said: "Me too," trying not to sound
as eager as I felt.
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
October, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
EXPEDITION UNEARTHS
WYOMING FOSSILS
By WILLIAM D. TURNBULL
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF FOSSIL MAMMALS
THIS IS THE THIRD consecutive year
that the Museum has sent a paleontolog-
ical expedition into the mid and late Eocene
deposits of the Washakie Basin of southwest
Wyoming in search of fossil mammals. The
goal for each of these trips has been to collect
systematically and to record the mammals
and other vertebrates from each stratigraphic
horizon. Records of the sedimentary types
and strata are made to help interpret the
structure of the basin and the ecologic pic-
ture of Washakie.
On the previous trips (reported in De-
cember, 1956, and January, 1958, Bulletin)
I have had the valued assistance of Orville
L. Gilpin, Chief Preparator of Fossil Verte-
brates. This year, David Collier (son of
FOSSIL HUNTER AT WORK
Lower jaw of the long-skulled titanothere Dolicor-
hinus is removed from channel sandstone like a
stubborn tooth being extracted under the zealous
efforts of Paleontologist "Bill" Turnbull on a cliff-
side in Washakie Basin.
anthropologist Donald Collier) accompanied
me as a most willing and enthusiastic vol-
lunteer assistant. We began work by pros-
pecting a 100-foot- high rim exposure that
marks a level near the contact of the two
horizons (Upper and Lower) of the Washakie
formation. On the second day, we were
rewarded with the discovery of a uintathere
humerus, pelvis, and sacrum. Uintatheres
were gigantic mammals that possessed very
large, distinctive horns or crests on their
yard-long heads. These beasts are members
of one of the numerous aberrant branches
of mammal lines, which were successful for
a time, but became extinct. They have no
close relatives alive today. The pelvis we
collected came from a hard, massive sand-
stone deposited in an ancient river channel.
It is complete, articulated with the sacrum,
weighs about 150 pounds, and measures
3 feet 9 inches across the iliac crests. Nearly
a week was spent in working out and jack-
eting this great block, which, incidentally,
had to be hauled by the truck's winch for
160 feet up a 40-45-degree cobble-covered
slope to the point where it could be loaded
into our field vehicle.
Two more weeks were spent in a thorough
prospecting of this horizon for a total dis-
tance of about two and one-half miles. In
it we were lucky enough to find the partial
remains of a three-toed horse, probably Epi-
hippus, and the complete skull of a very
rare crocodile, Brachyuranochampsa eversolei
Zangerl.
Some of the most interesting materials
from this horizon are the teeth and jaws of
the smallest mammals (insectivores and ro-
dents), which are exceedingly difficult to find
and for this reason rare in collections. Ants
helped us to find these little mammals.
They bring in stones, pebbles, and the tiny
bone and tooth fragments with which they
construct a mound that serves as a protective
covering to their nest. The hill or mound
also helps to control the humidity and tem-
perature of the interior of the nest. We
merely sacked up the sandy and gritty sur-
face of the ant hills and sieved off the fine
sand and silt — a collecting technique long
used by vertebrate paleontologists. The
concentrate of bone, teeth, and pebbles that
SAFEGUARDING FOSSILS
Hips (pelvis and sacrum) of uintathere, partially
jacketed with plaster for shipment to Museum, but
still in position as found in massive sandstone
channel in Washakie Basin.
was kept will have to be sorted in the labora-
tory. We took our concentrates only from
hills in which we saw one or more teeth, so
we are confident that a considerable number
of specimens will be recovered from the con-
centrates.
The most abundant large mammals in the
fauna are titanotheres, especially in the Up-
per Washakie beds. These early titanotheres
differed from their more spectacular descend-
ants of the Later Eocene and Oligocene in
their smaller size and in the lack of horns.
One of the titanotheres, Dolicorhinus, was
the size of a large horse with a skull over 2
LIVING ORCHID GARDEN
COMING TO MUSEUM
A garden of about 300 living orchid plants,
with a background of tropical foliage and a
temporary greenhouse, will form a special
exhibit in Stanley Field Hall of the Museum
from October 4 to 12 inclusive.
In addition, each day there will be some
300 fresh-cut orchids on display. Other fea-
tures will be corsages and arrangements
showing various uses of orchids. The scien-
tific aspects of the exhibit include a display
showing the life-cycle of an orchid from seed
to blooming plant; the breeding of hybrid
orchids; a series of water-color paintings of
orchids from various parts of the world by
H. Gilbert Foote, a Chicago artist; a series of
large published prints of orchids from the
Botanical Library of the Museum, and copies
of the Museum's publications on tropical
American orchids.
The show is sponsored by the Illinois Or-
chid Society. About 75 orchid growers of
the Middle West, California, Florida, and
Hawaii will display plants, and another part
of the exhibit will be supplied by Allied
Florists. While many exotic species of or-
chids will be shown, they have all been grown
domestically from introduced plants. Or-
chids native to the United States will also be
represented. Horticultural varieties (those
used commercially) and plants of purely
botanical interest will be included in the
exhibit.
feet long. Channel sandstones have yielded
the best of our specimens.
In order to trace the outcroppings of many
of the horizons, a photo mosaic map was con-
structed in 1956 from a series of aerial photo-
graphs. The map has since proved invalu-
able in locating exposures and recording
routes of access to the more isolated regions
of the basin. The Washakie formation cov-
ers about 400 square miles. Over much of
this area the formation is not exposed on the
surface but is covered by dunes and alluvial
deposits. On eroded rims the rocks are ex-
posed at the surface, and these are the places
that most prospecting for fossils is done.
Each of these rims may be traced for miles
along the strike of the beds. To date we
have systematically prospected about 30
miles of these outcroppings, sampling each
of the major horizons.
On the last day, when we were ready to
pack up and break camp, we found a partial
skeleton of what appears to be a tillodont.
This is a very rare form. Like the uinta-
theres, tillodonts are archaic mammals that
lived during Paleocene and Eocene times.
They are seldom found in collections, and
probably they were never very abundant
animals. It took three additional days' time
to collect this specimen. I shall certainly
have it prepared as soon as my shipment of
fossils arrives at the Museum.
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
October, 1958
FILM-LECTURES-
(Continued from page 3)
James Metcalf presents a most modern and
up-to-date film-document of fascinating
Guatemala. From the modern and beauti-
ful capital, Guatemala City, the cameras
carry the audience to the spectacular high-
lands in the south of the country. Here the
life of the present-day Mayas, heirs of a great
ancient civilization, is observed, including
a gay annual fiesta and a sacred ceremonial
masked dance. Other features are a restora-
tion of an ancient Maya city, the re-enact-
ment of a pagan ceremony of human sacri-
fice, and a visit to the rim of a live volcano.
November 22 — Sumatra
Robert Leighton
In this film-lecture, Robert Leighton offers
the story of an island, the fifth largest in the
world, whose polyglot population represents
some of the problems which Indonesia as a
whole faces. The various ethnic groups are
as diverse as the scenery. In the film, visits
are made to many tribes in remote villages
in all areas — north, central and south Suma-
tra. A spectacular harvest festival in the
shadow of a living volcano is seen. Sur-
viving symbols of the Stone Age give the
audience a glimpse into the mysterious past.
The island's economic potential is repre-
sented in the oil fields which lie in the heart
of the tiger country. Far eastern glamor is
witnessed at a wedding among the Menang-
kabau people.
November 29 — Panama: Land of Con-
trast
Murl Dewing
The life both of Panama, the nation, and
of the American-controlled Canal Zone, as
shown in this picture by Murl Deusing, of
the staff of the Milwaukee Public Museum,
reveals many contrasts. A visit is made to
the valley of square trees and golden frogs,
and to the mountain slopes of El Volcan with
its cloud forest and tree ferns. On San Bias
Island, where no white man is permitted to
stay overnight, the camera focuses on the
picturesque Cuna Indians among whom are
numbered many albinos. More thrills are
found in the luxuriant Darien jungle, and
amid the varied fauna of Barro Colorado.
will be two members of the Museum staff:
Roland W. Force, Curator of Oceanic Ar-
chaeology and Ethnology, and William D.
Turnbull, Assistant Curator of Fossil Mam-
mals.
