BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Vobme 37, Number S March, 1966
FIELD MUSEUM AGAIN
Name Change Honors Field Family
Museum workmen lower bronze nameplate from main entrance. After
recasting, 700 pound plaque, bearing the new name, will be remounted.
by E. Leland Webber, Director
A significant milestone in the history of the Museum was
marked on March 1 with the restoration of the earlier, and
still more familiar and popular name, Field Museum of Nat-
ural History. This decision of the Board of Trustees was
made to honor the several members of the Field family who
contributed for more than seventy years toward building one
of the world's great museums.
The Museum was made possible in 1893 by a gift of
$1,000,000 from Marshall Field, the founder of Marshall
Field and Company. Mr. Field died in 1906 and under the
terms of his will the Museum received a bequest of $8,000,000.
This major gift, one of the largest which had been given to
any American museum to that time, provided the funds to
construct the present building, completed in 1921, as well as
a sizable endowment.
Mr. Field's grandson, Marshall Field III, made contri-
butions between 1925 and 1949 approximating in amount
those of his grandfather. His major gift, made at the time
of the Museum's 50th Anniversary in 1943, was the stimulus
for the institution to enter the greatest period of growth in its
history. From 1943 to 1965 the size of the staff doubled and
the size of the collections more than tripled. The collections
now number approximately 10,000,000 specimens and rank
with those of London, Washington and New York as world
research resources. An expanded program of scientific re-
search resulted in the publication of as many scientific publi-
cations in the ensuing 22 years, as had appeared in the first
50 years. The Museum library, in 1943 a small library con-
taining much miscellania, has more than doubled in size to
160,000 volumes. Of greater significance than its size, is the
strength and balance of the library's holdings. Since 1943
many of the exhibit halls have been modernized or completely
reinstalled.
Stanley Field, nephew of the first Marshall Field, served
as President and Chairman of the Board of the Museum for
more than 50 years, until his death in 1964. He made large
financial contributions to the Museum, but even more im-
portant, he, more than any other individual, built the dis-
tinguished institution that exists today. The word "built" is
used advisedly, for he planned and oversaw the construction
of the present structure and developed the Museum in a bal-
anced fashion. It is probable that no comparable record of
personal dedication of time and gifts exists in the history of
American museums.
Other members of the family have also served the Mu-
seum. Marshall Field II and Marshall Field IV were
Page 2 MARCH
After the February 21 Board Meeting at which trustees of Chicago Natural
History Museum voted unanimously to restore the former name of the Mus-
eum, Mayor Richard J. Daley and Director E. Leland Webber addressed
staff members, visitors and representatives of the press. A bronze bust of
Stanley Field, sculpted by Mr. Field's close friend Malvina Hoffman, was
unveiled by the Mayor and Mr. Webber. Miss Hoffman, the internation-
ally known sculptress, created the "Races of Man" exhibit at Field Museum.
The bust will be displayed permanently in Stanley Field Hall, the great
central gallery of the Museum.
Trustees during their lifetimes, and Joseph N. Field has been
a Trustee for more than 30 years.
With the Museum firmly established from its early years,
thousands of individuals, and numerous corporations and
foundations, have also contributed generously to its progress.
The number of Members passed 10,000 during the past year,
and an increasing number of our Members are giving toward
current needs. The Chicago Park District has contributed
tax funds to the Museum in partial support of certain basic
operating expense since 1895. During the last 15 years, the
federal government, principally through National Science
Foundation, has given important financial assistance to cer-
tain of the Museum's research activities.
The lives of institutions often fail into rather clearly de-
fined patterns, much as do the lives of people. Field Mu-
seum's history has completed two distinct periods. The first
50 years, ending with World War H, was the period of found-
ing, building construction, establishment of core collections,
and mass installation of exhibits. During the second period,
following the war, the Museum reached maturity, after un-
dergoing a period of intense growth.
Now, as the Museum approaches its 75th Anniversary, it
is entering a new phase of its life. No institution, however
great, can stand still; it must either progress or retrogress.
Therefore, we are embarking on a planned program of insti-
tutional development to bring about needed building im-
provements and strengthened exhibition, educational, and
research activities. The newly completed Library and De-
partment of Geology building additions and the Conservation
Laboratory in the Department of Anthropology are first steps
in the plan. If the Museum is to progress toward its goals
and is to maintain its eminent position as one of the great
Marshall Field I Stanley Field Marshall Field III
cultural institutions of the Chicago area, it must turn toward
its Members and the community as a whole for financial
support. We are confident that this support will be forth-
coming. It is altogether fitting that as Field Museum looks
toward the future, it does so bearing the Field name, in appre-
ciation of the financial aid of the Field family, and particu-
larly in recognition of the lifetime of dedicated and sustained
service of Stanley Field, both of which created the greatness
on which we arc privileged to build today.
MARCH Page 3
PAINTINGSoF
NEW GUINEA
by Phillip Lewis, Curator, Primitive Art
An exhibition of paintings and drawings from the Terri-
tory of New Guinea opens on Friday, March 4 in the Mu-
seum's new temporary exhibition hall. The art comes from
two different peoples of the Territory of New Guinea, the
Abelam, who live in the Maprik district of the Sepik River
region of New Guinea, and the Kilenge, who live on the west-
ern tip of the large island of New Britain, which lies just east
of New Guinea. The paintings and drawings resulted from
the efforts of Dr. Robert MacLennan and Dr. Philip J. C.
Dark, who separately urged the two tribes to produce, with
Western implements and materials, aspects of their aboriginal
art. A number of paintings and drawings resulted, with some
interest for the study and appreciation of Melanesian art.
MacLennan served as research medical officer of the gov-
ernment of the Territory of New Guinea in 1963 and was
stationed at Pukago village of the Maprik district. He per-
suaded the people living there to make a series of paintings
for him, on paper, using powdered tempera paints. Abelam
paintings are usually done with native colors, on large rec-
tangular sheets of sago spathe, the fibrous sheath which en-
velops the flower cluster of the sago palm tree. The paintings
were made to be displayed on the facades and in the interiors
of the giant, 60 feet high, men's houses. Painting on paper
resulted in a kind of gouache painting rather like the aborig-
inal paintings. The fact that they were done on paper for
MacLennan made it possible for him to collect them without
defacing the men's houses. However, in spite of the use of
foreign materials and the artificial stimulation by an out-
sider, the Abelam apparently valued the new paintings some-
what like their traditional ones, for women were barred from
watching the painters as they worked with temperas and
paper. {Continued on page 6)
Page 4 MARCH
Cover: Kilenge artist, working with marking pen, island of New Britain. Opposite: 60-foot Abelam house front, decorated with
paintings on sheets of palm fiber. This page, bottom, enlargement of house panel from page 4; top, three Abelam paintings in
tempera on paper, showing a relationship with house decorations. The Abelam live in New Guinea.
The show is a joint undertaking of the Art Department and the Department of Anthropology of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Dr.
Philip J. C. Dark, Research Associate of this Museum and Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University, was assisted
in compiling the catalogue and in staging the exhibition by Dr. Robert MacLennan, of the Division of Epidemiology of Tulane University, and by
Mrs. Loretta Hill of the Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University. Dr. Adrian A. Gerbrands, Associate Director of the National
Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, The Netherlands, and visiting Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University, acted as consultant for the
exhibition. The Office of Research and Projects of Southern Illinois University has kindly allowed Field Museum to present the exhibition here.
MARCH Paged
In 1960, the Museum of Primitive Art exhibited some
Abelam paintings, also made on paper. Those paintings were
collected by Anthony Forge, who spent 1958-59 studying the
art of the Abelam people. The results of his field work are
not yet published, but in his Notes on Eastern Abelam De-
signs on Paper, in Three Regions of Melanesian Art, the Mu-
seum of Primitive Art, New York, 1 960, he says,
"All .Abelam painting is executed by groups of men under
the direction of a master artist who paints the white and
supervises the painting of the other colors. Apart from
Tsigula, [the most knowledgeable painter of the village in
which Forge worked] few of the [villagers] . . . were . . .
believed by their fellows to be sufficiently expert ... to
undertake the direction of a complete design, so that in
some of [Forge's] examples even the painting of the white
lines is the work of a group."
Dr. MacLennan met Anthony Forge and became inter-
ested in Abelam painting. We do not know if MacLennan's
paintings were done collectively as described by Forge.
The Kilenge drawings were collected in 1964 by Dark
and Joel Maring, a linguist, on a field trip to New Guinea and
The photographs on this page show two
masked Kilenge figures, and Kilenge
renderings of these masks in marking
pens on paper.
The exhibit on the art oj Melanesia
will be shown in the Museum's new
exhibition lounge in Hall 9W, recently
remodeled as the first in a series of
lounge-exhibition areas located in vari-
ous halls.
New Britain. Dark was looking for a place where he could
later pursue a research project to study the art and language
of a Melanesian people who had still kept much of their tra-
ditional culture. He chose the Kilenge speaking people of
the western tip of New Britain, where a number of Kilenge
villages will be studied by Dark and Dr. Adrian A. Gerbrands
later this year. In 1964, Dark stayed with the Kilenge and
inspired the drawings shown in the exhibition.
Unlike the Abelam, the Kilenge did not make paintings for
display as house facades, but did paint designs on canoes, and
on other objects, especially several kinds of masks. The Ki-
lenge made drawings on paper with marking inks, not only of
designs used on canoes, but also representations of the three
dimensional masks. Thus the Kilenge were not only enticed
into using unfamiliar materials and making traditional de-
signs with them, but also made an excursion into represent-
ing, by means of two dimensional drawings, the three dimen-
sional masks they know.
The exhibition thus presents two exercises in transforma-
tion of art by new media, and in so doing, allows us a glimpse
of traditional art forms as seen from "inside" the cultures.
The idea of people making paintings and drawings of their
traditional art is not new but it does raise new possibilities for
studying fast-dying primitive art in the field by making avail-
able an insider's view of the art.
In these days of rapid and irreversible change, experi-
ments which deepen our insight into traditional art and cul-
ture are valuable.
Page 6 MARCH
G
E
M
S
AND
MINERALS
by Edward J. Olsen, Curator, Mineralogy
\
Three new and exotic specimens of
gems and minerals are now on exhibit in
the Museum. Two are extremely un-
usual in size and perfection, the third is
rare because of its exquisite workmanship.
■l^g^^^HH The first, a flawless,
^^^^^H faceted, blue topaz,
JBB^^j^l weighs 5,890 carats, or
/■■Ij^kB translated into English,
^^^^^^^ two pounds and nine
ounces! The stone, which was found in
a creek bottom in Brazil, has been faceted
into a beautiful teardrop-shaped gem
measuring five inches long by three-and-
one-half inches wide by two-and-three-
quarters inches deep. It is the largest
faceted blue topaz in the world.
Topaz is occasionally found as rough
stones of remarkable size. For example,
in H. N. Higinbotham Hall here at
the Museum we have had on exhibit for
many years a rough (unfaceted) topaz
that weighs over 205,000 carats, or over
87 pounds! It is a fairly flawless piece,
too, but it is colorless. Large blue stones
are much more rare. Another control-
ling factor in the size of a faceted stone is
the size of the equipment used. Except
with special equipment, most gem cut-
ters cannot handle such large stones at all.
In terms of size also, a recently ac-
quired specimen of the common mineral,
quartz, is outstanding. Quartz is one of
the three most common minerals on the
surface of the earth. Ninety-eight per-
cent of the time it occurs as featureless
white or glassy grains in sandstones,
granites, and similar rocks, or as grains
making up the sand of most of the
beaches of the world. In a number of
cases quartz occurs as crystals, with nat-
ural crystal faces, ranging from the size
of pin heads to slender prisms about a
foot long. In rare cases, quartz crystals
occur in monster sizes; however, the big-
ger they come, the less chance they will
have smooth, well-formed crystal faces.
The Museum was fortunate enough to
acquire a single, well-formed quartz
crystal weighing 350 pounds. The crys-
tal, a huge terminated prism bounded
by its own crystal faces, stands two feet
five inches high, is fifteen inches wide,
eleven inches deep, and measures just
under four feet "around the waist." It
was found near Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Both the quartz and the topaz were pur-
chased by the John A. Chalmers Fund
for the Chalmers Crystal Collection.
Finally, a piece which shows remark-
able and exquisite workmanship is a
large blue sapphire that measures .82
inches across and has been carved into
the face of a woman. The face has been
mounted in a diamond-studded platinum
setting which forms an intricate, glitter-
ing headdress. The stone is deep blue
in color and the carving was done with
great skill to yield a satin-smooth finish.
Sapphire is a name given to deep blue
varieties of the mineral corundum, which
is most commonly brown in color. Carv-
ing sapphire is no easy task because co-
rundum is one of the hardest minerals
known (softer than diamond, but harder
than topaz or quartz). This stone was
donated to the Museum in the memory
of Mrs. Chauncey B. Blair through the
great generosity of Mrs. Italia B. de Sori-
ano of Chicago.
The topaz 's on special exhibit adjacent to The Hall
of Jades.
The quartz "lay be seen in Stanley Field Hall.
The sapphire is on display in The Hall oj Gems,
(H. M. Higinbotham Hall).
MARCH Page?
NSF Grant to E. R. Blake, Curator of Birds
National Science Foundation has awarded a $33,000 grant to Field Museum
in support of the initial two years of work on the preparation by Emmet R. Blake,
Curator of Birds, of the first comprehensive synopsis of tropical American birds.
As this fauna accounts for more than one-third of the world's species and far ex-
ceeds that of any other zoogeographical region, there is increasing need for a syn-
thesis that will satisfy the requirements of investigators in several fields.
The proposed "Manual of Neotropical Birds," in several volumes, will treat all
of the species and subspecies — totalling more than 8,000 named forms — accredited
to the area from Guatemala to the southern tip of South America. It will include
pertinent descriptive information and data that is either largely new or not readily
available, and will therefore be an invaluable research tool for ornithologists, para-
sitologists, ecologists and zoogeographers, whether working in the laboratory or at a
tropical field station. The manual is scheduled for completion in about eight years.