Early Entries Are Urged
for Nature Photo Show
Preparations are now in progress for the
Fourteenth Annual Chicago International
Exhibition of Nature Photography to be
held at the Museum in February. Those
wishing to participate are urged to begin
sending their entries. Co-sponsor of the ex-
hibit is the Nature Camera Club of Chicago.
Medals and ribbons will be awarded for prints
and color slides adjudged the best in several
classifications, such as animal life, plant life,
scenery, etc. On the panel of five judges
Books
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TROPICAL
FISHES. By Herbert R. Axelrod and
William Vorderwinkler. 731 pages, 127
color plates, numerous monochromes.
Sterling Publishing Co., New York.
$7.95.
This unusually comprehensive volume
contains a great amount of information about
aquarium fishes and is recommended to seri-
ous aquarists as well as to beginners. The
emphasis is on breeding aquarium fishes and
the text is arranged into chapters on fishes
of a certain type of spawning habit (e.g., egg
scatterers, egg anchorers, live bearers, etc.).
The section on general breeding conditions is
fairly complete while that on water plants is
considerably more detailed than in other gen-
eral aquarium books.
An unusual feature is background infor-
mation on collecting fishes for aquaria by
dealers in various parts of the world. This
section briefly describes native habitats of
some kinds of fishes and the problems of han-
dling and shipping live fishes at the source.
There are also numerous pictures of the es-
tablishments of various aquarium-fish whole-
sale dealers in the United States, showing
facilities for spawning, rearing, or holding
different kinds of tropicals.
The text is profusely illustrated with both
monochrome and color prints. A number of
identical pictures appear more than once,
monochromes being repeated in color. While
most of the color plates are beautiful, in the
majority the colors are not accurate. The
index is not complete, some entries referring
only to a picture and not to text, and some
to text but not to picture.
Loren P. Woods
Curator of Fishes
Technical Publications
The following technical publications were
issued recently by the Museum:
Fieldiana: Geology, Vol. 10, No. 81. The
Problems of the Origin and Structure of
Chondrules in Stony Meteorites. By Sharat
Kumar Roy. 14 pages, 12 illustrations.
50c.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 41, No. 1. Birds
from Nepal. By Austin L. Rand and
Robert L. Fleming. 216 pages, 4 illus-
trations, 2 maps. $3.50.
Fieldiana: Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 9. Notes on
Lizards of the Genus Dicrodon. By Karl P.
Schmidt. 7 pages, 2 illustrations. 20c.
SHARKS-
(Continued from page 2)
however. Fishes lived and died throughout
the time of shale deposition. What, then,
was responsible for this fantastic concentra-
tion of fish remains? The interpretation of
most of the remains as disgorged prey pro-
vides a clue. Apparently the larger preda-
tors became trapped during periods of low
water in such shallow basins as existed at
Mecca and at Logan, but the prey did not.
The smaller fishes could move in and out of
these places, thus providing a constant sup-
ply of food for the confined predators.
The story of the "kitchen middens" of the
sharks of Parke County, Indiana, clearly
shows again that fossils can tell a great deal
more about life and living conditions in the
distant past than merely to provide a list
of the kinds of animals and plants. Such
insights, however, require the systematic
collection of all remains, not merely the
exceptional ones that make perfect exhibi-
tion specimens. By the technique of quar-
rying we obtain not orrty this totality of
evidence, but also the rare and fine show
pieces.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: Miss Marion G. Gordon, Chicago —
projectile point of chipped flint, Indiana;
Mrs. Chester Hart, Oak Park, 111.— 2 wed-
ding gowns, Japan and Tunisia; Harry
Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt — stone blade
(knife or sickle) ; Charles Pagano, Skokie, 111.
— projectile point of chipped flint
Department of Botany
From: American Museum of Natural His-
tory, New York — Sigillarian stump, Penn-
sylvania; Mrs. Dorothy Gibson, Chicago —
38 vascular plants, Kentucky; Prof. Winona
H. Welch, Greencastle, Ind. — moss specimen
Department of Geology
From: Buckingham- Victoria Slate Corp.,
Richmond, Va. — slate flooring and slate roof-
ing specimens; Ronney Kovalik, Palatine,
111. — 3 fossil cephalopods, Wisconsin; Re-
serve Mining Co., Silver Bay, Minn. — taco-
nite specimen; Tom Solenberger, Albuquer-
que, N.M. — brachiopod specimen
Department of Zoology
From: Bernard Benesh, Burrville, Tenn. —
315 insects; Harry Hoogstraal, Cairo, Egypt
— 14 longhorn beetles, 22 frogs, 134 lizards,
64 snakes, 8 clutches of eggs, New Guinea
and Egypt; Ralph Jackson, Cambridge, Md.
— 25 lots of inland shells, Ecuador; W. L.
Klawe, La Jolla, Calif. — 4 lizards, lizard eggs,
Cocos Islands; Dr. F. C. Lehmann, Colom-
bia — 20 monkey skins; Arthur Loveridge, St.
Helena Island — 12 frogs, frog larvae; U. S.
Fishery Laboratory, Beaufort, N.C. — fish
specimens, Florida and Georgia; U. S. National
Museum, Washington, D.C. — slides of suck-
ing lice, North Africa
PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS
Bui/etin
CHICAGO
NATURAL
HISTORY Vol. 29 jVo. 4J
MUSEUM Jfovemtet 4958
Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
November, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wii. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirts, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Sbarle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Amusoiu' Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. Hartb Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Patricia McAfee Assistant in Public Relations
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
CURATOR FORCE NAMED
IN HONOR GROUP
Roland Wynfield Force, the Museum's
Curator of Oceanic Archaeology and Ethnol-
ogy, was recently honored by the Chicago
Junior Chamber of Commerce, which selected
him as one of Chicago's ten outstanding
young men (under age
35) for 1958.
A few days after this
honor, Force also re-
ceived, in absentia, a
Doctor of Philosophy
degree from Stanford
University, of which
he is a graduate, and
where he had earned
his Master of Arts de-
gree.
Dr. Force was the
only scientist in the
group honored by the
"Jaycees." The others represented fields of
industry, education, medicine, and religion.
They were chosen from among more than
5,000 nominees in recognition of their con-
tributions to their professions and to general
welfare. Selections were made by a panel of
seven judges: Karin Walsh, City Editor, Chi-
cago Sun-Times; Wesley Hartzell, City Editor,
Chicago American; Clem Lane, City Editor,
Chicago Daily News; Fred Nichols, Assistant
Roland W. Force
to the Publisher, Chicago Tribune; Robert C.
Liebenow, President, Chicago Board of Trade;
Dr. Richard H. Young, Dean, Northwestern
University Medical School, and the Very
Rev. Comerford O'Malley, President, De
Paul University. A testimonial luncheon
was tendered to the ten chosen young men
at the Palmer House on October 3, and indi-
vidual plaques were presented to them.
The selection of Curator Force, who is 33,
was in recognition of the outstanding work
he has done in anthropological research on
peoples of South Pacific islands, and his
efforts in obtaining for the Museum the Pa-
cific collection of Captain and Mrs. A. W. F.
Fuller of London. This was the largest and
most important collection of its kind remain-
ing, until this time, in private hands (Bul-
letin, September, 1958).
Dr. Force joined the staff of the Museum
in June, 1956, shortly after completing (with
his wife, Maryanne) eighteen months of field
work in Micronesia. He conducted studies
among the peoples of the Palau Islands
(Western Carolines, in the Trust Territory
of the United Nations) for the Tri-Institu-
tional Pacific Program sponsored jointly by
Yale University, the University of Hawaii,
and the Bernice Bishop Museum of Hono-
lulu. Dr. Force was an associate in ethnol-
ogy at the Bishop Museum, and prior to that
he taught in the department of anthropology
and sociology at Stanford University.
REPORT ON METEORITE
STUDIES ABROAD
By SHARAT KUMAR ROY
chief curator of geology
I have just returned from a year's stay in
Europe and India where I was engaged in re-
search and consultation work on stony mete-
orites, especially concentrating on those which
contain certain spheroidal bodies called chon-
drules. These bodies are aggregates of one
or more silicate minerals and occur in about
90 per cent of all stony meteorites. The total
number of all classes of meteorites known,
excluding the doubtful ones, and those that
might be identical, is in the neighborhood of
1,550. Of these, nearly 800 are stony mete-
orites.
Since most of the major collections of me-
teorites are found in the museums of the cap-
itals of Europe and in certain universities, it
was necessary for me to travel extensively.
For some unaccountable reason a large num-
ber of stony meteorites have fallen in India.
The Indian Museum at Calcutta houses the
largest number of observed falls of stony me-
teorites of that country. While in Calcutta,
I had the opportunity to work on this fine
collection. The only notable collection that
I did not see was the U.S.S.R. collection.
This I regret, for the Meteorite Committee
of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow is
very actively engaged in increasing the facil-
ities for the preservation and study of meteo-
-TH1S MONTH'S COVER-
The portrait on our cover this
month is "A Young Man of Cuz-
co." The oil painting is one of 39
by Caroline Van Evera that form
a special exhibit: "People of the
Highlands — Indian Types in Cen-
tral and South America." The
exhibit will be on display in Stan-
ley Field Hall November 1-30 (see
story on page 3).
rites, particularly from the viewpoint of geo-
physics. Of course, there are many collections
in private hands to which I did not have
access.
My main objective was to search for a so-
lution to the problem of the origin and mode
of formation of chondrules in stony meteo-
rites. Chondrules hold the key to the origin
of meteorites at large, and give some indica-
tion as to the type of material likely to be
found in the interior of the earth. It was
realized that a study of this sort could not
be made on examination of limited material.
It was also realized that the problem was
more one of petrography and petrology than
of analytical chemistry, and that the study
should be based on the critical examination
of thin sections. This was precisely the pro-
cedure I followed and, among other features,
noted the following: order in which the dif-
ferent minerals had appeared; degrees of meta-
morphism; textural and structural variations;
and distributions and interrelationships of
the various components of the chondrules.
I also took some 1,400 microphotographs,
both in color and black-and-white, of thin
sections, in ordinary and between crossed
nicols, to enable me to visualize and to inter-
pret the features observed and as a perma-
nent reference for comparison and discussions
of controversial points.
I wish to express my sincere appreciation
for the research grant I received from the
National Science Foundation and for the sup-
plementary appropriation from the Museum
to pursue this study. I also wish to extend
my hearty thanks for the cordial co-opera-
tion and effective laboratory facilities given
me by museums and institutes at Calcutta,
London, Paris, Zurich, Vienna, various cities
in Germany, Stockholm, Helsinki, and a num-
ber of other places where fewer but rarer
specimens are preserved. It has been my
good fortune to have had the opportunity to
examine more than 80 per cent of known
chondritic meteorites.
Veteran Museum Aid Dies
The Museum notes with regret the death
on October 5 of Timothy Reidy, formei
Sergeant of the Guard. Mr. Reidy entered
the service of the Museum in 1917 and was
retired on pension in 1943. He was 94 years
old when he died.
PRIVTFn RV fUinr^ ViTlffli
November, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page S
CULTURAL CROSSROADS
OF THE SOUTHWEST
By PAUL S. MARTIN
CHIEF CURATOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A VILLAGE — occupied by Mogollon In-
dians about a.d. 1350-1500 — to which
traveling salesmen may have come from time
to time to pursue their honorable profession
of trade and barter, was revealed by the exca-
vations of the Museum's Southwest Archae-
ological Expedition in its 1958 season.
We conjecture that trading parties — from
perhaps a hundred miles or more away— may
ARIZONA KIVA UNCOVERED
The room, used by prehistoric Indians for cere-
monials, is paved with sandstone slabs. Tesellated
arrow in center indicates location of firepit. The two
workers are excavating a niche which was found to
contain turquoise pendants and gaming pieces. The
room, one of several opened, measures 10 by 14 feet.
have met here, for we find abundant evidence
of trade in the pottery we dug up. Some of
it apparently came from the Gila valley to
the south (Globe and Phoenix) and some of
it from the Hopi towns in northern Arizona.
Microscopic studies, yet to be undertaken,
will settle this point finally; but at the mo-
ment we base our guess as to the source of
the trade pottery by means of its colors and
designs.
The site excavated this past summer is
located about a half-mile east of St. Johns,
Arizona, on the east bank of the Little Colo-
rado River. The site or pueblo, composed of
almost sixty rooms and two kivas (men's
ceremonial rooms) lies on top of a sloping
mound about 30 feet high, 200 feet long, and
1 00 feet wide. It is quite possible that many
of the dwellings were arranged in a bi-level
manner; and certainly some portions of the
| pueblo-town were two stories in height.
There were no doorways such as we have in
the walls of our houses. On the contrary,
entrance to each room and house was through
the roof. By that I mean there was a door-
way or hatch in the roof (covered in bad
weather by means of well-cut, neatly shaped,
thin stone slabs), and through this everyone
entered and left. Thus, to enter your house
you climbed a ladder to the roof and de-
scended another ladder into your apartment.
TORTOISE-LIKE DEFENSE
Such an arrangement had practical advan-
tages besides being, apparently, one of tradi-
tional usage. In time of peril or raids, ladders
could be drawn up to the roof making easy
penetration impossible. If was a kind of tor-
toise arrangement whereby the occupants
withdrew to safety until the danger abated.
One of the greatest factors in producing
cultural changes is trade — trade in both ma-
terials and ideas. The site excavated this
last season brings into view a segment of the
Mogollon civilization that was significantly
altered by these mechanisms, as "foreign
ideas" are reflected in the pottery, the archi-
tecture and the stone tools.
The Davis site — named after Mark Davis,
the owner — was perhaps one of the latest
pueblos in the area to manifest Mogollon
identity before the Mogollon Indians dis-
appeared as a separate group.
We conjecture that the site was occupied
between a.d. 1350 and 1450. These dates
are guesses only and are based on a hurried
examination of the pottery. We may revise
these figures up or down after more data
are in.
It is probable that the site was occupied
for a relatively short time — perhaps fifty to
one hundred years. We had assumed we
would find earlier towns under the top or
latest one, but we were doomed to disap-
pointment, for the floors of the excavated
pueblo rested on bed rock.
POTTERY IN A TOMB
It is of interest here to note that under the
floor of one room and excavated partly in the
sand rocks we found the tomb of a woman,
with whom were buried two pieces of pottery
whose homeland is about 50 miles distant.
These pots date from about a.d. 750! Now,
one may infer either that these pots were
heirlooms and had been handed down from
mother to daughter without breakage for
about 700 years, or that the family traveled
many miles for some obscure reason to bury
their loved ones on a lovely knoll far from
the family hearth.
We have followed the trail of "our" Mo-
gollon Indians with undiminishing vigor for
nearly 20 years. As a result, I am in an emi-
nently fortunate position of being able to
make a few assertions and conjectures.
Briefly, the evidence from the site gives
me a fairly clear image of the inhabitants
and their way of life.
First, the founders of this town — the an-
cient name of which we do not possess — were
Mogollon Indians of brownish skin and of
medium stature. The culture they had de-
veloped was an old one — one of the longest
(Continued on page 5, column 1 )
PAINTINGS SHOW INDIANS
SOUTH OF BORDER
"People of the Highlands," a special ex-
hibit of paintings by Caroline Van Evera,
will be on display November 1-30 in Stanley
Field Hall of the Museum. Included in the
exhibit are 39 oil paintings of Indians typical
of the highlands of Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecua-
dor, and Peru.
Miss Van Evera, now of Greenwich, Con-
necticut, traveled to Central and South
America where she found the subjects of her
paintings. Of documentary as well as artis-
tic value, the portraits of individuals convey
racial and cultural characteristics of the peo-
ple. Under Miss Van Evera's brush, the
"Young Man of Cuzco," "The Witch Doctor
of Calca," "Woman of Cochabamba," "The
Musicians," and "Guadalupe" reveal their
moods and temperaments.
One of the most typical and exciting aspects
of Indian life in Latin America is the weekly
market to which come vendors and buyers
from the remotest villages. In her paintings
of market scenes in Antigua, Guatemala;
Otavalo and Ambato, Ecuador; Cuzco, Peru;
and Cochabamba, Bolivia, the artist has cap-
tured the color and rhythm of costumed fig-
WOMAN OF COCHABAMBA
Bolivian Indian type in the series of paintings by
Caroline Van Evera which will be on exhibition in
Stanley Field Hall throughout November.
ures, vegetable produce, and handicrafts, and
the lively bustling spirit of occasion.