Mr. Blake, a specialist in Neotropical birds, has been with the Museum since
1935. He has made numerous field trips to Central and South America, and has
published the results of his investigations both in this country and abroad. In 1 964,
he was elected an Honorary Member of the Asociacidn Ornitologico del Plata
(Buenos Aires) in recognition of his "valuable contributions to the knowledge of
neotropical birds." This new project continues the long history of interest by staff
members in the natural history of Latin America, interest which has produced a
number of definitive studies of the area.
Spring Journey, 'From Expedition to Exhibition'
The Spring Journey for children, titled From Expedition to Exhibition, is cen-
tered around the new Zoology exhibit. The Flow of Information. Available during
the months of March, April and May, this Journey through the Zoology exhibition
halls is designed to teach something about the work of museum scientists, explain-
ing the significance and methodology of specimen-collecting, and giving an idea
of how exhibits are prepared.
Children often ask how the museum gets its specimens. Part of this question
will be answered at the Expedition case, which deals with the work of the curator
in the field. At the Research case, young students will discover that much of the
scientists' time is spent in study. The importance of publishing findings to inform
others of their discoveries and conclusions is also stressed. The use of this published
material, intended primarily for other scientists, as source material for popular
works on scientific subjects is brought out in the case called Communications.
Books on bird identification are used as an example of this type of information flow.
Finally, the Exhibition case, which is frequently used to show children that
the animals displayed are not "stuffed," gives them some idea about the work in-
volved in preparing the exhibits, and brings the Journey full circle, back to the
children's point of departure.
Additional sources of specimens, other exhibition techniques, and other uses of
the research collections are covered in the remainder of the Journey, which is the
45th in the quarterly series sponsored by the Raymond Foundation.
Shell Club 'Fair' Opens March 1st
The Second Annual Chicago Shell Fair is being presented in the Museum dur-
ing the month of March. Colorful, rare, and famous shells are displayed in Stanley
Field Hall in a series of eight cases designed by members of the Chicago Shell Club.
Response to the first show, held here for two days last year, was so great that the
present exhibit has been extended to a full month.
The Chicago Shell Club, which was started in the fall of 1964, meets at 2 p.m.
the second Sunday of each month at Field Museum. Those interested in shells and
shell collecting are invited to attend.
Page 8 MARCH
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
Roosevelt Rd. & Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour
Harry 0. B ere her
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
Walter J. Cummings
Joseph N. Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. Isham
Hughston M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Edward Byron Smith
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEE
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis 0. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl,
Department oj Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department oj ^oology
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul,
Kathleen Wolff,
Associate Editors
Volume 37, Number | April, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
May 6
FIFTEENTH MEMBERS' NIGHT SET
The Fifteenth Annual Member's Nif.!;ht will be held here
on the evening of May 6. As in years past, offices and labor-
atories will be open to members, and curators and staff mem-
bers will be on hand to talk about the most recent develop-
ments in the Museum's research and exhibition programs.
The highlight of the evening will be the opening of a
special exhibit in Hall 9 Gallery, the Museum's new lounge-
exhibition area. The exhibit, entitled "Maya Art, Rubbings
from Stone Carvings", will show forty-three ink rubbings on
rice paper, made by Mrs. Merle Greene. The rubbings
were taken from stone bas-reliefs found in Mayan temples,
and from stelae in the ceremonial plazas of Mayan cities
of Guatemala and Mexico. The rubbings will be supple-
mented by Maya sculpture lent by the Museum of Primitive
Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and leading
Chicago collectors.
Nearby, Dr. Kenneth Starr, Curator, Asian Archaeology
and Ethnology, will demonstrate the techniques involved in
making rubbings of stone reliefs. This demonstration will
give members an appreciation of the similarities and differ-
ences to be expected between an actual stone bas-relief and
the rubbing made from it.
Other events scheduled for Member's Night include :
A color slide show on "The Natural History of the Harar
Highlands, Ethiopia", given by Dr. William C. Burger,
Assistant Curator of Vascular Plants.
Display of the terrestrial and flying mammals taken in
Maya
Stone
Rubbing
the recent Street Expedition to Afghanistan.
Demonstration of the use of stereo photographs in the
study of fossil Australian mammals, by Mr. William Turn-
bull, Associate Curator, Fossil Mammals.
A graphic presentation of the functions and operations
of a large herbarium, entitled "It's Cut and Dried."
"Chromosomes and serum proteins in taxonomy,"
exhibited by Dr. Charles F. Nadler, Associate in Mammals,
illustrating new techniques in animal classification.
Dr. Glen Cole. Assistant Curator of Prehistory, will dis-
cuss the functions and classification of paleolithic stone tools.
The Division of Insects will display trays of unusual and
colorful insects. A demonstration of methods of preparing
insect specimens will also be offered.
Among the newest additions to the Museum, the Robert
R. McCormick Conservation Laboratory will demonstrate
methods of cleaning metal artifacts.
The Taxidermy Division, always one of the most popular
stops on Member's Night, will be open as usual, showing
work in progress, and its vast collection of animal skins.
The Museum will be open to Members and their guests at
6 : 00 P.M. The oliices and laboratories will open at 7 :00 P.M.
Dinner will be available in the Museum cafeteria from 6 to 8.
Free shuttle bus service will operate from Jackson and State
to and from Field Museum at frequent intervals starting at
6 :00 P.M., the last bus leaving the Museum shortly after the
close of Member's Night at 10:00 P.M.
Members meet Staff in
Stanley Field Hall
ONE of my special research interests
is in the smallest known beetles, the
featherwing beetles (scientific name:
Ptiliidae). The common name derives
from the curious structure of the wings,
one of which is shown on the cover.
These beetles are minute; the smallest
are only one seventy-fifth of an inch
long. This is less than the size of some
single-celled Protozoa, yet they have
compound eyes, antennae of many seg-
ments, complex mouthparts, wings, and
all the other essential parts of their
larger relatives. Almost none are long-
er than one twenty-fifth of an inch.
They are truly reinarkable examples of
biological miniaturization.
Because featherwing beetles are so
small, most biologists never see them in
the field, even though they may be very
abundant. The family is world-wide in
distribution and occurs in moist places
like the leaf litter of the forest floor, tree-
holes, under bark, logs, or decaying sea-
weed on beaches. Each situation will
have its own particular kinds of feather-
w-ing beetles. Sometimes several hun-
dred can be found in a square foot of
forest floor. It seems that they feed
chiefly on spores and hyphal threads of
molds and other fungi in decaying or-
ganic materials. They form a compon-
ent of a complex, but little understood,
web of life that is the biology of our soils.
One of the attractions of investigating
such little-known creatures is that so
much remains to be discovered about
them. Some of our commonest species
have not been described or named yet,
and almost nothing is known of their
life-cycles, behaviour, or modes of life.
Nearly everything one learns about
them is completely new.
Recently, I have been reviewing a
genus of featherwing beetles that is very
abundant in Florida and the adjacent
Gulf States, in decaying leaves and other
materials on the ground, but that has
Biological miniaturization
featherwing
beetles
By Henry S. Dybas, Associate Curator, Insects
completely escaped record in the United
States. I now know of seven species in
Florida, and another from the nearby
Bahama Islands, which need to be des-
cribed and named for the first time.
In large part, these new species are the
result of intensive and specialized col-
lecting by Dr. Walter Suter, a yoiuig
biology professor at Carthage College
in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and by Mr. J.
Harrison Sleeves, Jr., a prominent ar-
chitect in Birmingham, Alabama. Mr.
Stecves' hobb^y of collecting and study-
ing tiny beetles must appear remarkably
esoteric to his business associates.
The main collecting technique in-
volves the use of the insect fumiel. The
principle of the funnel is very simple.
Moist forest floor or other debris likely
to contain insects is placed in a shallow
layer on a screen in a large funnel. Heat,
usually from an electric light bulb, is ap-
plied from above. As the debris grad-
ually dries or heats up, the tiny insects
move down deeper through the debris
where, in nature, it would ordinarily be
more moist and cool. In the funnel,
though, they pass through the screen
and fall down the steep slopes and col-
lect in a vial attached to the spout, .'^n
astonishing number and variety of tiny
insects and mites can be extracted in
this way from small amounts of debris.
There may be several thousand in a
square foot of forest floor a few inches
thick. This simple technique, origin-
ally devised by an Italian entomologist
named Berlese, made it possible for the
first time to sample systematically the
microhabitats of an area for tiny insects
and related arthropods and to obtain
adequate series for study.
Tiny beetles like the featherwings
inust be prepared as microscope slide
mounts for study. This is somewhat
more delicate and tedious than mount-
ing insects of ordinary size. But it pro-
vides a wealth of information, not only
about the structure and relationships
of these little animals, but indirectly
about their biology. For instance, it
soon became evident, in my examin-
ation of this genus, that there was never
more than one egg in the abdomen of
the female, for the simple reason that
the egg was relatively huge — fully half
the length of the beetle ! The explana-
tion for this phenomenon was pointed
out for some other kinds of arthropods
not too many years ago by the noted
biologist Bernard Rensch, who stated
that each egg needs to be provided
with enough yolk for the embryo to de-
velop and hatch into a self-sufficient
larva. Hence there is a size-limit be-
yond which the egg cannot be reduced
COVER: Photomicrograph of the wing of a featherwing beetle, magnified 200 times.
APRIL Page 3
in most insects and related forms.
Evolution of small size opens up many
new food sources and living spaces. In
the process, however, the number of
cE;gs that can be accomodated and ma-
tured in the abdomen must become few-
er and fewer until, finally, the irreduc-
ible minimum of one egg is reached and
a limit to further reduction in size is im-
posed. Presumably, featherwing beetles
are now at the size limits dictated by
their mode of development and way of
life. No one knows how long a female
featherwing beetle can live and repro-
duce, nor how long it takes a single egg
to mature or a larva to develop. Yet it
would seem that the total egg output per
female must be very low in comparison
with that of many other insects. So the
abundance of featherwing beetles in
some situations becomes something of a
problem to explain. There must be
some compensatory mechanisms such as
increased speed of development, con-
SIZE
The temperate forest Jloor is a typical habi-
tat for many kinds oj featherwing beetles.
A comparison in size, from
a Museum exhibit. The
featherwing beetle is in-
side the circle but canU be
seen in the photograph. It
can barely be seen in the
actual exhibit. A dozen
or so small featherwing
beetles could he placed on
the head of a pin.
<IT WOULD TAKE 23,000.000
or THESE TO WEIGH AS MUCH
AS THE GOLIATH CEETLE.)
MOUSE
eOLIATH BEETLE
(AFRICAN)
tinuous (rather than seasonal) repro-
duction, and other factors, but at pre-
sent we know too little about their bio-
ology to know what these compensatory
mechanisms might be.
Another consequence of small size is
its effect on wings and flight. The nor-
mal insect wing acts aerodynamically
like that of a bird or airplane wing — a
flow of air over the surfaces provides
lift. In the size range of the feather-
wing beetles, though, the viscous drag
forces of the air are evidently much
greater than any possible lift forces, and
the wings can no longer function in the
same way.
Flight in such microscopic forms has
never been directly observed; it would
be technically difficult. The long mar-
ginal hairs of the featherwing account
for most of its expanse (see this month's
Bulletin cover illustration.) If, as has
been suggested, these hairs bend more
easily on the upstroke than on the down,
the lift forces may exceed the dragforces
and the insect may be able to "row"
its way through the air. Other very
small insects evidently have encountered
the same problems, because a similar
"featherwing" has been evolved inde-
pendently in several unrelated groups
of insects, most notably in tiny wasps
that are parasitic in the eggs of other in-
sects. Flight of featherwinged insects
would seem possible only in still air
over short distances. The featherwing
is probably an adaptation for floating
in the air like a dandelion seed and for
dispersing over distances by means of
air currents. Such passive dispersal im-
plies wastage, because many feather-
wing beetles must be wafted to unfavor-
able places and lost. This adds to the
problem of how featherwing beetles man-
age to get along with such an apparently
low egg production.
Another curious feature that emerg-
ed in the course of studying these tiny
Florida featherwings was the complete
absence of males in at least five of the
new species. This can not be attributed
to accidents of sampling because in one
species there were over 9000 specimens
collected in more than 30 counties, over
a span of eight months of the year, and
all were females. I was forced to con-
clude that these species were able to re-
produce without males — a phenomenon
that is well-known, though spotty, in the
animal kingdom and which is termed
parthenogenesis.
Why is there such an unusually high
incidence of parthenogenesis in these
tiny animals? In the long run, par-
thenogenesis is considered an evolution-
ary dead end because it precludes ex-
change and recombination of hereditary
materials between different individuals
through mating and thus inhibits adapt-
ation to changing circumstances. In
the short run, though, there may be
several advantages. One that is par-
ticularly relevant is that all the eggs
produce reproductive females; none are
wasted on males. In effect partheno-
genesis doubles the reproductive po-
tential of a population in one jump —
an enormous advantage to insects that
mature one egg at a time. So I arrive
at a final thesis. Obscure as they are,
there may be a real relevance in study-
ing such tiny insects. They are impor-
tant in their own right because of their
activities and because of their complex
relations with other forms of life in our
fields and forests. And because they are
faced with extreme problems as a result
of their small size, their study can pro-
vide insights into problems of general
biological interest.
Paged APRIL
MOUNTAIN BUILDING BY VERTICAL MOVEMENTS — As we have noted earlier,
there has been a revival during the last thirty-five years of the old concept
of the fundamental importance of vertical movements in the evolution of crustal
structures, particularly in mountain building. The significance of these hypo-
theses is that the folding and thrusting of rocks as well as their uplift is explained
as arising from vertical movements. They dispense with the idea of primary
horizontal compressional forces transmitted through the crust, which is the
heart of the contraction theory. The geologists investigating the structure of the
youthful mountains of the Indonesian islands and those working in the diverse
mountain building IV
By Bertram G. Woodland, Curator, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology
orogenic and non-orogenic regions of the Soviet Union were impressed with the
evidence of alternating vertical uplift and subsidence of the crust. At the same
time they believed that it was unlikely that sufficient lateral compressional force
could be transmitted through the crust to explain the crustal thickening, uplift,
and deformation of a whole orogenic belt. This view was enhanced when the
contraction theory met the difficulty that the earth may not be cooling. These
geologists also argued against the existence of convection currents in the mantle,
which are used in another group of theories to explain the cause of lateral com-
pression and mountain building.