The collection was exhibited in Paris in
1950, but this is the first time it has been
shown in its entirety in the United States.
The ancient Roman Empire is represented
in the Museum by antiquities recovered from
Pompeii and Boscoreale that were buried by
the eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79. The
exhibit is in Edward E. and Emma B. Ayer
Hall (Hall 2).
Page i
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
November, 1958
GIFT OF OVER 7,000 SHELLS INCLUDES MANY RARITIES
By PATRICIA McAFEE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
WHEN THE STORM subsides, the
shore of Sanibel Island is left heavily
sprinkled with numerous shells of great
beauty. These shells — of many shapes,
sizes, and colors — have lured collectors and
visitors to this island off the west coast of
Florida since the early 1900's.
Dr. Charles Webb Yarrington was not a
shell collector when he and Mrs. Yarrington
first visited Sanibel Island 15 or 20 years
ago. They traveled there out of curiosity,
but it was one of the days after a storm had
just swept the island and the abundance of
shells cast upon the beach inspired Dr.
Yarrington to begin his collection.
This excellent collection, which he spent
the remainder of his life amassing, was
recently donated to Chicago Natural His-
tory Museum. In recognition of the gift, the
Museum's Board of Trustees has posthu-
mously elected Dr. Yarrington a Contribu-
tor to the Museum.
Dr. Yarrington was a doctor of medicine
by profession. He graduated from the Uni-
CONCHOLOGY LABORATORY IN HOME
The late Dr. C. W. Yarrington of Gary, Indiana,
inspecting one of the larger specimens of marine
snails in his extensive collection, which has now
been acquired by the Museum.
versity of Michigan in 1902 and began
practice as a company physician for the
Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in
Calumet, Michigan. He remained there for
10 years, leaving for Gary, Indiana in 1912
to become the first full-time school physi-
cian in Indiana and probably the first in the
United States. The type of practice origi-
nated by Dr. Yarrington — the medical in-
spection of schools — has been widely adopted
over the whole country. In 1914 he went
into private practice and maintained it until
his death in March, 1957.
Dr. Yarrington was one of Gary's fore-
most doctors during his lifetime, and he was
also one of Gary's foremost citizens. During
his early career he was one of the first to
promote a hospital for Gary; in later years
he headed a drive to build Gary Memorial
Auditorium. He served as president of the
staffs of both Mercy and Methodist hospi-
tals, and was president of Lake County
Medical Association and Gary Rotary Club.
His services were never of short duration —
he was one of the 10 who signed the first
Red Cross charter and he served in that
organization for 40 years. He was a member
of the Indiana Medical Association, the
American Medical Association, and the
American College of Surgeons. During
World War I, he served as a captain, but
was never called overseas because he was
badly needed to battle a flu epidemic that
had broken out in Gary.
It seems amazing that a man as successful
and civic-minded as Dr. Yarrington would
still have time to devote to a shell collection.
Even more surprising than this, Dr. Yarring-
ton maintained several other fine collections
during his lifetime. He began collecting
arrowheads and brass when he was but a boy
on a farm in Norvall, Michigan. Later col-
lections included brass, keys, and antique
glass. None of these, however, reached the
importance of his stamp collection and his
shell collection.
SHELLS OF EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY
Many of the 7,000 to 8,000 shells in the
collection were gathered by Dr. Yarrington
himself, either in Florida or in Michigan and
Indiana. The remainder were bought from
dealers, particularly the late Walter F. Webb
of St. Petersburg, Florida. The Yarrington
Collection is composed chiefly of marine
shells from medium to large size, which are
of especially beautiful color, unusual form,
or ornamentation. Most of them are over
2 inches in size, although the majority of
marine shells existing are less than one-half
inch in size. The collection will be particu-
larly valuable for use in exhibits because of
the size and outstanding quality of the
specimens.
Extensive and complete representations
of groups of shells long prized by collectors
are included in the Yarrington Collection.
Murices, cones, volutes, cowries, olive shells,
scallops, and spike shells are examples of
this. Deep-water shells, which have been
C
CHINESE WENTLE-TRAP
In the 1890*s these three shells would have been
worth several times their weight in gold. Because of
this, counterfeits were often made of rice paste. By
now, fishermen have found enough so that most
amateur collectors possess at least one example.
HERMIT CRAB IN CONCH SHELL
Many a collector has put an "empty" shell aside on
a beach, only to have the hermit crab hidden inside
scuttle off with the shell. The claws and head of the
crab are heavily armored, but its soft belly must be
protected from enemies by being backed into an
empty snail shell.
collected in small numbers only in recent
years, also make up a notable part of the
collection.
In addition to the well represented groups
of shells, certain specific shells have a rather
unique history behind them, while others
have an unusual appearance tending toward
the bizarre. The Scala pretiosa or wentle-
trap are deep-water shells dredged off the
coasts of China and Japan. Before 1900
they were among the rarest shells known
and were sold by dealers for as much as $100
per shell. This was a lucrative sum, and
man's deceit left not even shells uncounter-
feited. Copies were made from rice paste
and sold to dealers for the worth of the real
shells. In later years the genuine shells have
become more plentiful, and the imitations
are now the rare items.
A type of shell exceedingly common
250,000,000 years ago was Pleurotomaria,
commonly called the slit shell. At that time
several hundred species existed, whereas v
today there are less than a dozen — evolution
being responsible in this case for any change,
and not man. The slit shell is no longer
a shallow-water shell, as it once was, but
November, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 5
lives in deep water. It derives its common
name from the slit at the bottom of the shell
through which a tube protrudes enabling the
animal to breathe as the water sweeps over
its gills.
TENANT IN ANOTHER'S SHELL
The strange looking creature pictured in
an accompanying illustration is not a new
type of snail; it is a hermit crab that has
moved into a conch shell after the death and
decay of the animal which originally in-
habited it. The hermit crab begins its life
in a small shell and as it grows moves on to
occupy a larger one. So we see that in the
economy of the sea little is wasted. The
living are provided housing by the natural
deaths of other animals.
Because of their particular interest and
fine quality, selected specimens from the
Yarrington collection will be presented in
a special exhibit, which will open to the
public in December. The exhibit will be
designed not only to display the rare beauty
and unusual form of shells but to present
biological facts about them and the animals
that inhabit them.
SOUTHWEST CROSSROADS-
(Continued from page 3)
unbroken histories we know of — stretching
Lback 10,000 to 12,000 years. Their remote
ancestors had found the means of living on
the desert partly by hunting but mostly by
gathering wild plants — berries, nuts, roots,
and the like.
Through many vicissitudes, migrations,
upheavals and evolution — all of which we
have traced and which are described in my
forthcoming book Digging Into History —
these people gradually converted their wan-
dering way of life to a dynamic manner of
living which embraced agriculture, town-
dwelling and pottery-making.
About a.d. 1200-1300, they migrated from
the Pine Lawn Reserve area in western New
Mexico, for reasons as yet unclear, to eastern
Arizona in the Springerville-Vernon-St. Johns
area, located in the drainage of the Little
Colorado River. We have closely followed
their trail.
MORE SOPHISTICATED COMMUNITY
Here at the Davis site, we find our Mogol-
lon Indians more sophisticated. They lived
in a fair-sized town whose population may
have been about 150 to 200 souls.
They retained many of their ancient cul-
ture traits — brown, smudged and red pol-
ished pottery, tools of stone and bone, and
perhaps the same kind of mother-line in-
heritance and social organization.
" But, in addition, as noted above, trade and
contacts had greatly influenced many of the
material aspects of their civilization. The
pottery shows definite signs of experimenta-
tion with a glaze-point for decorative pur-
poses. I say "experimentation" because
some of it was well executed and some of it
was not — a sign perhaps that the new glaz-
ing technique had not been brought under
control.
They lived in rooms built on the surface
of the ground, and the walls of these were
stone masonry of a fair order. Some of the
walls were undoubtedly about 6 feet high;
while the two-story rooms were probably
twice as high. The rooms were small, meas-
uring about 6 by 12 feet. For roofs, they
used large cedar beams, then branches and
twigs cunningly intei laced so as to make a
tight covering; and over this to make it all
waterproof they plastered 6 to 8 inches of
mud. In the center of each roof was the
hatchway-entrance.