Differential vertical movements can readily explain many geological phe-
nomena. Variations in thickness and type of sedimentary deposit from place to
place can be related to varying amounts and varying rates of uplift or subsidence.
The deposition of vast thicknesses of sediment in a geosyncline requires. a sub-
sidence of the crust of similar degree, assuming the sediments were all laid down
under relatively shallow water. We have already mentioned, however, that
large amounts of typical geosynclinal sediments may, in fact, have been deposited
in deep water, but, because at least some of these previous geosynclines were '
developed on a continental crust, a large subsidence would still be necessary to
depress the crust to oceanic depths. The effects of differential uplift can be seen
most obviously in the towering mountain ranges of the Rockies, Alps and •
Himalayas, the higher parts of which were near sea level some few tens of
millions of years ago. No one can thus dispute the importance of vertical move-
ments. The big question is: — How do the advocates of mountain building by
primary vertical movements explain the universal appearance in orogenic belts
of folding of the rocks on all scales, the thrusting of large sheets over others, and
the development of pervasive metamorphic structures such as cleavage? These
are all manifestations of compression which generally acted parallel to the •
earth's surface. They are interpreted as being of local origin, that is, originating
within the orogenic belt as a consequence of the primary vertical movements,
APRIL Page 5
and are referred to as secondary gravitational reactions. The
structures produced depend on their chronological appear-
ance and their depth within the crust.
The sequence of events may take the following form. A
geosyncline develops, is filled with sediment and basic vol-
canic rocks, and then uplifted, particularly in its thickest por-
tion. The areas adjacent to the uplifted geanticline subside,
continue to receive sediments, and form new geosynclines.
The rising sedimentary mass becomes unstable, and under the
influence of gravity, adjustments take place. Large slices may
start to move down slightly inclined slopes. The conditions
which enable the whole to slide as a coherent mass include
the presence of a lubricated zone of plastic rock material such
as clay, and the presence of water filling pores in the basal
strata of the sliding mass under pressure of the overlying rock.
Also, gravity affects each and every particle, and is thus more
fxjtent than a shoving force applied from behind the mass as
rocks by compressing and folding them laterally, by dragging
them along upwards, and by doming those above. The gran-
ite mass is charged with hot solutions and gases which pass
outwards and metamorphose the sediments rendering them
more mobile, so that they in turn flow from regions of greater
pressure to regions of lower pressure, forming intricate folds.
If the rising mass should meet a strong resistance to continued
upward progress, it may well turn sideways and flow more or
less horizontally, dragging with it its envelope of metamor-
phosed sedimentary rocks and producing large scale hori-
zontal or recumbent folds with granitic cores. Such complex
structures are exhibited on fjord walls of eastern Greenland
and in the Pennine .Ailps (within which is the famed Matter-
horn). In the shallower parts of the crust, injection structures
may also arise by vertical flow of low density masses of rock
salt and anhydrite (calcium sulfate). Differential vertical
loads may cause flow to particular zones of upward movement
A possible effect of uplift followed by subsidence: (a) a series of horizontal strata;
(b) uplift with consequent stretching and thinning of the beds
(c) subsidence with folding of the stretched beds.
is envisaged in the horizontal force concept of thrust blocks.
Obstructions at the front end of the slice will cause buckling,
or it may be that some parts overtake others, roll over them
and form large complex overfolded masses. Sliding of large
rock masses into an adjacent sedimentary basin may also
cause slumping and folding of the newly deposited sediments.
The rocks of the upper part of a rising block tend to expand
sideways, under the influence of gravity, over the adjacent
lower blocks. This results in compression of the latter's upper
strata, which may crumple and fold. Squeezing of strata may
also arise if thick sediments on the flanks of a geosyncline tend
to move down into the basin. The thickened sediments may
crumple as they slump inwards and downwards and the deep-
est central zone may become compressed into very tight folds
on all scales. The rise of a large welt also results in the stretch-
ing and thinning of the overlying sedimentary layer as it
accomodates to the increased area. If the uplift should then
subside, the layers which are too long, crumple and fold as
they settle down on the receding block.
Complex deformation may also arise through diflferences
in density of rock masses. The deep crust beneath a geosyn-
cline. say over 10 miles in depth, is believed to be affected by
granite-forming processes. Granite has a lower density than
average crustal rocks and buoyancy will move it upward
through the denser rocks, much as oil droplets released under
water rise to the surface. This rising mass, continually being
added to from below, deforms the surrounding geosynclinal
resulting in, for example, the salt domes of the Gulf coastal
regions. Differential vertical uplifts may also initiate move-
ment of the low density bedded deposits to linear weakened
zones where they thicken and cause folding of the cover rocks.
The fold mountains of the Jura in northwest Switzerland and
adjacent France and Germany are explained in this way.
Causes of Vertical Movements
The cause of primary vertical movements is considered
to be continuing chemical adjustments of the mantie rocks in
the earth's gravitational field. The changes involve produc-
tion of less dense and more dense minerals which tend to
move in relation to one another; the lighter rising, the heavier
sinking. The reactions result in changes of density and volume
and, together with the decay of radioactive elements, release
heat which in turn causes thermal expansion and promotes
mass movements. Beneath orogenic belts differentiation of the
upper mantle is supposed to form granitic masses rich in fluids
and gases which rise into the lower crust. Magma, formed by
melting of crustal rocks and mixed with basaltic mapna, rises
upchannelways to produce the andesitic volcanism that char-
acterizes orogenic belts and the circum-Pacific island arcs.
Differentiation of the mantle rock increases the volume and
causes uplift, which is further accentuated by the buoyant
rise of granitic masses causing the structures previously des-
cribed. The upward 'flow' of lighter rocks is accompanied by
inward 'flow' of heavier mantle rock from adjacent areas, the
Page 6 APRIL
surface of which consequently subsides and forms new geo-
synclinal basins to receive the erosional products and gravity-
induced slump from the rising geanticline. In turn, the new
geosynclinal areas become subject to uplift and the cycle be-
gins anew. Thus the migration of orogenic belts is explained.
Variations in the chronology of subsidence and uplift later-
ally along an orogenic belt are presumed to be caused by
differing incidence and rates of differentiation in the mantle.
Outflows of basic volcanic material into the subsiding areas
may cause these areas to subside more rapidly than they can
be filled with sediments and so produce the deep sea trenches
that accompany the island arcs of the Pacific.
In these ways the proponents of vertical movements ex-
plain the process of mountain building, volcanism, and in-
trusion of thousands of cubic miles of granite. In addition,
structures of both the stable platforms and ocean basins are
referred to the operation of vertical movements. Whereas
Crumpling produced by compressive settling into a depositional basin
from the higher margins. Length of section may be up to 75 miles.
mountain building is considered a process of continental
growth, evidence pointing to the previous existence of land
where there is now ocean is considered to indicate a reverse
process of 'oceanization.' This results from massive extru-
sion of basalt which causes foundering of the sial and down-
sinking. Areas such as the North Atlantic between Green-
land, Iceland and Scotland, the western Mediterranean, and
the Sea of Japan are supposed to be geologically young and
to have originated through oceanization. A problem that
arises is. — What is the fate of the sialic layers, inasmuch as
these oceanic areas give no evidence of their presence, seis-
mically or gravimetrically? Several solutions are proposed :
(1) The sial is reabsorbed at depth. There is no evidence to
support this and it seems strange that a process should operate
in the upper mantle which is the reverse of the differentiation
process required by mountain building. This idea iscountered
by the suggestion (2) that basaltic extrusion and oceani-
zation are a developing trend in the evolution of the earth
resulting from a gradual change in the differentiation process
as the amount of granitic components in the mantle declines.
The gradual deepening of large areas of the Pacific during the
last 75 to 100 million years, as evidenced by the submerged
guyots and volcanic cones of the atolls, is also given to support
this suggestion. Another explanation, (3) is that the founder-
ed sial occurs beneath oceanized zones, which form trenches.
But since the sialic rocks are unstable at great depths, moving
upwards and outwards towards the continent to produce all
recent acquisitions — anthropology
TIE-DYEING SEQUENCE FROM NIGERIA
TIE-DYEING AS .\ METHOD of applying design to cloth without
the use of brushes, printing blocks, or other tools more elab-
orate than string and the dye itself, has been known in parts
of Asia, Africa, and Europe for many centuries. The Mu-
seum is happy to have received this example of the process
in various stages, as the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Strotz
of Evanston, Illinois, who collected it among the Hausa peo-
ple at Kano in Northern Nigeria.
The white cloth used is a cotton of European manufac-
ture. The first photo shows the cloth before dyeing, but
already gathered up and tied with strings, to form a design
that will appear after the cloth has been dipped and untied.
The second photo shows the cloth after dyeing, with the tied
"packages" still in place. The dye has not fully penetrated in-
to these packages. As seen in the third photo, where the cloth
has been untied after dyeing and drying, the finished cloth re-
veals the patterns made by the undyed parts contrasting with
the dyed background color. Patterns can be very diverse,
depending on how the cloth is taken up and tied. This speci-
men shows a Yoruba pattern adopted by Hausa dyers.
Dark blue is the customary color used in northern and
western Nigeria. Formerly indigo was used, but as in this
specimen, European commercial dyes are supplanting it.
Note that the cloth in the first photo is tied in a somewhat
different pattern from that in the other two.
— Leon Siroto, Assistant Curator, African Ethnology
APRIL Page 7
recent acquisitions — library
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON LETTERS
I'^iM
The Museum has become the fortunate recipient of two
letters of the artist-naturalist, John James Audubon (1785-
1851). Both date from the time when he had completed his
great work of describing and painting the birds of America
and was, with the aid of his sons and the Rev. John Bachman,
preparing The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North Ametica.
The first letter, the gift of Mr. Herbert R. Strauss, is un-
dated and not in Audubon's handwriting, but is signed by
him. It is addressed to David Camden de Leon (1822-1872),
who served as a surgeon in the U. S. Army in Florida and
Mexico and as head of the Medical Department of the Con-
federate Army. Audubon requests him to obtain "specimens
of such viviparous quadrupeds as may be found with the
limits of your jurisdiction [i.e., Middle Florida], or beyond
that, if opportunity offers" and gives De Leon some instruc-
tions for preparing and preserving them, including the follow-
ing: "Very small quadrupeds would be better if put into jars
of New England ruin whole — only cutting a slight slit in the
belly to allow the spirit to saturate their entrails. Whiskey
or alcohol will not do so well, as they cause the hair to
come off."
The second letter, given anonymously, is completely in
Audubon's hand and is dated New York, Dec. 26th [?], 1845.
It is addressed to Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885), an artist-
naturalist who illustrated several important works of Amer-
ican natural history. Audubon requests the loan of a "fine
painting of a black-tailed deer" and writes that he "will not
keep it above three or four days, and will return it to you, in
the same order in which I received it. . . ." He concludes,
"It is now a long time since we have met, but [I] have some
hopes of doing this in the course of this winter. With the good
wishes of the season, believe me Mr. Peale, your sincerely
attached friend & o[bedient] serv[ant], John J. Audubon."
Both letters will be on display in the Library during the
month of April. — W. Peyton Fawcett, Associate Librarian
Pages APRIL
the phenomena of mountain building deformation described
above, (i.e., metamorphism, volcanism, and granitizations).
Such ideas retain many of the explanatory concepts of vertical
movement but reintroduce the necessity of lateral movement.
Vertical movements in the crust and mantle are im-
portant since they occur by isostatic adjustment to loading
or unloading of the crust, or to changes in density. But apart
from requiring such movements to explain the uplift of areas
such as the Colorado Plateau, uplift and subsidence are
essential elements to mountain building. Vertical move-
ments were formerly regarded as mere resultants of a system
of lateral compression which was required to explain the
apparent shortening and thickening of the crust by folding
and thrusting. It is now clear, however, that many of these
latter structures are more readily explained as resultants of
vertical movements. The exponents of the primary import-
ance of vertical movements consider lateral compression as a
local phenomenon arising within the orogenic belt itself with
the resulting folding and thrusting as secondary effects. Evi-
dence has been accumulating during the last twenty to thirty
years which indicates that primary vertical movement of
crustal blocks is a powerful means of explaining many struc-
tural relations. Thus, the separate ranges of the Rocky
Mountains, such as the Front Range in Colorado, with their
crystalline granitic cores and overlying deformed bedded
sedimentary rocks are the result of primary vertical uplift.
Differential uplift and subsidence, reaching from five to ten
miles in some places, began between about 100 and 75 million
years ago, and uplifts of over a mile have taken place over
the last few million years. The rising blocks were subject to
erosion, while thick sediments accumulated in the interven-
ing basin. Folds and faults formed along the flanks as aeon-
sequence of the uplift and in the more strongly uplifted seg-
ments, large slices of sedimentary rocks glided under gravity
to form far-travelled thrust sheets. However, the Rocky
Mountains differ from a typical orogenic belt in that the up-
lifts were accompanied by only a relatively small amount of
igneous intrusion and metamorphism, at least at the level in
the crust now exposed by erosion. Large granitic intrusions,
dated at between 80 and 140 million years ago, occur to the
west in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, in Idaho,
and in the Coast Ranges of British Columbia. These seem
unrelated to the Rocky Mountain uplift, although apparently
marked uplift of the Sierra Nevadas also has taken place
since about five million years ago.
Top Right: Vertical section of the upper crust illustrat-
ing various structures resulting from vertical movement:
(a) fold of plastic clay squeezed upward by buoyancy; (b)
folding by sliding of beds from an uplifted mass; (c) folds
formed by movement of plastic rock salt and/or gypsum la
fault zones etc.; (d) crumpling produced by force of out-
ward moving uplifted block. Length of section about 15
miles.
Middle, Right: Sliding and overfolding of strata to the
left following differential uplift of the right side.