ADVANCES IN AGRICULTURE
The Mogollones grew crops of corn, beans
and squash. Hunting was resorted to, cer-
tainly, for we find many animal bones; but
primarily these chaps were farmers and good
ones, too. Some of the corn cobs (charred)
were found to be almost as slender as a thick
lead pencil, and this fact leads us to wonder
if drought was not present and if it was
not, in fact, a prime cause of abandoning
this site — maybe about a.d. 1450 or 1500 —
just a few years before the Spanish discovery
of this very area. Cortez and his men prob-
ably marched within shouting distance of
this town.
The living rooms were provided with well-
built rectangular, slab-lined fire-pits. Smoke
escaped through the hatchway. Many rooms
were provided with a ventilating apparatus
— the great grandfather of our air condition-
ing; and some rooms had special ventilators
the like of which we had never seen before.
Usually located in a corner, in the vicinity
of the fire-pits, these may have served also
as crude chimneys.
Clothing was scanty in summer; in winter
it probably consisted of cotton kilts and pon-
chos and rabbit-fur blankets.
Transportation was entirely by shank's
mare so that when a trading venture was
dreamed up or when a big ceremony required
attendance at a village miles away, walking
got our Indians there. No horses, mules, or
camels, no wagons or sleds. Just plain walk-
ing. Dogs were certainly present as pets and
as a possible source of food in hard times;
and turkeys may also have been partially
domesticated, both for food and because tur-
key feathers were much admired in ceremo-
nial headdress.
EVIDENCE OF RELIGION
Religion, although very different from ours,
was important. It demonstrated an interest
in the whys and hows of life and death and
of the cosmos. Two chambers, especially
built and spacious, were set aside for religious
activities. These rooms are called kivas and
they also served as clubhouses for men dur-
ing winter months. The floor of one of our
MOVIES FOR CHILDREN
ON 5 SATURDAYS
Five more free programs of motion pic-
tures for children will be given on Saturday
mornings in November, completing the au-
tumn series provided by the James Nelson
and Anna Louise Raymond Foundation.
The shows will be given at 10:30 a.m. in the
James Simpson Theatre of the Museum.
Following are the dates and titles:
November 1 — The Great Adventure
The adventures of two children on a
Swedish farm.
November 8 — Where Mountains Float
Danish film showing Greenland, a primi-
tive hunter's world, as seen by a 12-year
old Eskimo boy
November 15 — Alice in Wonderland
Disney color-movie
November 22 — Winter Fun
Things to look for and things to do in
the winter
Also a cartoon
November 29 — Panama: Land of Con-
trast
Murl Deusing, of Milwaukee Public Mu-
seum, will appear in person to tell the
story of his film
Children are invited to come alone, in
groups, or with parents or other adults.
No tickets are needed.
kivas was beautifully constructed of finely
cut and neatly fitted sandstone slabs laid on
a sacred foundation of golden river sand. In
a niche in the wall of this kiva we retrieved
a forgotten offering — a turquoise pendant,
some stone beads and some dice.
During non-religious times men wove cot-
ton blankets in the kiva. Specially con-
structed loom-holes were found in the kiva
floor. It is assumed that the lower end of
the loom was lashed to these (as in contem-
porary Hopi and Zuni kivas). The upper
part was made fast to the wooden roof-beams.
What is the use of research into all this?
There is no breathtaking answer. We may
learn from the past. We are a part of the
past and we cannot cut ourselves off from our
heritage. But beyond this lies the curiosity
that everyone has concerning something or
other. If a person's curiosity is directed
toward the past and to questions of how men
met and conquered difficulties just like ours
— then that in itself is the answer to why we
investigate. Without this curiosity and
knowledge concerning man's past adventures
we would be like people without memory —
vegetables and morons. With such knowl-
edge, we can understand ourselves — we can
realize our common humanity and we can
perceive the potentialities that distinguish
man from all other animals.
Page 6
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
November, 1958
MUSEUM AIDS IN CHICAGO AREA SALVAGE DIG
By ALLEN LISS and ELAINE BLUHM*
FOR MANY YEARS archaeologists at
Chicago Natural History Museum have
been interested in learning more about the
prehistoric Indians who long ago inhabited
the Chicago area. Much of the prehistoric
record that can be obtained from former In-
dian villages and cemeteries is being destroyed
by modern urban progress. The expanding
city and towns, new shopping centers and
TOBACCO-PIPE BOWL
Made of stone, this item of smoking equipment
carved in the form of a human face, was found in one
of the excavated burials. It is not typical of Chicago
area specimens.
factories, and more recently the transconti-
nental highways with their large-scale earth-
moving operations destroy the prehistoric
record.
In order to recover some information from
these sites before they are completely de-
stroyed, an archaeological salvage program
was begun in Illinois through the Illinois
Archaeological Survey several years ago. A
number of state institutions participate in
the survey, other institutions co-operate with
it, and numerous individuals assist in vari-
ous ways.
Not long ago, Theodore Shapas and David
Pedric called the Anker Site to our attention.
This prehistoric Indian village in the south-
ern part of Cook County was being destroyed
as new homes were built in the area, for the
ancient dwelling place was situated on what
is today a desirable location. In order to
obtain more information from the site, the
Museum and the University of Illinois agreed
to co-operate with the Illinois Archeological
Survey and carry out the salvage excavations.
Permission to excavate was obtained from
Alfred Simpson of Simpson Home Develop-
ers, Inc., owners of the property. George A.
Beemsterboer of Beemsterboer, Inc. provided
a road grader which removed the top soil
from the area and greatly facilitated our
work. Then, with the assistance of a num-
ber of volunteers, the authors and Dr. J. F.
Epstein of the University of Illinois began
excavations. Although limited in time and
extent, the "dig" proved most rewarding and
much valuable information was obtained.
From our excavations we obtained many
fragments of globular pottery vessels and
tools, including small triangular arrow points
of flint and others of deer antler, flint knives
and scrapers, and bone awls. These artifacts
closely resemble those found at the Hoxie
Farm Site excavated several years ago
(Bulletin, February, 1956).
Throughout the village area we found the
remains of firepits and storage pits utilized
by the Indians. But perhaps the most im-
portant feature of the site was the discovery
and excavation of a large house structure
— the first found in the Chicago area. This
building, rectangular in shape with rounded
ends, was 55 feet long and 13 feet wide. It
was indicated by the pattern of small post-
holes around the edge and larger holes in the
center. The house is similar to both houses
and ceremonial buildings found throughout
northeastern United States, as far west as
Wisconsin. We believe that at one time a
framework of small saplings may have been
covered by bark or matting and the house
may have resembled the Winter House of
the Indians of the Chicago Area, a recon-
struction of which is shown in Mary D.
Sturges Hall (Hall 5). This house is differ-
ent from the smaller rectangular houses found
in central and southern Illinois in sites occu-
r
* Mr. Lias is Custodian of Collections in the Mu-
seum's Department of Anthropology. Dr. Bluhm,
formerly of the Museum staff, now is associated with
the University of Illinois.
PERCHING BIRD
This odd object was carved from a deer's antler. It
was found in one of the Chicago area burials. The
bird is three inches long, and with pedestal stands
two and one half inches high.
pied at this time, and it may indeed offer
valuable information about the prehistory
of Chicago.
There were two burial areas in the Anker
village, and from Messrs. Shapas and Pedric
we have obtained much information about
the burial patterns and something of the re-
ligion and art of these people. The majority
of the buried bodies were extended on their i
backs in oval pits, and many were accom-
panied by grave offerings. Skulls of mink,
otter and bobcat were found in three graves.
These may have been parts of medicine bags
made of the skins of the animals from which
the skulls were not removed. We know that
these animals had ceremonial significance for
the historic tribes in the Great Lakes area,
and similar medicine bags are reported from
modern Indian groups.
Associated with other burials were such
items as a carved shell gorget in a mask
shape, shell ear ornaments shaped somewhat
like small mushrooms, and a small bird deli-
cately carved out of antler, seated on a sep-
arate pedestal. Several pipes were also found
at this site, including the disc type, elbow
type, and effigy forms with human and ani-
mal heads.
The inhabitants of the Anker site probably
lived a settled life, with farming the main
source of food. The numerous animal and
fish bones, identified by Dr. Paul Parmalee
of the Illinois State Museum, suggest that
their diet was supplemented by hunting and
fishing. Based on what we know of present
conditions under which animals such as deer,
badger, beaver and bear now live, we believe
that the environment faced by the Indians
differed in no major way from present condi-
tions. The Calumet and Little Calumet riv-V
ers also provided fish in quantity and clams
seem to have played a part in the Indian
diet. Traces of duck and other birds were
also found.
These Indians were not only excellent
craftsmen and industrious farmers, but also
appear to have been traders. Three pottery
vessels from the site may have come from
the Mississippi River valley area to the south;
the mask gorget and ear ornaments of ma-
rine shell are also of southern origin. In
addition, catlinite was found which came
from Minnesota, and copper was undoubt-
edly traded from the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan.
On the basis of the material found at the
site, we believe that a.d. 1400 to 1600 is a
reasonable approximate date for the site.
Although the laboratory and research work
has just begun, we feel that the final study
and analysis of these artifacts will add greatly
to our knowledge of the Indian occupation
of the Chicago area in the days before re-
corded history.
Former Museum Auditor Dies
With regret the personnel of the Museum
learned of the death of Adelbert L. Stebbins,
former Auditor, on October 18, at his homei
in Clearwater, Florida, to which he retired in
1955. Mr. Stebbins became a member of the
Museum staff in 1931, serving in various ca-
pacities in the institution's business offices.
He was elected Auditor in 1953.
November, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page 7
ICHTHYOLOGIST RETURNS
FROM OCEAN CRUISE
Loren P. Woods, Curator of Fishes, re-
turned to the Museum on September 29
after participating in the 53rd exploratory
fishing cruise of the M/V Oregon along the
northeast coast of South America. The ob-
jective of this trip was to obtain more de-
tailed information regarding the distribution
of pink and brown shrimp which were ob-
served over wide areas during Oregon cruise
47, in November, 1957. A total of 178
trawl drags were made during the 27-day
cruise between Trinidad and Cayenne,
French Guiana. The ship belongs to the
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
As is usual when trawling for shrimp, a
great volume and variety of fishes and in-
vertebrates are caught. The collection is
made by selecting specimens from the mass
of material available. This year an attempt
was made to supplement the collections
made in the same area in 1957 (Bulletin,
March, 1958) by preserving series of species
that have been found to be undescribed and
by making a more representative collection
of the fishes living on the shrimp grounds
than was possible during the former cruise
which covered a much greater area.
STAFF NOTES
Alfred Lee Rowell, Dioramist in the De-
partment of Anthropology, has taken up res-
idence in Phoenix, Arizona, but will continue
his work for the Museum there until his re-
tirement in February, 1959. After that date,
he will work for the Museum on a part-time
basis. . . . Allen Liss, Custodian of Collec-
tions — Anthropology, attended the recent
Midwest Archaeological Conference at Spring-
field, Illinois. He was elected a member of
the board of directors of the Illinois Archeo-
logical Survey. . . . Dr. Roland W. Force,
Curator of Oceanic Archaeology and Ethnol-
ogy, was a recent guest speaker on the hour-
long "Chicago Speaks" program on radio
station WSEL-FM. He was interviewed
about the notable Fuller Collection of Pa-
cific ethnological material recently acquired
by the Museum. . . . Dr. Austin L. Rand,
Chief Curator of Zoology, and Melvin A.
Traylor, Assistant Curator of Birds, attended
the annual meeting of the American Orni-
thologists' Union in New York. Mr. Traylor
remained in New York for two weeks of
study of Angola birds in the American Mu-
seum of Natural History. . . . John R. Mil-
lar, Deputy Director, represented the Mu-
seum at a second conference of administrative
officers of research museums of natural his-
'tory held at the New York State Museum,
Albany, October 13-14. The first conference,
which he also attended, took place at the
Philadelphia Academy of Sciences last May.
Both meetings were supported by grants
from the National Science Foundation, and
were held to help determine the needs of in-
stitutions engaged in research in systematic
biology. ... Miss Lillian A. Ross, Associate
Editor of Scientific Publications and Asso-
ciate in the Division of Insects, attended the
meetings of the American Institute of Bio-
logical Sciences in Bloomington, Indiana.
Archaeologists Survey
Lake Superior Area
An archaeological survey of the coastal re-
gion of Lake Superior, on both the United
States and Canadian sides, was recently made
by George I. Quimby, Curator of North
American Archaeology and Ethnology, ac-
companied by Winston Elting and James R.
Getz. The areas investigated include the
vicinity of Huron Mountain in northern
Michigan, the Grand Portage area of north-
ern Minnesota, and parts of Ontario as far
east as the Pic River. Important collections
were obtained in the vicinity of Pass Lake,
Ontario, and the mouth of the Pic River.
The earliest specimens brought back date
from about 7000 B.C. and the latest at about
A.D. 1700.
GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM
Following is a list of the principal gifts
received during the past month:
Department of Anthropology
From: William H. Wehrmacher III, Mor-
ton Grove, 111. — stone ax
Department of Botany
From: Frederick Bartlett, Chicago — 2
specimens of naranjilla fruits, Ecuador;
H. R. Bennett, Chicago — 757 phanerogams,
Illinois and Indiana; Dr. Gregorio Bondar,
Bahia, Brazil — parts of palm; H. S. Dybas,
Hazelcrest, 111. — 79 specimens of fungi;
Archie F. Wilson, Summit, N. J. — type pho-
to of herbarium specimen
Department of Geology
From: A. W. Forslev, Chicago — rock
specimens, Wisconsin; Arthur M. Ritchie,
Olympia, Wash. — specimen of fossil wood;
Wheaton College, Wheaton, 111. — fossil fish
specimen, Bahia, Brazil
Department of Zoology
From: Bernard Benesh, Burrville, Tenn.
— 51 beetles, 122 bugs; Dr. Gregorio Bondar,
Bahia, Brazil — 40 paratypes of two species
of weevils; Michael Duever, Chicago — 2
snakes, Israel; W. E. Eigsti, Hastings, Neb.
3 lots of extoparasites; Dr. Glen M. Kohls,
Hamilton, Mont. — 5 ticks, Brownsville,
Tex.; Arthur Loveridge, St. Helena, South
Atlantic — 8 frogs, a larval series and an egg
mass of frogs; Milton Mahlberg, Rockford,
HI. — a land planarian; Dr. Jeanne S.
Schwengel, Scarsdale, N. Y. — collection of
cowrie shells; Dr. Eivind Sundt, Svartskog,
Norway — 46 featherwing beetles; A/1C Tom
F. Whisnant, APO 231, New York— a frog,
5 lizards, 5 snakes, Libya; Estate of Dr. C.
W. Yarrington, Gary, Ind. — collection of
seashells, world-wide
RIO'S BOTANICAL GARDEN
HONORS MUSEUM
The sesquicentennial of the establishment
of the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro
(Jardim Botanico do Rio de Janeiro) was
celebrated last June 13. On this occasion a
commemorative medal was issued and Dr. P.
Campos Porto, director of the Jardim Botan-
ico, designated Chicago Natural History
Museum and eleven other botanical institu-
tions and individual botanists in this coun-
try as recipients of this medal in recognition
of their services to Latin American botany.
Dr. George H. M. Lawrence, director of
the L. H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell Univer-
sity, was asked, through the State Depart-
ment, to arrange the distribution and pre-
sentation of the medals to the designated
recipients in this country, in further recog-
nition of the centennial of the birth of the
late Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey.
Northwest Botanical Survey
Dr. John W. Thieret, Curator of Eco-
nomic Botany, recently returned from a field
trip devoted mainly to the study and collec-
tion of grasses in the northern Great Plains
from northeast Wyoming to the Great Slave
Lake region of Canada's Northwest Terri-
tories. He was accompanied by Chester E.
Hansen, of Elmhurst, Illinois.