Below, Left : Vertical section showing a rising mass of
granitic rock {the core) which has turned sideways and pro-
duced large horizontally folded masses. The envelope of
the core is composed of intensely deformed and metamor-
phosed rocks, while the upper beds are folded sediments.
Length of section, about 20 miles.
Below: Vertical section showing folded and now detached
masses which have slid, under the influence of gravity, off
the flank of a rising mass. Length of section about 50 miles.
Problems arise with the concept of vertical differentiation
of the mantle as the primary controlling mechanism of crustal
structure and evolution. First, there is doubt that the chem-
ical differentiation and the attendant vertical adjustments of
mantle material could take place over a sufficient depth in
the space of time required for the evolution of any single
erogenic belt.
Secondly, the location of the orogenic belts would be
governed by the location of the changes in the deep mantle,
yet the former seems to show a relationship to the distribution
of oceanic and continental crust; it is not clear how this would
arise. It is also assumed that the andesitic and related vol-
canic products of orogenic regions and the granitic intrusion
material, in part responsible for the uplift and secondary
deformation, are new sialic material, added to the crust by
differentiation from the mantle. The origin of these rocks
remains a problem but it is by no means certain that the bulk
of them is derived from the mantle. One alternative is that
they are largely derived from pre-existing sial (with some
addition of manUe-derived material) and that their accumu-
lation requires more than just vertical movement but lateral
displacement as well. Further, it is suggested that the mantle
may have largely spent its ability to produce large quantities
of granite in the early phases of earth evolution when the sial
was formed.
Another difficulty is that many granite intrusions have
a much younger radioactive decay date than the deformed
metamorphic rocks that surround them. This may reflect
their respective cooling histories. That is, the granite main-
tained a higher temperature at greater depth for a long time
after the metamorphic rocks had cooled. The granite's age
would then be recorded from some stage in its delayed cool-
ing. The granite moved into its present position long after
the metamorphism. However, it may also mean that the
granite has no relationship to the metamorphism, or, at least,
a much less direct one than is implied in the usual causal
relationship in orogenic belts claimed by "vertical movement
adherents".
Lasdy, the evidence of large lateral movements of crustal
blocks, both continental and oceanic, indicates the operation
of forces other than just vertical ones. This evidence has
become more compelling within the last decade. Even pro-
ponents of primary control by vertical movements admit that
lateral movements may be propelled by lateral mass transfers
in the upper mantle although they relate these to funda-
mental differentiation and vertical movements in the deep
mantle. This then leads to the last remaining series of
theories of mountain building, namely, theories that consider
convection currents, slow circulations of mass in the mantle,
as the source of orogenic forces.
This article will he concluded in a subsequent issue of the Bulletin.
, APRIL Page 9
By Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator, ^oology
of Southeast Asia
Visitors to Field Museum who have more than the gen-
eral political interest in Viet Nam will find exhibits which
give them a very good idea of the country in which so many
Americans are now engaged. The political boundaries of
North and South Met Nam encompass a band 1,000 miles
long and from 30 to 330 miles wide along the eastern edge
of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, facing the South China Sea.
The topography is dominated by deltas and coastal alluvial
plains, back of which rise mountains reaching about 11,000
feet in the north, and 6,000 in the south. Lying in the same
latitudes as Central America, the country is tropical, with
ample rainfall which falls chiefly in the summer, and temper-
atures near 80° F. all year in the south. The vegetation is
chiefly evergreen tropical forest, and rice is the chief crop.
The ancient people of Indo-China were Indonesians, but
Mongol-like immigrants from the north mingled with them
evolving many local sub-races. Although China has greatly
influenced Viet-Nainese culture, it is apparent that there is
also a strong Hindu influence from earlier times.
The Museum's zoology exhibits provide life-like views of
the various kinds of country in Viet Nam, and the plant and
animal life found in each.
One of the bird habitat groups exhibited in Hall 20 is set
in the forested terrain of Viet Nam. Actual native branches
and leaves and mounted specimens are used. The back-
ground is painted from photographs made in the country: —
night approaches, the bird and his mates will return to the
trees. A view of this exhibit is like looking through a window
onto the Viet Nam countryside.
Nearby, both in the Viet Nam forest and in the Museum
exhibit arrangement, a family band of gibbons, the smallest
of the great apes, swings through the treetops. The white
female has a young one clinging to her breast; the old black
male pauses on a branch, holding himself upright with one
hand as he plucks a red fruit. A young male is swinging by
his arms from branch to branch (a mode of travel called
brachiating). The other young male, also black, is flying
through the air spread-eagled, to grasp a branch on the far
side of a gap in the tree-top canopy. Like the peafowl, the
gibbons sleep in trees, however they rarely descend to the
ground. But they do greet the new day with their calls: —
one starts to howl, the rest of the family takes it up, family
calls to family, and the forest rings with their calling.
Another exhibit, set on the edge of a forest clearing in the
rugged mountains of central Viet Nam, shows a sable bull
gaur, finest of the wild oxen. With him is a cow, less bulky,
and more brown in color, and her brown calf with button
horns. These forest cattle are distantly related to the beef
cattle of the Middle West, but they have a sculptured,
majestic beauty which has long since been lost by their
domesticated relatives.
While the gaur lives in the mountain forest and is a stately
Guar
the time is early morning; a peacock and a hen sit on a dead
branch above the forest, overlooking the mist-filled valleys
and the tiers of mountains losing themselves in hazy distance.
The cock, with his gorgeous train closed, opens his mouth to
give the loud, trumpet-like call with which he heralds the
new day. Soon he and his consorts will fly down to the
forest floor or the edge of a clearing to feed. Then the pea-
cock will display, spreading his train into a great fan over his
back and quivering his wings and shuffling his feet. When
Water Buffalo
beast, the water buflTalo, shown in another habitat exhibit,
lives in the tall reeds, brakes, grassy plains, swamps and
marshes of the hot lowlands. The buff"alo has a great, heavy
body, short legs, and long, curved, backward-sweeping horns.
There are both wild and domesticated varieties, much alike
in appearance. The domestic bufTalo is used to draw carts
and prepare rice fields. The herds of wild buffalo sometimes
come into cultivated fields to feed, and have the reputation
of being savage and unpredictable in temperament. As their
MAT Page 11
CALENDER OF
APRIL EVENTS
Through April 13 New Guinea Paintinos
Continuation of a special exhibition of
paintings and drawings by the Abelain
people of New Guinea and the Kilenge of
New Britain. Hall 9 Gallery.
April 1 — April 30 A Medley of Birds
An exhibition of 24 paintings, by Mrs. Florence Guise, featuring birds of the
mid-western United States. Stanley Field Hall.
April 9 Movie : Aiktralia
A study of the people and natural wealth of the land "down under". Narrated
by Charles Forbes Taylor. Adults. 2:30 P.M. James Simpson Theatre.
April 16 Movie : High Arctic
Intimate documentary on the life of the northernmost Eskimos, by explorer
Lewis Cotlow. Adults. 2:30 P.M. James Simpson Theatre.
April 16 Girl Scout Day : Summer Scouts Go, Go, Go
A look at new summer scout activities-travel camps, art programs and day
trips. 10:30 A.M. James Simpson Theatre.
April 19 The Indi.wa University Opera The.^ter
University Theater presents "Opera Gala." 8:15 P.M. James Simpson Theatre
April 23 Movie: Timeless Turkey
Turkey seen as a bridge between the East and the West. Adults. 2:30 P.M.
James Simpson Theatre.
April 23 Camp Fire Girl Day: Weather and the Sp.\ce .\ge
Featuring P. J. HoflT, CBS weather man. 10:30 A.M. James Simpson Theatre.
April 30 Movie : Puerto Rico
A film tour of the island as seen through the eyes of its natives. Adults. 2:30
P.M. James Simpson Theatre.
April 30 Cub Scout Day: Wh.at On Earth?
Color motion picture on the world of nature by Fran William Hall. 10:30 A.M.
James Simpson Theatre.
Nature Camera Club, April 12 at 7:30
Orchid Society, April 17 at 2 P.M.
Shell Club, April 24 at 2 P.M.
APRIL MEETINGS
Open to interested persons
Southeast Asia (cont.)
name implies, they enter water readily and may frequently be seen submerged,
with only nostrils and eyes projecting above the mud and water.
These are our four large habitat groups showing the main habitats in Viet
Nam: — mountain, plain, forest, grass and swamp land. Other striking animals
whose ranges are common to Viet Nam and India as well, are shown in nearby
dioramas with Indian backgrounds — a pair of tigers in the tall grass with their
wild -hog kill; a leopard crouched on the branch of a forest tree; and a group of
elk-size sambur deer on a dry river bed in light forest.
Scattered through our systematic series are individual specimens of birds,
mammals and reptiles that illustrate types occurring in Viet Nam, such as babbling
thrushes, various pheasants, fairy blue birds, warblers, flycatchers, sunbirds,
monitor lizards, pythons and cobras. Further material on the zoology of \'iet
Nam is available in our study collections, which have recently been enriched by
several large collections of Viet Namese birds and mammals.
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
Roosevelt Rd. & Lake Shore Drive
Chicago. Illinois 60605
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lesler Armour
Harry 0. Dercher
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
Walter J. Cummings
Joseph N. Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. Isham
Hughslon M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Edward Byron Smith
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEE
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
Page 12 APRIL
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF the MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis O. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl.
Department of Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department of ^oology
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul,
Kathleen Wolff,
Associate Editors
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Volume 37, Number 5 May, 1966
mountain building V
[conclusion]
By Bertram G. Woodland, Curator, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology
Convection Current Hypotheses.- — Both from theo-
retical considerations and in attempts to explain crustal phe-
nomena such as mountain building and volcanism, currents
in the sub-crustal layers have been postulated from time to
time for over a hundred years. In 1928 Wegener, one of the
earlier and better-known advocates of continental drift, sug-
gested them as possible mechanisms for moving continents.
In general, this was no more acceptable than the drift hy-
pot hesis. One of the major objections was that the mantle,
by then considered to be crystalline, could not flow. How-
ever, it has been shown that solids, particularly at high tem-
peratures and pressures, will deform by plastic flow or 'creep'
if subjected to relatively small differential stress for periods of
time of geological significance, that is, for tens of millions
of years. In addition, it has been calculated that the rates of
flow indicated by certain crustal phenomena, a half inch to
two inches per year, are theoretically possible.
In the 1930's some model experiments were made to in-
vestigate the effect of mantle currents on the crust. The
currents were simulated by contra-rotating drums in a suit-
able medium at a scaled -down speed. The overlying 'crust'
reacted to the currents by thickening and dragging down into
the underlying media over the zone between the drums. The
thickened zone also showed thrust zones directed outward
from the center line. These results strongly supported the
idea of mantle currents as the driving force of orogenic belts,
and adherents to the hypothesis since then have suggested
many variations to account for the phenomena associated
with mountain building.
A typical explanation might be as follows : the initial slow
development of the currents drags down the crust and forms
a geosyncline which receives sediments. Continued down-
ward movement results in heating of the deeper crustal layers
which produces partial melting. The products of melting
tend to rise and the hot, water-rich solutions in particular
move upward and metamorphose the overlying sediments.
Acceleration of the currents results in compression of the sedi-
ments, their severe deformation, and formation of cleavage
as in slates. Then, as the currents slow down, the thickened
crustal mass is no longer held down against gravity and it rises
isostatically to form a new mountain range. The uplift is
accompanied and aided by the buoyant rise of granitic masses
produced at depth. As the still hot mass slowly rises through
the metamorphic envelope, it causes further chemical and
structural changes in the rocks. The uplift also causes the
secondary effects of sliding and slumping as described earlier
under vertical movements. Erosion attacks the rising mass
and exposes ever deeper levels of the orogenic belt with their
differing styles of deformation and metamorphic effects.
Deep sea trenches and their accompanying volcanic arcs
are considered by many earth scientists to represent the loci
of present-day orogenic activity. The prevalent earth-
quake shocks would originate by the release of stresses gener-
ated by the mantle currents which are moving downward
beneath the arcs along an inclined zone. It has already been
mentioned that earthquake wave data pose a difficulty to this
underthrusting concept. Many more data and analyses, how-
ever, are required before we can more fully understand the
complex problem of deep earthquake movements and their
relation to causal mechanism. The characteristic explosive
andesitic volcanism can be explained as arising by the fusion
at depth of crustal material and sea water solutions carried
down by the mantle currents. At some point these rise,
VOLCANIC ARC
CONTINENT (P~5
OCEAN
GEOSYNCLINE
Diagrammatic vertical sections across a developing orogenic belt assum-
ing of convection currents in the mantle as the driving mechanism:
mixed to a greater or lesser extent with basalt produced by
partial fusion of the mantle. The magma, highly charged
with gases, makes its way to the surface and forms volcanoes.
The origin of andesitic and related magma types is, however,
still a problem with no generally acceptable solution. A source
produced by the partial melting of sialic crustal material with
perhaps additions from the mande is one very plausible ex-
planation, so that the above mechanism accounting for the
volcanism is possible.
The question of whether the deep sea trenches can be re-
garded as modern examples of geosynclines has been discussed
earlier (in Part 2) . Some recent interpretations of the struc-
ture of trenches have indicated little thickening of the crust
and an origin by tensional downfaulting rather than by com-
pressional buckling. However, seismic surveys indicate a
somewhat thickened oceanic crust which, together with the
large deficiencies of gravity over the trenches, means that
they are not isostatically compensated. Thus, some force
must be holding the trench areas down; otherwise they would
rise isostatically. This force is commonly taken to be down-
turning currents in the mande which exert a drag on the crust,
pulling it downward. Many of the trenches have little sedi-
ment thickness and also are located in geographic positions
that render it unlikely that large thicknesses of geosynclinal
Page 2 MAT
proportions could accumulate. Uplift would not form an
orogenic belt but a ridge on the ocean floor. Thus, trenches
must be converted to geosynclines by the supply of large
quantities of sediment produced by the erosion of mountains
of an adjacent continental area. A possible example of such
an occurrence is to be found in the Coast Ranges, south of
San Francisco. Interpretations of the metamorphic rock sug-
gest that sediment accumulated rapidly in a sinking trough
with oceanic crustal structure, roughly in the period between
100 and 120 million years ago. Eventual thickness may have
been nearly twenty miles. Metamorphism was followed by
deformation and uplift so that erosion now exposes rocks that
were once very deeply buried sediments and also fragments of
former oceanic crust, partially altered to a very dense type
of rock of basaltic composition called eclogite. Perhaps even
fragments of the underlying mantle are exposed.