NEW MEMBERS
(September 16 to October 15)
Life Member
Herman Waldeck
Non-Resident Life Member
Charles Y. Freeman
Associate Members
Dr. Herbert K. Abrams, Mrs. Harry
Bairstow, Jr., H. James Douglass, Stacy
H. Hill, Mrs. Marjory A. Hillebrecht,
Henry L. Kohn, Mrs. Fred A. Poor, Edward
Robinson, John P. Suomela
Annual Members
Russell M. Baird, Meyer C. Balin, George
Hugh Barnard, Stephen D. Barnett, David
J. Barry, Herbert Barsy, Louis Baskin, Miss
Margaret C. Baxter, Walter S. Bednarski,
Dr. Carroll L. Birch, William B. Browder,
Mrs. Edna W. Burgy, Rush C. Butler, Jr.,
Christian Christensen, Mrs. Agnes R. East-
wood, Curtiss E. Frank, Herbert L. Hart,
Mrs. Louise Hayes, Robert Hirshberg, John
C. Irvin, Lambert P. Karst, Dr. Francis A.
Lagorio, Jr., Kenneth Laird, John H. Leslie,
Bentley G. McCloud, Jr., Mrs. Mary Mc-
Dougal, Fred H. Nesbett, Dr. Clarence B.
Odell, James B. O'Shaughnessy, Admiral
Francis P. Old, Moore W. Peregrine, Master
Rutherford P. Rayfield, Miss Forsythe Ren-
der, Mrs. Evelyn Rochetto, J. F. Rosenthal,
James E. Rutherford, Frederick O. Steadry,
Frederick W. Straus, Sidney J. Sparberg,
Jack Swan, James W. Tedrow, Dario L.
Toffenetti, H. Stanley Wanzer, Miss Theresa
M. Werner, Christopher W. Wilson, Jr.,
James C. Worthy, Paul L. Mullaney
Page 8
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
November, 1958
5 MORE FILM-LECTURES
IN ADULT SERIES
Five travel lectures, illustrated with color
motion-pictures, remain to be given on Satur-
day afternoons in November to conclude the
110th series presented by the Edward E.
Ayer Lecture Foundation Fund. They are
to be given in the James Simpson Theatre of
the Museum, and all will begin at 2:30 P.M.
Following are the dates, subjects and speak-
ers for the remaining lectures:
November 1 — Rocky Mountain Rambles
Emerson Scott
November 8 — North to the Polar Seas
Arthur C. Twomey
November 15 — The New Guatemala
James Metcalf
November 22 — Sumatra
Robert Leighton
November 29 — Panama: Land of Con-
trast
Murl Deusing
No tickets are necessary for these lectures.
A section of the Theatre is reserved for Mem-
bers of the Museum, each of whom is en-
titled to two seats on request. Reservations
should be made in advance by telephone
(WAbash 2-9410) or in writing, and seats
will be held in the Member's name until
2:25 p.m. on the lecture day.
IT'S TIME TO SUBMIT
NATURE PHOTOS
Photographs of animals, of plants, of scen-
ery, and other manifestations of nature, are
all eligible as entries in the Fourteenth An-
nual Chicago International Exhibition of
Nature Photography. The deadline for re-
ceipt of prints and slides is January 17. The
show, under the joint sponsorship of the Chi-
cago Nature Camera Club and the Museum,
will be held in Stanley Field Hall from Feb-
ruary 7 to 27 inclusive. Public showings of
color transparencies by means of projectors
will be offered on two Sunday afternoons,
February 8 and 15 at 2:30 p.m. in the James
Simpson Theatre of the Museum.
A panel of five judges has been appointed
to select from the thousands of expected en-
tries several hundred for exhibition, and to
award medals and ribbons to the best of
these. Those named to the panel are: Anne
Pilger Dewey, photographer, Hon. P.S.A.,
F.P.S.A.; Dr. Roland W. Force, Curator of
Oceanic Archaeology and Ethnology of the
Museum; N. J. Schmidt, photographer; Ed-
ward T. Triner, biology teacher and natural-
ist, and William D. Turnbull, Assistant
Curator of Fossil Mammals at the Museum.
Entry forms and full information may be
obtained by prospective competitors on re-
quest to the Museum.
Exhibit of 'Kenya Gems'
A special exhibit of an improved variety of
"Kenya Gems," a synthetic mineral simulat-
ing diamond, will be on view November 24
to December 12 inclusive in H. N. Higin-
botham Hall of Gems and Jewels (Hall 31).
The cut stones to be shown weigh 52 and 38
carats. Natural diamonds of these sizes
might have a price of $100,000 or more.
The new Kenya gem boules are produced
from strontium titanate. They have the
fire and luster of real diamonds, but do not
equal the genuine stones in hardness.
Autumn Journey for Children
"Plants the Indians Used" is the title of
the autumn Museum Journey for children.
Boys and girls may take this trip any day
until November 30, using instructions and
questionnaires furnished at the Museum en-
trances. Those completing this and three
other Journeys on different subjects qualify
as Museum Travelers; for eight Journeys
they receive Museum Adventurer awards,
and for twelve they become Museum Ex-
plorers.
AUDUBON SCREEN-TOUR
OF NEW ZEALAND
"Kiwi Commonwealth," a color-film and V
lecture about New Zealand, will be the sec-
ond in the series of Sunday lectures presented
in the James Simpson Theatre of the Museum
by the Illinois Audubon Society. It will be
given on November 16 at 2:30 p.m. by Pa-
tricia Bailey Witherspoon. The film is a rec-
ord of exploration made by Mrs. Witherspoon
and her father, Dr. Alfred M. Bailey, direc-
tor of the Denver Museum. Among the fea-
tures are a visit to Cape Kidnappers, named
by Captain James Cook after trouble with
the Maoris; the famous colony of gannets;
the "living fossil" reptiles of Cook Strait is-
lands; Mount Cook and the great Tasman
glacier; forests of tree ferns, and in contrast
to the wildlife, the modern cities of this Brit-
ish commonwealth. The film is especially
rich in studies of the country's unique bird
life, including the wingless kiwis.
Seats in the reserved section of the Theatre
are available to Members of the Museum as
well as members of the Illinois Audubon So-
ciety, on presentation of membership card of
either organization.
SENATOR INVESTIGATES HISTORY OF POPCORN
Photo courtesy of The Popcorn Institute
Pre-Inca popcorn poppers (the round pot-
tery utensils with holes in the top and jutting
handles, on table in illustration) from the
Museum's archaeological collections, were
used in the celebration of the Popcorn Fall
Festival in the week of October 25 to drama-
tize popcorn as an ancient Indian heritage.
The Peruvian corn poppers are about 1,500
years old.
In the photograph (left to right) are Chief
Whirling Thunder of the Winnebago, Pat
Backes, a Chicago-dwelling Winnebago girl
selected as the "Indian Popcorn Princess," /
and U. S. Senator Paul H. Douglas of Mi- \
nois. The senator was present because he is
sponsor of a congressional resolution to make
the golden corn tassel the national floral em-
blem of the United States.
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Page 2
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
December, 1958
Chicago Natural History Museum
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5
Telephone: WAbash 2-9410
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour Henry P. Isham
Sewell L. Avery Hughston M. McBain
Wm. McCormick Blair William H. Mitchell
Walther Buchen John T. Pirie, Jr.
Walter J. Cummings Clarence B. Randall
Joseph N. Field John G. Searle
Marshall Field, Jr. Solomon A. Smith
Stanley Field Louis Ware
Samuel Insull, Jr. John P. Wilson
OFFICERS
Stanley Field President
Hughston M. McBain First Vice-President
Walther Buchen Second Vice-President
Joseph N. Field Third Vice-President
Solomon A. Smith Treasurer
Clifford C. Gregg Director and Secretary
John R. Millar Assistant Secretary
THE BULLETIN
EDITOR
Clifford C. Gregg Director of the Museum
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul S. Martin Chief Curator of Anthropology
Theodor Just Chief Curator of Botany
Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Geology
Austin L. Rand Chief Curator of Zoology
MANAGING EDITOR
H. B. H arte Public Relations Counsel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Patricia McAfee Assistant in Public Relations
Members are requested to inform the Museum
promptly of changes of address.
ALBERT W. HARRIS
1867-1958
The Museum lost one of its truly great
friends and most generous benefactors by the
death on November 9 of Albert Wadsworth
Harris, famed as the dean of Chicago's bank-
ing fraternity. He was 91 years of age.
As a monument to
Mr. Harris, as well as
to his father, the late
Norman Wait Harris,
■ESb wr thorp stands a most
important department
of the Museum, the
N. W. Harris Public
/*? School Extension.