However, other orogenic belts have evidence that the geo-
syncline that preceded the mountain building was located on
VOLCANIC ARC
CONTINENT ^(~^
OCEAN
fluenced by a geologic history of fragmentation of sialic crust.
The reverse side of the coin may be represented by the
very thick sedimentary accumulations along the Gulf Coast
and to a lesser extent off the eastern seaboard. The former,
particularly, is referred to as a modern geosyncline. How-
ever, it lacks the other manifestations normally associated
with a nascent orogenic belt, — earthquakes, volcanism and,
in fact, any evidence of crustal instability other than a grad-
ual downsinking. Can we then say that the area is unlikely
to become an orogenic belt and a future mountain range?
The concept of downturning mantle currents producing
the driving force of orogeny, as described earlier, is combined
with varying rates of movements to form a single orogenic
cycle. Varying rates of movement may also be utilized in a
different way. If mantle currents cause drag movements of
the crust this will be particularly effective on the deeper
zones. This drag may thus remove material from the base
of the crust at zones of greatest motion and deposit iti under
RISING OROGENIC BELT
NEW OCEAN
GEOSYNCLINE ^^'""
a) geosyncline developing; granite forming and volcanism in adjacent belt; b) geosyncline deforming; c) uplift, metamorphism and granite formation
as mantle currents wane.
continental crust rather than oceanic, though perhaps thin-
ner than average since rocks that may have come from the
lower crusts and upper mantle are found in these areas also.
Thus, downwarping may affect continental crust. The loca-
tion of the downsinking portions of currents has been thought
to be influenced by the crustal discontinuity of continental
borders and the sites of many present trenches support this.
Also the supply of large volumes of sediment is linked to the
proximity of continents so that geosynclines could develop
near the latter. Combination of the two factors produces the
elements for an orogenic belt; this combination may be for-
tuitous. In this respect the location of the Bonin-Mariana
and Tonga arcs and trenches is interesting. They do not oc-
cur near the continent, and large areas of oceanic crust in-
tervene between them and continental sialic crust. The
trenches thus seem destined not to produce mountain chains.
The andesitic volcanoes of the associated island arcs are a
problem to the theory of andesite origin by refusion of down-
dragged sial and mixing with mantle products because of
their distance from the nearest continental mass. It is pos-
sible that oceanic crust together with the relatively thin
oceanic sediments carried down by the currents may suffice
to produce andesite. Also the southwest Pacific west of the
Tonga trench is a complex region and the crust may be in-
areas of lesser movement. In the former case the crust is
thinned; in the latter it will be thickened and rise isostatically.
This concept may explain some of the complex structures of
the American Cordillera. The thin block-faulted crust of
Nevada and western Utah would represent the thinned
stretched portion, and the Colorado Plateau the thickened
uplifted area. The extensive volcanism of the former area
during the last fifty million years might also reflect fusion of
sial and its ready extrusion through a thinned fractured crust.
The gigantic granitic intrusions of the Sierra Nevadas, of
Idaho, and the Coast Range of British Columbia, all with
ages largely between 80 and 110 million years, may also rep-
resent rejuvenated sial transported at depth from the west.
The Rocky Moimtain uplifts represent somewhat of a
problem because of the small amount of associated granitic
intrusions and metamorphism so typical of the cores of clas-
sical orogenic belts. Prior to the uplifts the area in general
was a shallow sea and received variable but moderate amounts
of marine sediments. The uplifts must be related to deep
crustal and sub-crustal processes. If the uplifts are related to
crustal thickening from beneath there is no ready explanation
for their spotty occurrence with intervening basins either lag-
ing behind or actually depressed. It would seem that view-
ing the entire Rocky Mountain area as {continued on page 8)
MAT Pages
MAYA ART
EXHIBIT OF RUBBINGS FROM STONE CARVINGS
by Donald Collier, Chief Curator, Anthropology
c
LASSic MAYA CULTURE was notable for its complex re-
ligion, elaborate rituals and hieroglyphic writing. The ancient
Maya achieved an extraordinary knowledge of astronomy
and developed a remarkably accurate calendar. They pro-
duced monumental architecture, and created a rich and var-
ied art. The sculptural aspects of that art are shown in the
current exhibition.
On display in the Museum from May 7 through June 27,
the exhibition will include 43 rubbings from stone carvings
as well as a loan collection of Maya sculpture. The rubbings,
which were made in Mexico and Guatemala by Merle Greene,
range in size from 2x3 feet to 8 x 12 feet and are remarkable
for their high technical quality. They were made by Mrs.
Greene over a period of three years in the field, while working
as an artist for the University of Pennsylvania at Tikal, Guate-
mala, and for Tulane University at Dzibilchaltun in Yucatan.
Good rubbings of stone carvings, which of course are life-
size, have advantages over photographs because they clarify
the designs by eliminating the confusion caused by color vari-
ations in the stone. They bring out the low-relief carving
better than it can usually be seen on the originals, since ideal
conditions of oblique lighting seldom exist in the field. And
rubbings, because they are made in actual contact with the
carvings, convey a feeling for the texture of the stone. They
are therefore valuable both for an appreciation of the refine-
ment and grandeur of Maya art, and for systematic study.
The carvings shown in the rubbings, as well as the sculp-
ture included in the exhibition, date from the Classic Period
(a.d. 200-900) and the Post-Classic Period (a.d. 900-1100).
Most of the material dates from the Late Classic (a.d. 600-
900), the period of highest development of Maya art.
The rubbings are taken from low-relief carvings on lime-
stone monuments called stelae erected in the ceremonijd
plazas of Maya cities, and from the facades and interiors of
the temples that surrounded these plazas.
The stelae (singular, stela), which form the most numer-
ous and important class of Maya carvings, are tall free-stand-
ing stone slabs bearing hieroglyphic writing and carvings
portraying rulers, priests and deities. They were erected in
front of the temples to mark the completion of time cycles in
the sacred calendar, or to celebrate the accession of a new
ruler, whose portrait was carved on the monument. The
stelae bear hierglyphic dates, which can be read, and other
glyphs which have not yet been deciphered.
For many years archaeologists have been trying to dis-
cover the origins of Classic Maya culture. Most of the visible
remains in the jungle dated from the Classic period and such
characteristic Classic traits as the corbelled vault in tombs
and stone stelae seemed to appear almost fully developed at
the beginning of the period. Earlier remains were found at
some of the lowland Maya sites, but these were insufficient to
explain the Classic development. This situation led to the
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Opposite page, above; Rubbing of the sarcophagus lid
in the tomb of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque.
In the center a royal personage reclines on a throne.
Opposite page, below: Temple of the Inscriptions at
Palenque, Mexico. The base of the pyramid platform held
a hidden tomb containing a carved sarcophagus and offerings.
Left: Rubbing from a stela showing a high-ranking captive.
Above: Mrs. Greene beside the largest fragment of Stela 1
at Bonampak. She has nearly completed the rubbing.
Cover: Rubbing of a relief showing two ball players; the taller
Is holding up a human heart In offering. They are dressed
in the heavy belts worn In the ceremonial ball game,
which was played with a solid rubber ball.
MAY Page 5
theory that Maya culture had developed in the Guatemalan
highland and spread to the lowland at the beginning of the
Classic period. Another theory was that some basic ideas of
Maya culture spread from the Olmec of the Gulf Coast of
Mexico, who flourished before 500 B.C.
The extensive excavations of the University of Pennsyl-
vania over the past ten years at Tikal, the greatest of the
Maya cities, have changed this picture. This work has shown
that Tikal was first occupied by 500 b.c, and that the core
of the city had grown to 6.5 square miles by 200 B.C. Many
traits leading to Classic Maya culture developed at Tikal
during this Pre-Classic period from 500 B.C. to a.d. 200.
These new facts suggest that Lowlands Maya culture devel-
oped in situ in the rain forest. It did not grow in isolation,
for there is evidence of influence from other Pre-Classic cul-
tures in highland Guatemala and in Mexico, which resulted
in part from an active and far flung network of trade. But
the patterns of Classic Maya culture were already foreshad-
owed at Tikal well before the beginning of the Christian era.
Included in the show are reliefs from Dzibilchaltun, Chi-
chen Itza, Uxmal, Palenque, Yaxchilan and Bonampak in
Mexico; and Tikal, Uaxactun, Piedras Negras, Kamilalijuyu,
and Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa in Guatemala.
The exhibition also includes Maya sculpture lent by the
Museum of Primitive Art in New York, the Art Institute of
Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Julian Goldsmith, Mr. and Mrs.
Milton W. Hitsch, Mr. and Mrs. D. Daniel Michel, and
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Wielgus, all of Chicago.
Above: Side of Stela 9 at Tikal, Guatemala, bearing
a row of carved glyphs.
Right: Rubbing of the central figure on the
Tablet of the Slaves, Palenque.
This personage wears a jade necklace
and elaborate ear and wrist ornaments of jade.
Paged MAY
Right: Detail of the central figure on the sarcophagus
lid shown on the preceding page. This person-
age, who has the idealized Maya profile, is
wearing a pendant in the form of a turtle.
Center: Three temples at Palenque. In the center
is the Temple of the Foliated Cross.
A rubbing of the carved tablet
in this temple is shown at the bottom.
Bottom: Rubbing of the Tablet of the Foliated
Cross at Palenque. The central cross is
thought to represent the "tree of life" and to
symbolize the sacred corn plant. It is topped
by the face of the sun god
on whose head stands a quetzal bird.
?/fS 'S^ •|'»-" -r^ y
!-;p j.^'^ Jfsf^ f;S^ - i3
MAT Page?
mountains {continued Jrom p. 3) the site of downsinking cur-
rents that virtually stopped some 80 to 100 milion years ago
is also open to objections. Furthermore, much of the West
has been strongly uplifted within the last 10 million years;
this late vertical movement of previously uplifted and eroded
mountain chains seems common. This may be related to
renewed mantle current activity causing more crustal thick-
ening after a period of isostatic adjustment.
The upper mantle beneath much of the western United
States has a lower than average seismic wave velocity which
is interpreted as a lower than average density. The cause of
this abnormality is not known, but it is probable that it is
directly related to the orogenic activity, volcanism, igneous
intrusion, and uplift which has affected the area, particularly
during the last 100 million years or so. One explanation is
that the East Pacific Rise follows the Gulf of California and
passes beneath the western portion of the United States to
reappear in the Pacific off the northern California coast.
The crest of the Rise is characterized by anomalous upper
ducing these movements were operating throughout the period
when the crust of the western states was also subjected to con-
siderable orogeny, faulting, volcanism, and igneous intrusion.
As yet, we have insufficient knowledge to permit us to recon-
cile all these crustal events into a reasonable picture of the
underlying mantle processes, or to explain the cause of
the anomalous mantle. Assuming that currents in the mantle
do exist, then they must have been of a complex nature be-
neath the western United States. It may be that more than
one current may have operated simultaneously (at different
levels?). Or, alternatively, an easterly flowing current may
have originated in the now subsided Darwin Rise of the cen-
tral Pacific, perhaps was responsible for the fault scarps of the
eastern Pacific floor off California, and affected the crust of
the western regions. This rise subsided some 60 to 100 mil-
lion years ago, producing many guyots and atolls when the
rising currents ceased. Northwest currents under the Pacific
off the younger East Pacific Rise may have initiated move-
ments on the San Andreas fault during the waning stage of
OCEAN
COMPRESSION
AND
UPLIFT
THICKENING
AND
GRANITE
FORMING fW-o
THINNING
AND
VOLCANISM
THICKENING AND UPLIFT
ANOMOLOUS MANTLE
Possible effects oj 'thinning' and 'thickening' of the crust from below by the action of currents in the upper mantle: the broken line
represents the earlier base of the crust, the lower continuous line the modified base.
mantle similar to that of the western states. In addition, the
block-fault moimtains and basins of Nevada indicate a stretch-
ing of the crust in an east-west direction and may be likened
to the central rift zone of the mid-Atlantic ridge. The vast
accumulation of geologically recent volcanic products in Ne-
vada seems compositionally to have been derived from melted
sial rather than from the mantle. The heat required may be
correlated with the high heat flow of rises, and the faulting of
the crust provided ample opportunity for extrusion to the
surface.
Against this view, however, is the evidence provided by
the great African rift valleys which are, on strong grounds,
regarded as the rift zone of a mantle rise, here intersecting a
continent. The geological structures and the nature of the
volcanism are quite different in the two areas, suggesting that
there is no rise under the western United States, although
some discrepancies could possibly be explained by a differ-
ence in the age of the two features. A further difficulty is
that mantle currents should flow in east-west directions from
a north-south rise, yet the crustal movements along the San
Andreas fault zone are close to north-south. There is geo-
logical evidence that movements along the San Andreas have
been immense, amounting to some 350 miles of differential
displacement over the last 150 million yeaa-s. The forces pro-
the Darwin Rise currents.
Convection Currents and Continental Drift. — Cur-
rents in the mantle have also been suggested as the driving
force behind continental drift. Upwelling currents beneath
a continental mass and their sideways flow would disrupt
the crust and move the fragments apart. The oceanic rises
represent the lines along which upwellings are believed to be
taking place today; the mantle currents that diverged from
them in the past are considered to have caused the drifting
of the continents. Paleomagnetic and other geologic evi-
dence of drift refers to differential movement of continents
and opening of the Atlantic and Indian oceans during the
last 200 million years, and explains the contrasts between
these oceans and the Pacific. This is the classical drift elab-
orated by Alfred Wegener in 1912. Just prior to this conti-
nental drift had been advocated as the cause for mountain
building. It was thought that the movement of continental
slabs would cause compressional buckling along the leading
edges, such as the mountains of western North and South
America formed by westward drift. Additionally, drift of
masses toward each other would result in compressional moun-
tain building of the opposed borders such as the Alpine
mountain system formed as Africa moved northward. The
forces put forward to explain the drift were proved inadequate
Pages MAT
and as a result the idea of drift was generally disregarded.
Also, as a mechanism for mountain building it received little
support, particularly as it explained only the geologically
young orogenic belts and left all the older belts, formed prior
to the continental drifting, without explanation.
It is pertinent to point out here that 'polar wandering' is
the name given to a concept not of displacement of the rota-
tional axis but to displacement of the whole crust relative to
the axis. This is conceived as possibly due to slipping of the
crust and part of the upper mantle over the interior or else
by bodily movement of the entire earth over its axis. Such
adjustments may arise from instabilities in mass distributions
relative to the earth's rotation which are produced by oro-
genesis or continental drift. It differs from the latter in that
it produces no relative shift between continents. Such 'polar
wandering' movements may have taken place and added
their effect to that of continental drift on the displacement
of the ancient poles as deduced from paleomagnetic studies.
At present there is no satisfactory way of separating the effects
of continental drift from those of 'polar wandering.'
The continental drift hypothesis now receives much sup-
port although the forces causing drift are still controversial.
Horizontal mantle currents are favored by many, but pro-
ponents of the fundamental importance of vertical movements
propose that the horizontal movements are caused by second-
ary gravitational sliding from primary vertical mass move-
ments and uplifts deep within the mantle. As noted earlier,
some earth scientists believe earth expansion causes separa-
tion of continental masses. Secondary distortional effects
may arise from other forces, for example, the difference be-
tween the equator and the poles in speed of rotation of the
crust around the earth's axis. However, the amount of ex-
pansion required to form the Atlantic and Indian oceans is
too great. Mantle currents seem to be the best available
motive force for drift.
Compressional structures may arise by distortional move-
ments of one crustal segment in relation to another, and crustal
thickening may result when one crustal block rides over or
under another. The high Tibetan Plateau may represent
such a double thickness of crust. However, orogenesis, with
all its attendant phenomena of deposition, deformation, meta-
morphism, volcanism, and igneous intrusion, is generally not
so directly related to drift. Rather, it depends on the opera-
tion of mantle currents causing specific effects other than
passive transport of crustal slabs; for example, the downturn-
ing zone of a current may be related to the subsidence of a
geosyncline and the subsequent deformation of its sedimen-
tary fill.
Sources of Energy. — The source of energy driving the
proposed mantle currents is not known. Some believe that
physical and chemical changes take place in the mantle in
the earth's gravitational field and more dense and less dense
fractions are produced which result in mass movements — the
denser sinking, the lighter rising. The more generally ac-
cepted theory is that the currents are the result of heat pro-
duction, which gives rise to excessive heat gradients, which, in
turn, cause flow of inner hot material toward the cooler outer
zones and the return of cooler, denser material to the interior.
CONTINENT
MAN
T L E
Above : Shows continental drift, mid-ocean ridges, and compressional
orogenic belts resulting from convection currents in the mantle; a) ini-
tial stage of currents ascending beneath continent; b) mature stage,
continents drifting and new ocean formed.
Below: Thickening of crust by underthrusting of one continent by
another under the influence of mantle currents; thickening may also
be caused by compression.
Such convectional movements can be likened to the overturn
of the syrup during the making of preserves or to the move-
ment of air masses in the atmosphere which gives us our
weather. A source of heat in the mantle is the decay of radio-
active elements. This is probably inadequate so that an
additional source is required. It is conjectured that this may
be related to the growth of the core, a process which would
release gravitational energy as heat.
Alternatively, the change in state of dense metallic core
material to mantle material, as discussed earlier, would re-
lease much energy as heat as well as cause a volume increase.
In this respect it is interesting to note that, based on their
average densities and absence of magnetic fields, neither the
moon nor Mars seems to have a core in the sense that the
earth does. Their surface features, revealed to us in more
detail than ever before by the photographs radioed back by
the Ranger and Mariner space vehicles, are quite different
from those of earth. Craters and other features seem best
explained by meteoritic bombardment and a form of vol-
MAY Page 9
canism. Mountain building similar to that on earth is absent.
One conclusion is that there are probably no convection cur-
rents in the moon or Mars. Radioactivity produces some
internal heating, perhaps, to support some volcanism, but
these two bodies may be cooling now, rather than warming
up. The absence of oceans and the virtual absence of an
atmosphere on the moon and Mars means that sedimentary
depositional processes, as we know them on the earth, and
thus the development of geosynclines, are impossible on these
bodies. Venus has sufficient mass and average density to
have a core, but perhaps not to have an inner core like the
earth does. The absence of a Venusian magnetic field (as
recorded by a space vehicle) may be the result of the lack of
reactions related to an inner core. However, the core of
Venus may have been, and may still be, subject to changes
like the earth's outer core, and the energy released may have
produced convection currents, with the result that the surface
of this planet may have mountain ranges like the earth.
It is still only conjecture that the earth's mantle has con-
vection currents. On the whole, they seem to be the best
available driving force for both orogenesis and horizontal dis-
placements of the crust. One serious objection that has been
raised against the currents is the seismic discontinuities in
the mantle, particularly the one between the upper and lower
mantle at a depth of about 600 miles. It is argued that, if
change of chemical composition is the cause of the discon-
tinuity, the preservation of the discontinuity is a barrier to
convection currents, as these would cause mixing. Separate
convection systems may still operate above and below the
discontinuity and, while the former may be large enough to
cause orogenesis, it seems unlikely they would be on a large
enough scale to cause continental drift. However, if the dis-
continuity is produced by a physical change of mantle mate-
rial due to increasing pressure, then the currents may pass
through it. The movement would be slow enough so that the
material could change as it is carried upward, thus preserv-
ing the seismic discontinuity. Possibly these physical changes
in the upper mantle may be related to the origin of deep
earthquake shocks. Assuming that currents do exist, there
are many problems in trying to work out their present form
and distribution so as to explain all the crustal features of
oceanic rises, trenches, heat flow, volcanism, earthquakes,
and horizontal and vertical movements. Some of these phe-
nomena may, in any case, have only an indirect relationship
So many sources were used for the writing of the articles on
mountain building that it was not possible to refer to them
in the limited space of the Bulletin. Some of the more im-
portant ones were written by the following authors:
Beloussov, V. V.; van Bemmelen, R. W.; Bucher, W. H.;
Carey, S. W.; Chadwick, P.; Dearnley, R.; Dietz, R. S.;
Egyed, L.; Engel, A. E. J.; Fisher, R. L. and Hess, H. H.;
Fitch, F.J. and Miller. J. A.; Gilluly, J.; Holmes, A.; Oro-
wan, C; Lyttleton, R. A.; Pakiser, L. C; Ramberg, H.;
Scheidegger, A. E.; Sutton,- J.; Thompson, G. A. and Tal-
wani, M.; Umbgrove, J. H. F.; Vening Meinesz, F. A.;
Wilson, J. T.
(A selected bibliography is available on request from the
author of the articles.)
to mantle currents, e.g., volcanism of the Central Pacific and
isostatic response to loading or unloading of the crust.
Summary
At the present time, then, the action of convection cur-
rents in the mantle, driven by changes in the interior of the
earth which release energy, is the favored mechanism for
mountain building. We have seen, however, that the opera-
tion of other fundamental forces such as rotation of the earth,
gravity, buoyancy, isostasy and contraction or expansion all
influence the evolution of crustal structures. In particular,
the secondary gravitational effects produced by primary ver-
tical uplift are undoubtedly important in the development of
folding and thrusting structures that were formerly explained
by tangential pressures. However, it seems to me that the
complex folding and metamorphism exposed in what were
the deep-seated cores of old orogenic zones require primary
compressional forces which are most easily derived by the
action of convection currents in the upper mantle. Addi-
tionally, evidence of large horizontal crustal movements and
acceptance of continental drift demand mantle currents.
The source of energy to drive the currents seems to de-
pend on something more than radioactive decay, and this
may be evolutionary change deep within earth. It has been
suggested that, if the core has grown throughout the earth's
history, its changing size would have caused periodic funda-
mental changes of the main mantle convection from an early
single circuit or cell to a multi-celled form. The change in
cell number, size, and distribution may initiate continental
drift with attendant fragmentation, if currents arise below a
continent, or accretion if two continents are driven toward
each other. This may have occurred several times since the
origin of the earth and may have been accompanied by great
basaltic outpourings, such as flooded parts of India, Brazil,
South Africa, Greenland, Iceland, etc., when the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans were formed. Such events, against a
background of slow earth contraction or expansion, may be
responsible for the major cycles of orogenic activity discern-
ible in the radioactive dating of igneous and metamorphic
rocks throughout the world.
Mountain building is not only a phenomenon of the past
but is actually going on today. The beds of canals built some
1700 years ago in Persia have been uplifted (as much as 60
feet in one case) so that water would now no longer flow in
the original direction. Metamorphism is probably proceed-
ing at great depths beneath some of the youngest folded zones
associated with volcanic arcs.
It is obvious from the number of opposing theories that
we have much yet to learn about the inner workings of our
planet, its past history, and in particular about mountain
building. We still do not have a satisfactory synthesis of the
causes of all the phenomena connected with mountain build-
ing nor do we fully understand the mechanics of rock defor-
mation, the origin of earthquakes, and the development of
major structures such as rift valleys. However, our knowl-
edge is increasing at a great rate and it is certain that con-
tinued geological studies in the field and laboratory will solve
many of the outstanding problems. (Continued on page 12)
Page 10 MAT
AN AQUATIC? MARVEL-
THE BASILISK
Author Hy Marx holds a
male basilisk preparatory to
its take-off over water's surface.
by Hymen Marx, Associate Curator, Reptiles and Amphibians
As the sun slowly set into the west, we
set out to observe and collect the basi-
lisk. The basilisk is a fascinating reptile,
whose claim to fame is its ability to run
over the surface of water. Literally run-
ning on its hind feet, dinosaur-like, it
scampers over the water at the rapid
rate of 5 or 6 miles (or knots?) per hour.
Whatever the rate may be, it is a sight
to behold ! It is always thrilling to see a
large male basilisk almost three feet long,
with all its frills, running on its hind
limbs at full speed on the surface. For
those who feel that nature has not
equated the sexes, sex is no hindrance as
far as running is concerned. The females
(and young) run just as fast as the males.
As part of may recent trip to observe
Central American tropics, I observed
and measured the rate of speed of these
lizards. A remarkably appropriate site
to study tropical environment and many
of its component units, is Barro Colorado
Island. This island in the Canal Zone
is a research station of the Smithsonian
Institution. Here many scientists of
many disciplines — environmental, sys-
tematic, behavioral, experts to mention
a few — take the opportunity to study all
sorts of undisturbed life. At this very
island some of the critical pioneering re-
search took place because men had ac-
cess to the animals and plants of the rain
forest for relatively long, uninterrupted
periods of time. At Barro Colorado Is-
land primate and insect behavioral stud-
ies, for instance, have led to many im-
portant and fundamental discoveries.
While I was on the island Dr. T. S.
Schneirla was there continuing his re-
search on the behavior of army ants.
The support of so important a research
center as Barro Colorado Island, and its
like, cannot be overemphasized or un-
derestimated.
Anyway, back at the canoe, resident
zoologist Dr. A. Stanley Rand and I set
out to collect live basilisk. The best
time is at night when the animals are
asleep in the branches of trees overhang-
ing the shore. To collect live basilisk
during the day is nearly impossible be-
cause of their striking alertness. They
will take off at full bipedal gallop over
land or water at the nearing of danger.
And we were the "danger."
We set out in our canoe at dusk, head
lamps and collect- (Continued on page 12)
MAT Page 11
MAY MEETINGS
OPEN TO INTERESTED PERSONS
CALENDER OF MAY EVENTS
May 7 -June 27 Maya Art, Rubbings from Stoxe Carvings
Special exhibition of 43 ink rubbings made from Maya reliefs plus a loan col-
lection of Maya sculpture. Hall 9 Gallery.
May 21 Chicago Area Teachers' Science Association Fair
Students from Chicago and suburban public, private and parochial schools
exhibit and explain prize-winning science projects. Stanley Field Hall.
May 23 - June 20 Birds, Be.asts and Mummery
Display of drawings, paintings, and sculpture about the Museum and its ex-
hibits. By students of the Junior School of the Art Institute. Stanley Field Hall.
June 1 —June 30 16th Annual Amateur Handcrafted Gem and Jewelry
Competitive Exhibition
The Chicago Lapidary Club shows over 100 prize-winning examples of cut
gems, jewelry incorporating polished stones, and stone and polished slab col-
lections. Stanley Field Hall.
Nature Camera Club of Chicago,
May 10 at :30 p.m.
Illinois Orchid Society, May 15 at 2:00 p.m.
State Microscopical Society of Illinois.
May 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Chicago Shell Club, May 22 at 2 :00 p.m.
AQUATIC? MARVEL {continued from page 11)
ing sacks at hand, toward a shore line with many overhanging trees. We paddled
along the jungle's edge as darkness set in; the beauty of the overall scenery was
breath-taking. But as we approached the overhanging vegetation we were diverted
from this natural beauty by our search for sleeping lizards in the foliage. The
lizard looks very much like its surroundings : the long and slender tail has brown
and tan bands and hangs limply from its anchorage, the body. We often grabbed
vines with lichen blotches growing on them which made them look like the tail
bands of the basilisk. But I must also do justice to the camouflaging adaptation
of the rest of the animal. It is extremely well hidden, looking like part of the
branch on which it is perched and sleeping.
When a basilisk was spotted we slowly paddled or drifted close to the lizard and
attempted to seize it. If seizure was successful the only problem was who would
get hurt, Stan or myself. Certainly not the lizard. Its bite is to be avoided, for
it bites hard and firm, and the jaws tend not to let go. In fact, they do not let go.
Who gets bitten, depends on who is closest to the perched lizard and, consequently,
has the privilege of seizing the animal. But blood rarely flowed from the captor's
finger so we collected a good many samples of these fascinating reptiles.