This foundation brings
(UP natural history exhib-
B^_Js its from the Museum
directly into practically
every school — public,
parochial, private and
special — in Chicago, thus reaching more than
half a million children on a biweekly schedule
throughout each school year. Thus authen-
tic scientific material of great variety, all
presented in attractive forms with constant
changes of subjects, is supplied for use in
classrooms. This Museum service is regarded
by educators as one of the most valuable of
supplements to the regular curricula. The
foundation for this purpose had been estab-
Albert W. Harris
lished by the elder Harris in 1911 with an
initial endowment of $250,000, and this sum
has been more than doubled by the accumu-
lated contributions Mr. Albert Harris and
other members of the Harris family have
made during the course of many years.
Mr. Harris served as a Trustee of the
Museum from 1920 to 1941, and as Third
Vice-President from 1933 to 1941. His con-
tributions to this institution have assured
the continuance in perpetuity of his name on
the roll of Museum Benefactors, a special
honor accorded to those whose gifts total
$100,000 or more. Mr. Harris was also an
Honorary Member and a Life Member.
During his 22 years as a Trustee, Mr. Harris
took a very active part in the deliberations
of the Board, and contributed valuable coun-
sel in connection with the policies of the
Museum. Personal considerations made it
necessary for him to retire from his trustee-
ship and vice-presidency in 1941, but his in-
terest in the progress of the Museum was
sustained in the years that followed.
Mr. Harris was one of Chicago's most
prominent figures in banking, and a sage and
respected authority on both local and national
business and economic conditions. He was
noted for many philanthropies, and played
an active role in a broad range of civic affairs.
He was as well-known for his part in promot-
ing the interests of youth through the Chi-
cago Boys Clubs, and for his aid to welfare
in general through the Chicago Community
Trust, as he was for his noteworthy career
with the Harris Trust and Savings Bank,
whose staff he joined in 1888. In the bank,
he began at an early age in a minor capac-
ity, and was required to work his way up to
the top rungs through application to details
and merit in his work, without regard to his
close family relationship. After many years
as vice-president, president, and chairman of
the board, he retired from the bank in 1943.
Martin C. Marx Dies
With regret the Museum notes the death
on October 31 of Martin C. Marx, a member
of the guard force since 1955.
Daily Guide-Lectures
Free guide-lecture tours are offered daily
except Sundays under the title "Highlights
of the Exhibits." These tours are designed
to give a general idea of the entire Museum
and its scope of activities. They begin at
2 P.M. on Monday through Friday and at
2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Special tours on subjects within the range
of the Museum exhibits are available Mon-
days through Fridays for parties of ten or
more persons by advance request.
■THIS MONTH'S COVER-
Selected shells from the recent-
ly acquired collection of Dr.
Charles Webb Yarrington are
featured in a special exhibit to be
shown in Stanley Field Hall De-
cember 1-January 31 (see page 3).
The clump of flat tree oysters
(Isognomon alata) on our cover is
a common sight in Florida waters.
This clam attaches itself in groups
to surf-swept rocks or pilings, and
the sharp edge of the shell slices
through the sweep of the water.
The tall angel wing (Barnea co-
stata) dominating the photograph
is pure white with occasionally a
faint pink line. The shell is often
seen on Florida beaches, but the
animal lives buried in one or two
feet of black sticky mud. Col-
lecting living specimens is ex-
tremely hard and dirty work.
ORCHID FOR AN ARTIST
A tea was given in the Museum on Novem-
ber 4 to honor Miss Caroline Van Evera,
artist of Greenwich, Connecticut, whose por-
traits of Central and South American Indians
formed a special exhibit during November.
Specimens of the huge whale shark and of
the devilfish, which is the largest of the rays,
are exhibited in the Hall of Fishes (Hall 0).
The photograph above shows Miss Van Evera
on this occasion with Dr. Donald Collier,
Curator of South American Archaeology and
Ethnology, after he had presented her with
an orchid. Among the guests who welcomed
Miss Van Evera were: Winston Elting, presi-
dent of the American Society of Contempo-
rary Art; Prof. Sol Tax, chairman of the
department of anthropology of the Univer-
sity of Chicago, and Mrs. Tax; Mrs. Ruth
Butler of the Newberry Library; Mrs. Her-
mon Dunlap Smith and Mrs. Ralph Milman
of Lake Forest; Florence Arquin and Fran-
ces Foy, both well-known Chicago artists;
Dr. Clifford C. Gregg, Director of the Mu-
seum; Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chtei Curator
of Anthropology, and other members of the
anthropology staff.
December, 1958
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN
Page S
SHELL EXHIBIT FEATURES LITTLE-KNOWN INHABITANTS
By ALAN SOLEM
ASSISTANT CURATOR OF LOWER INVERTEBRATES
THE CURRENT special exhibit in Stan-
ley Field Hall, featuring shells from the
C. W. Yarrington collection (November
Bulletin), was started by a casual remark
which grew beyond any expectations into
four display cases.
In early June I learned that the collection
of shells formed by the late Dr. C. W. Yar-
rington of Gary, Indiana, would be donated
to the Museum in the fall. In arranging the
details of the donation, I suggested that it
might be well to make a temporary exhibi-
tion of some of these fine specimens. Since
many people vacation in Florida during the
winter months, and Florida is the best Amer-
can "breeding ground" for shell collectors,
the months of December and January were
picked for the special exhibit.
In the 1800's, shell collecting was an ex-
tremely popular hobby. Many popular
books and articles were published about shells
and even in the 1890's nearly every home
had a few large, polished shells on the fire-
place mantle. But fashions change, and from
about 1900 to World War II shells and shell
collecting were relegated to the attic. The
late 1930's saw a slight increase in interest,
which World War II swelled to a torrent.
Thousands of GI's visited foreign beaches
and sent shells back to friends and relatives.
In many cases the interest aroused by these
gifts caused a permanent case of "collectori-
tis" which is often transmitted to acquain-
tances in short order.*
Today there are at least fourteen different
clubs of shell collectors loosely affiliated with
a national organization that holds annual
conventions. Thousands of shell collectors
in this country and abroad exchange shells
with one another and buy specimens from
more than 50 different dealers, not to men-
tion the more than 600 Florida shops which
sell shells to tourists.
Thus, great interest exists in shells, and it
was apparent that an exhibit devoted to
stimulating this interest would be timely and
worthwhile. But just what should go into
the exhibit, and how?
A NEW SLANT
Individual shells have great beauty, and
with proper lighting and positioning rate as
art objects (see photographs). But shells
are only part of a living animal and this is a
natural history museum. Every museum in
the country has some shells on display, either
in scientific order with one or two kinds of
each family (as in our Hall N) or else as dec-
orative displays of pretty shells.
No museum features the shell as being part
of a living organism, or shows adequately the
range of variation which is found within sin-
gle species or families of mollusks. The ani-
mals of marine shells, often with completely
different coloration, are as attractive as the
shells themselves. Our exhibit would thus
be slanted towards variation in mollusks and
trying to emphasize that a shell is part of a
living animal.
With the co-operation of the Department
of Botany, Samuel H. Grove, Jr., Artist-
Preparator in botany was assigned to the
STAR SHELLS
The deep-sea shells of the genus Guildfordia are
named star shells because of their long projecting
spines. This genus is one of many kinds of mollusks
which have developed long spines, the function of
which is unknown.
task. He designed the exhibit and trans-
formed my ideas and scientific information
into attractive displays. After seeing the
collection in Gary, we roughed out a general
plan and received permission to prepare the
exhibit in its present form.
Primarily oriented to the amateur collector
are three small flat-topped cases which show
cone, spike, harp, scallop, rock, and volute
shells. The scallops and rock shells are pre-
sented simply as masses of variation in color
* Sheila sent by an uncle in the Sea-Bees led to my
becoming a zoologist. A. S.
ROCK SHELL AND HAIRY TRITON
Posed in this fashion, the spiny Murex cornutum
and the striped Cymatium pileare look like curious
and playful animals. In life, the Murex lies hidden
in rock crevices and the Triton's color is buried
under a brown, hairy epidermal layer.
and form, but the rest are accompanied by
at least one model of the living animal and
labels which emphasize the shell as part of
that animal and not just an object in a case.
Making the models was quite a 