If we missed the basilisk by shaking the branches or by an inaccurate swipe
at it, the animal jumped into the water — no, not into, but on top of the water — •
and speedily sprinted to the shore or some distant log. A fine example of an escape
mechanism — bite, jump, and /or run.
This opportunity to see and study the basilisk, day and night, in its natural
habitat, will long be remembered. And to have so adequate a place to do our
work as Barro Colorado Island will always be appreciated.
mountains {continued from page 10)
Geoph)sical research into the nature and behavior of the mantle and core will
refine our ideas of the driving forces of crustal evolution. Deep drilling in the con-
tinental and oceanic crust will provide us with samples and data not now available.
The Mohole project, now being actively worked on, to drill right through the
crust will provide us with samples not only of the oceanic crust but of the upper
mantie, below the Moho discontinuity. Experimental reproduction of the effect
of stresses on replicas of crustal and sub-crustal materials will be an important addi-
tional source of knowledge. Exploration of the moon and near planets will also
enable us to compare their evolution with that of the earth and perhaps help us
to arrive at a more fundamental understanding of the inner workings of the earth.
In all these ways we shall gradually solve some, at least, of the problems of our
earth's history and the evolution of its crust.
Page 12 MAT
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
Roosevelt Rd. & Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 6060S
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour
Harry 0. Bercher
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
Walter J. Cummings
Joseph A^. Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. Isham
Hughston M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Edward Byron Smith
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEE
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis 0. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl.
Department of Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department of Zoology
bulletin
Edward G. J\'ash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul,
Kathleen Wolff,
Associate Editors
Volume 37, Number 6 June, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Go To The Ant
by John Clark, Curator, Sedimentary Petrology
VVe know very much less about modern
mammal communities than one might
suppose. Actually, no one has ever de-
termined how to take a complete census
of the mammals of one community. Sup-
pose, for instance, that we wanted to count
all the animals within the home range of
a single rhinoceros. He might roam over
two square miles, but a mere hundred
yards of his range would overlap that of
an even wider-ranging giraffe. Would
you then count the giraffe? And would
you count all the generations of mice and
rabbits who shared the rhino's home acres
diiring his much longer life span?
However, museum collections of fos-
sil vertebrates reveal a problem be-
cause proportions differ from those of
of small pebbles, clay pellets, and dried
sage leaves, knows why we overlook most
of the small teeth.
Many years ago, paleontologists no-
ticed that humans may have trouble
finding small fossil teeth, but ants do
not.* The ants pick up any pebbles,
including fossil teeth and bones, small
enough for them to move, and place
them on their nest or ant-hill. By scrap-
ing off this protective layer of grit and
sorting it, one gets a sample of all the
small objects within about fifty yards of
the ant-hill. Fine collections have been
made with the unwilling cooperation of
the ants. It has always been assumed
that the ants would pick things up at
random, giving us a fair sample of every-
< With these concretions
available,
the ants chose
these selenite crystals. ►
•« With this
round squirrel tooth available
would the ants prefer this
long rabbit tooth? ►
\
actual mammal communities. Usually a
collection has more animals cat-size and
larger than it has rat-size and smaller.
Why? We know that small bones are pre-
served just as readily as large ones, so only
one explanation is possible. The small
bones are present, but collectors aren't
finding them. Anyone who has crawled
over a Wyoming badland flat on a blis-
tering summer day, with gnats biting his
ears and sweat in his eyes, trying to find
fossil mouse teeth among a surface rubble
thing. But last summer I began to won-
der about ants.
One day in South Dakota, my assist-
ant and I were walking across a creamy-
white gravel flat when we noticed a
bright pink ant-hill rising from it. We
looked closer, and found that over half
of the grains of the ant-hill were small
garnets ! I hurried over to a fresh gravel
exposure and scooped up a heap of ant-
sized grains. About one in a hundred
was a garnet. The ants had certainly
shown a marked preference for garnets.
But why did they like them? Did they
like the color, or the heavy weight, or
the almost-round shape, or the surface
texture?
A few days later we were prospecting
over hills of bare, black shale. A quarter-
mile away, we saw two strange masses
glistening in the sun like piles of broken
glass. When we approached them, we
found ant-hills again. This time the
ants had chosen glassy, lath-shaped crys-
tals of selenite gypsum three-fourths of
an inch long, as big as they could carry.
Plenty of tiny gray or brown limy nod-
ules, almost round and much more con-
veniently sized, were equally available
but almost unused. Once more, were
the ants interested in color, or size, or
shape, or weight?
Whatever may be an ant's basis for
selection, it is apparent that he has one.
He has very definite preferences, and
doesn't simply pick up grains at random.
We can probably trust the ants to give
us a fair qualitative sample of whatever
small teeth lie near their nests, because
their bias is not absolute. They do pick
up some of the particles which are less
preferred. But suppose that an ant pre-
fers a lath-shaped selenite crystal, like
the one in the illustration, to a roundish
calcite nodule. Would he then also pre-
fer a lath-shaped fossil rabbit tooth, like
the one shown, to a roundish fossil squir-
rel tooth? No one knows except the ant.
We cannot, therefore, trust the ants to
give us a numerically valid sample of a
fossil small-animal population. Before
we can use the ant-hill collection statis-
tically, we must go to the ant, consider
his ways, evaluate his biases, and respect
his prejudices. But how in the world
does one commune with an ant?
•Sec "Ant Hill Colony Assists Fossil Collectors in Wyoming," by W. D. Turnbull, in the Bulletin, September, 1959 (vol. 30, no. 9).
Page 2 JUNE
by Alan Solent, Curator, Lower Invertebrates
Above: A watch glass holds the thousands
of snails culled from one bag of dirt.
Sacks of Exotic Dirt
In recent years the moUusk collection at Field Museum
of Natural History has grown eleven-fold, from 145,000 to
1,600,000 specimens. This process was marked by a flood of
packages and cartons which have variously floored, awed,
disgusted or delighted a series of part-time volunteers and
student helpers. Even the U. S. Customs has become accus-
tomed to the arrival of odoriferous boxes containing recently
dead snails from distant lands. Personal notes from plant
and animal quarantine inspectors are now tucked into the
opened boxes, replacing the previous telephone summonses
to O'Hare Field.
The enthusiasm of Dr. Fritz Haas and myself over an
Indonesian shipment of limp, slime-coated slugs in discolored
alcohol, or a very ripe box of obviously recently deceased
snails from Colombia invariably means more work for our
helpers. Each new shipment requires sorting, housing, label-
ing, cataloging and storing of the identified shells in the main
collection. Hence the arrival early in 1964 of a small box
from North Borneo provoked no special notice, until the con-
tents were revealed as several bags of dirt.
Two years and many student assistants later, most of the
dirt has been sifted and sorted into two piles: a) thousands
of tiny snails, and b) just plain dirt. Most of the specimens
JUNE Pages
from a single bag can be held in a watch glass, since the adult
shells are only one to three millimeters in size. Actual speci-
mens are dwarfed by a penny and seem inconsequential, but
are fantastically varied in shape and sculpture. They are
part of probably the richest and most varied land snail fauna
existing today.
Throughout Southeast Asia and some parts of Indonesia,
isolated limestone hills rise from floodplains or rolling regions
of non-calcareous rocks. Away from the limestone, snails are
scarce, but at the base of the limestone hills, snails are every-
where. Restricted as they are to the hills by their need for
calcium, a multitude of species and races have evolved. Only
now are they beginning to be recognized and described by
scientists.
The first scattered individuals were collected in the 1860's,
■4 Dr. A.J. Berry's drawing
of Opislhosloma crawling.
Gyliotrachela depressispira
photographed on a milli-
meter ruler. T
but until M. W. F. Tweedie began systematically to explore
the limestone hills of Malaya, we had no idea of the fantastic
variety and abundance of these species. Quite soon a simple
collecting technique was developed: Find a limestone hill.
Walk around part of it until you see an area of exposed lime-
stone blocks. Hunt for accumulated debris at the base of the
exposed blocks. A quick look at a handful of dirt tells
whether the minute empty shells are present. If they are,
bag a quantity of the dirt, dry it, and send it off for sorting.
One bag is enough to keep a student busy at a microscope
for many days !
After Tweedie had done the initial exploration and col-
lecting, Mrs. W. S. S. van Benthem-Jutting van der Feen in
Amsterdam studied and described the many species. Illus-
trations of several species from her technical reports are shown
on the preceding page. The first stage in study, learning
of their presence and that they are usually confined to a
single hill, was soon accomplished. Then it was possible to
investigate matters more biologically interesting. Bagged
dead shells tell little about a species. Where do they live on
the hills? How long do they live? What do they feed on?
Innumerable questions are possible.
Only recently have any answers been found. Dr. A. J.
Berry of the University of Malaya has spent the last several
years studying the ecology and life history of several species
found on Bukit Chintamani, a small hill near Bentong, Pa-
hang, Malaysia. Comments here are restricted to two minute
genera — Opisthostoma with its fine ribs and totally reversed
aperture and Gyliotrachela with its triangular form and trum-
pet-shaped aperture. Both are less than one-eighth inch in
size and very difficult to spot unless you know where to look.
But on nearly bare limestone faces with only a scattering of
fine mosses and lichens, usually in a shaded spot, these snails
are almost incredibly abundant. Opisthostoma will be found
among the moss filaments, while Gyliotrachela is usually on the
bare rock surface where lichens occur only in scattered masses.
Dr. Berry's picture (below, left) of Gyliotrachela depressispira on
a millimeter ruler shows the typical position of the resting
snail shell. When young, the animal crawls in a normal
snail-like position, but the peculiar last growth stages turn
the shell upside down.
Opisthostoma can only be described as growing wildly.
Species of Opisthostoma are now known to grow by adding a
stretch of shell and one rib each day, reaching adult size in
1 1 0-1 24 days. The peculiar upward turning of the last whorl
happens within the last 1 5-23 days of growth. Photographs
of the Opisthostoma are almost impossible to get. The drawing
of Opisthostoma crawling was made by Dr. Berry.
While Malaya has been moderately well collected, other
parts of Southeast Asia and Borneo represent almost totally
unknown areas in terms of the land snails. Cambodia and
Viet Nam, Sarawak and Sabah, Indonesian Borneo and parts
of Thailand, all have areas with geology that is similar to the
Malayan limestone hill country. To date we have only tan-
talizing fragments of collections from a very few hills in these
regions. Hence the chance to obtain collections (i.e., bags
of dirt) from hills in Sabah was eagerly seized upon by the
scientists in the Division of Lower Invertebrates. Although
the reaction of the dirt sorters has not been recorded, it un-
doubtedly carried a lower level of enthusiasm.
While dirt and snails are now separated, the snails still
have to be sorted into species, studied, and, if they prove to
be new to science, named and described. Even then, only
parts of a few more hills will have been sampled, and crudely
at that. Currently my Bornean "dirt-bagger" has moved to
Malaya. We have no "dirt-baggers" in Viet Nam or the
other areas, and would welcome such workers.
Even with the active cooperation of "dirt-baggers" and
"dirt-sorters," it will take many bags of dirt and hundreds
of sorting hours at many museums before even the prelim-
inary survey of what lives where will be completed. By ac-
cumulating material from these poorly-known areas for study
by scientists. Field Museum of Natural History is making an
important contribution to surveying the world's snail fauna.
Page 4 JUNE
MEMBERS' NIGHT REPORT
Increasing Museum activity climaxed by the preview of Maya rubbings
brought out a record attendance of 3,000 on May 6. Upper left, Brenda
Harter and Herbert Quist admire herbarium ferns. Lower left, youngest
member, six-month-old John Erwood, Jr., sleeps. Below. Darlene and
Herbert Kofink and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Faurot view rubbing of Maya
sarcophagus lid from Palenque, Mexico.
Taxidermist Carl Cotton answers questions, upper left, of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Barsy, about
iguanas. Upper right. Mr. and Mrs. Albert S. Lincoln and son Steven, join hundreds around
punchbowls. Crab-eating monkey, below left, is pointed out by Charles Schwartz to son Ned.
Below right. Dr. William Berger chats after his lecture with Thomas Kneebone and Mr. and Mrs.
Torkel Korling, while at right, Barbara Hutchins contemplates an orang.
JUNE Pages
Putting together the pieces
by Paul Martin, Chief Curator Emeritus, Antiiropology
ARCHAEOLOGISTS Study the behavior — that is, the customs
and manners — of peoples who Hved long ago. The
terms customs and manners cover a variety of items, such as
ceremonies, trade, social life, ways of doing things, fashions.
By extension, these tenns have come to mean house types,
village layouts, kinds of pottery, varieties of food, kinds of
stone and bone tools, methods of weaving and basket-making.
Most of these particulars may be grouped under three broad
headings: technological (ways of coping with one's environ-
ment); sociological (ways in which men group themselves
with one another for dealings with one another); and ideo-
logical (modes of thinking, and hence ceremony, religion,
philosophy) .
In other words, archaeologists try to reconstruct as much
as possible of the total life ways of a particular people — people
who lived perhaps hundreds of years ago or even tens of thou-
sands of years ago. In order to establish a correct sequence
of events they must have a clear idea of when a people (site
or town) flourished. Chronology, then, is an important ad-
junct of archaeology.
This is a large order and archeologists often find it diffi-
cult to interpret the results of their excavations. On the
whole, a modest success can be claimed for their efforts.
A generation ago, American archaeologists were concerned
about the origin of the American Indians (Asia); how long
ago they moved into the New World (about 10,000-40,000
years ago); and how they got here (probably on foot via a
land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska). These are merely
questions of "where" and "when."
Building on the solutions to these basic questions, we pro-
gress to further queries such as "how" and "why." In other
words, now that we know so much about the past history of
the Indians, particularly in the American Southwest, we can
proceed to more delicate and subtle questions, such as why
the Indians of the Southwest made and used ceramic con-
tainers while their California cousins did not? or, why did the
Indians abandon large parts of the Southwest after a.d. 1200?
or, why did the Pueblo Indians adopt a social organization
which reckons descent through the mother-line, requiring a
husband to make his home with his mother-in-law?
We may not now be able to answer these questions; but
unless we ask them we shall certainly never arrive at answers.
I shall not discuss here the technical aspects of recovering
cultural debris. Careful sampling, plus painstaking analysis
of all materials found are absolute prerequisites. The mate-
rial recovered may include tools of stone and bone, whole and
broken pottery vessels, remains of houses and fire-pits, milling
stones, unworked animal bones, charcoal and wooden roof
beams, seeds and food remains, basketry and matting, and
samples of dirt from floors of rooms, from fire-pits, and from
storage-pits.
We use charcoal or roof beams for extracting tree-ring or
radio-carbon dates. Samples of dirt are processed to obtain
pollen which may have been preserved for millions of years.
From that we can make firm statements about past climates
and plant life and about foods gathered and eaten. Animal
bones will tell us what mammals were hunted for food.
Let me cite a few examples of how all these miscellaneous
facts were combined to reconstitute the life ways — the char-
acteristics of the social system as well as the technological
aspects of the culture of one village. The village is located
near a now dry stream in eastern Arizona and bears the name
of Broken K Pueblo. Broken K is the brand mark of Mr.
James Carter, who owns the ranch on which we found the
site. Broken K Pueblo is located in Hay Hollow Valley, a
small valley which was drained by a minor tributary of the
Little Colorado River, Hay Hollow Wash.
The pueblo consisted of about 100 one-story contiguous
rooms built around a hollow square — a plaza. Some rooms
(small and featureless) were for food storage; other larger ones
containing fire-pits, fresh air vents, built-in corn-grinding ap-
paratus and work-pits were living quarters. Some parts of
the pueblo antedate others. When girls married, their hus-
bands joined the girls' families, and inore contiguous rooms
were added. Women made the pottery, the baskets and the
milling stones, plastered the rooms, prepared the meals and
probably tanned the hides. Men built the houses, wove tex-
tiles of cotton, hair or fur, planted and harvested the corn,
beans and squash. They made the projectile points and other
stone tools, and performed religious ceremonies in specially
built rooms called kivas.
The pueblo was founded about a.d. 1 1 50 at which time
large animals were abundant (antelope, deer, mountain
sheep) and rainfall was adequate for producing crops. About
A.D. 1250, a slight shift took place in the pattern and amount
of snow and rainfall. In other words, the climate worsened
for the growing and harvesting of crops. The population de-
clined somewhat, large quantities of seed corn had to be set
Page 6 JUNE
Right: An aerial view of the Broken K site.
Above: A detailed floor plan of the same site.
Shaded rooms are not excavated. The site
was discovered by Dr. William A. Longacre
during a survey in 1961-62 and excavated in
the summer of 1963 by the Southwestern
Archaeological Expedition of Field Museum.
The area around the pueblo is a gently rolling
plateau, badly eroded by over-grazing and
high winds; it is cut by numerous arroyos, dry
most of the time, swift-running and destruc-
tive after rains. Sparse grass, amarinth and
stunted junipers are the most common plants.
The area is bleak, dreary and uninviting.
aside for use during and after bad years. Quantities of wild
food-plants were gathered and stored (walnuts, pinon nuts,
seeds, roots, bulbs) and more cooperation and integration
were necessary to keep the townspeople together. Some of
the rooms were abandoned toward the end of the life of the
village although no one wing or section was forsaken.
Ceremonial life may have become communal instead of
being left in the hands of the males, since the kivas seemed to
have been left untended. The plaza may have been used for
highly sanctified rain-making rites and other ceremonies that
may have become frantic because of desperation.
Eventually, the struggle became too much and the elders
decided, about a.d. 1385, to abandon their village. It was
the last town to have been occupied in the whole valley. The
people may have moved about 15 miles westward and
merged with another town more fortunately located on a
still running stream. Q
Broken K Pueblo was the climax of 1 8 centuries or more
of cultural development in Hay Hollow Valley. For a num-
ber of years we have been piecing together this development.
Our earliest site (County Road) dates to at least 500 B.C. The
Carter Ranch Pueblo lasted roughly from 950 to 1150 a.d.
and Broken K until near the end of the fourteenth century.
By concentrating our efforts in a small geographic area, over
a very great span of time, we hope to achieve a sense of both
the continuity and the change in social history.
JUNE Page 7
FIELD MUSEUM AWARDED SHINNER FOUNDATION GRANT
A $9,000 GRANT has been awarded the Museum by the Ernest G. Shinner Foundation to
provide college students interested in the natural sciences with positions in the Museum's
scientific departments during the summer vacation. The grant will give students working
toward degrees in biology, geology or anthropology a imique opportunity to broaden their
knowledge of their field of study and to learn first-hand the operations of a great research
center. The museum experience will also allow the students to assess career interests in
the sciences at a particularly vital stage in their education.
This grant continues a long-standing Museum program of student assistance, a program
that has seen many of its participants go on to significant roles in scientific research.
PUBLIC RELATIONS COUNSEL PHIL CLARK JOINS STAFF
Appointment of Phil Clark, formerly of the New York Botan-
ical Garden, as public relations counsel of the Field Museum of
Natural History has been announced by E. Leland Webber,
director of the Museum.
Mr. Clark headed the public relations and membership de-
partments of the New York Botanical Garden for the past four
years and planned and directed a fall, 1965, tour of Guatemala
as a membership activity for that institution.
Before going to New York, Mr. Clark was for ten years garden
editor and Sunday editor of The News, Mexico's English language
daily newspaper, and resided in Mexico. He continues to write
the garden page of The News and his articles on gardening and Mexican plants have ap-
peared in numerous United States, British and Mexican publications. He has also served
as the editor of Horticulture, as garden editor of Living for Toung Homemakers, and as a feature
writer for the San Antonio Express and the West Central Minnesota Daily Tribune. Mr. Clark
is a native of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and a graduate of the University of Minnesota.
"THE 'EYES' HAVE IT"-NEW SUMMER JOURNEY
Children will have a chance to act as "private eyes" this summer when they take the
new Museum Journey, "The 'Eyes' Have It." On this self-guided tour, boys and girls will
seek clues in Museum exhibits to uncover much in the world of nature which remains hid-
den to all except those who really learn to use their eyes.
Unlike past Journeys, children will not need to read exhibit labels to answer the ques-
tionnaire accompanying the Journey, but instead they must use "the magnifying glass" of
their minds and find the answers in the exhibits themselves. Youngsters taking the new
summer Journey will find an exciting world of color, form and story hidden in nature.
Tour directions and the Journey questionnaire for "The' Eyes' Have It" may be obtained
at the Museum entrances, or at the Information Desk; the questionnaires, when completed,
should be deposited in the barrels provided at either entrance. Awards for successful com-
pletion of four Journeys, or multiples of four, are given at special ceremonies in the Museum
each spring. The new summer Journey is available from June through August.
CALENDAR OF JUNE EVENTS
through June 27 Maya Art, Rubbings from Stone Carvings
Special exhibition of 43 ink rubbings made from Maya reliefs plus a loan collection
of Maya sculpture. Hall 9 Gallery,
through June 20 Birds, Beasts and Mummery
Display of drawings, paintings, and sculpture about the Museum and its exhibits.
By students of the Junior School of the Art Institute. Stanley Field Hall.
June 1-30 16th Amateur Handcrafted Gem and Jewelry Competitive Exhibition
The Chicago Lapidary Club shows over 100 prize-winning examples of cut gems,
jewelry incorporating polished stone, and stone and polished slab collections in its
annual show at the Museum. Stanley Field Hall.
JUNE MEETINGS State Microscopical Society of Illinois June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
open to members and interested non-members
Pages JUNE
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT RD. AT LAKE SHORE DR.
CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 6060J
Founded by Marshall Field, 18^3
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour
Harry 0. Bercher
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
Waller J. Cummings
Joseph N Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. Isham
Hughston M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Edward Byron Smith
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEE
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis 0. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl.
Department of Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department of <['oo/og)'
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul,
Kathleen Wolff,
Associate Editors
COVER: A group of paper cut-out
flowers made by the young students at
the Junior School of the Art Institute.
They are on display in the SchooPs
Annual Show at the Museum, in June.
Volume 37, Number 7 July, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
IFOMEIfS
BOJRD
Inaugurated
at Museum
Primitive mask is viewed
by Airs. Smith, Mrs.
Wallace D. Mackenzie
and Dr. Donald Collier.
Mrs. Vernon Armour,
Mrs. John Shedd Reed,
and Mrs. Byron C.
Karzas examine Maya
rubbing.
An entire new dimension of service will be bro\ight to
Field Museum by its newly-organized Women's Board which
was inaugurated at a luncheon in late May and whose first
function will be a tea for Chicago's consular corps on July 12.
The consular event, for the nearly 50 foreign delegations
which serve the area, will feature presentation of special
Field Museum Memberships to the consuls. Mrs. Hermon
Dunlap Smith, Board Chairman, Mrs. VV. H. Arnold, Tea
Committee Chairman, James L. Palmer, Museum President,
and E. Leland Webber, Director, are program participants.
Hostessing special events, welcoming distinguished visitors
and drawing the community closer to the Museum are only a
part of the functions of the new organization. It will also
prepare women to serve as volunteers in the Museum's scien-
tific and educational work. Looking toward this volunteer
role, the 85 women who attended the charter luncheon and
the 65 others who have accepted invitations to membership
on the Board, are answering questionnaires on their special
skills, abilities and interests.
Those attending the inaugural meeting were greeted b\'
Mr. Palmer, who emphasized the opportunity for service at
the Museum and cited the work of Stanley Field as an exam-
ple. They toured the Maya Art exhibit and the Robert R.
McCormick Laboratory led by Mr. Webber, Dr. Donald
Collier, Chief Curator of Anthropology, and Dr. Kenneth
Starr, Curator of Asiatic Archaeology.
"No institutions offer as broad a range of public services
as do the great museums," declared Mr. Webber during a
talk following the luncheon. He stressed that Field Museum's
rapid growth, particularly in the educational area, creates
challenges for just such a group as the Women's Board.
Page 2 JULY
Museum Director Webber discusses methods oj
conserving metals with Mrs. James A. Cook,
and Women's Board Chairman, Mrs. Smith.
At left Mr. Webber and Airs. Smith greet arrivals,
' Mrs. W. Pre<:': Hodgkins and Mrs. D'-'rirk Vnil.
Solomon Gurewitz,
Anthropology volunteer,
points out polished
Tibetan figure to
Mrs. J. Harris Ward.
Mr. Webber, Mrs. Hodgkins
and Mrs. Elliott Donnelley after
the meeting.
Section of head table, Mrs. Joseph A^ Field,
Mrs. James L. Palmer, Mr. Webber, Mr<^.
Smith, Xtrs. Cook and Mrs. George 11
Beadle.
JULr Pages
THE TULLY MONSTER
by E. S. Richardson, Jr., Curator, Fossil Invertebrates
Ten years ago, hardly anybody had a TuUy Monster. But such is the rapid march of progress, that now
there are hundreds of happy owners of this curious fossil. Most of these people have collected their own,
from a few square miles of strip-mined land on the Will-Kankakee county line about fifty miles south of
Chicago. And Tully Monsters — all from the same locality— have recently been appearing in rock shops
around the nation.
For many years the Museum has been interested in the Pennsylvanian, or Coal Age, fossils, 280 million
years old, that occur in untold numbers of ironstone concretions in one of the world's great fossil localities
almost on our doorstep. A hundred years ago they were eagerly collected from the bed of Mazon Creek,
south of Morris, and great collections were made by amateurs living nearby. L. E. Daniels, J. C. Carr.
Joseph Even, P. A. Armstrong, F. T. Bliss, John Bronson and many others of these early collectors gave or
loaned their unique specimens of fossil invertebrates from Mazon Creek to scientists who described them
for the world at large. Ralph Lacoe, a businessman in Pittston, Pennsylvania, actually hired collectors
and bought specimens. His collection, donated to the U. S. National Museum, was the basis
of several of the monographs that made the name of Mazon Creek famous.
Visitors from foreign lands, coming to the Museum, are familiar with Mazon
Creek fossils, which have been widely distributed since the early days
of collecting. Recent visitors from England, Poland, Norway and
Russia, dropping in at my
office, have recog-
nized our concre-
tions without
prompting. The
quality of preser-
vation and the
wide variety of ^HQgMj^^^ ^^W '^ life-sized piaster model of
plants and ^^^^^^^^^ 1^^ Tu//imonstrum gregarium, constructed by Dr. Tibor Perenyi
animals rep- ^K^^^^^^L ^V °" ^^^ basis of research conducted by the author
resented are .^^^^^^^^^^K.-. w and Research Associate Ralph Johnson.
equalled in
very few oth-
er localities.
Forty years ago, when the fossil-bearing concretions were becoming scarce on Mazon Creek, strip-min-
ing began nearby and the big shovels that dug for coal began dumping loads of the overlying soft shale in
great "spoil heaps." In a few years the shale weathered to clay and the concretions appeared on the sur-
face of the hills. Now the field for collecting expanded and another generation of amateurs took up the
enterprise. The McLuckie, Herdina, Enrietta, Langford, Thompson and several other great collections
were made from the strip mines from the thirties to the present. Gradually, as some collectors fell away,
others in growing numbers took their place, and the tradition of cooperating with scientists became
their tradition. A list of well over a hundred people now collect these outstanding fossils and allow pro-
fessional paleontologists to study them. The thousands of man-hours that they invest in collecting are
freely placed at the service of science.
As a result of all this activity, rare specimens — the one-in-a-million fossils — are brought to
light, and also new localities are discovered and explored. For in these forty years the area
of strip-mined land has spread. And thus it was that the Tully Monster swam into our ken.
Back about 1958 a man came to the Museum and asked to see George Langford, at that
time the Curator of Fossil Plants. Having introduced himself as Francis J. Tully of Lock-
port, he showed Mr. Langford some fossils from the strip mines. Soon they had every one of
the fossil plants identified, and then Mr. Tully reached into his bag and pulled forth a . .
Paged JULY
Monster. 7. something extraordinary or unnatural,
a prodigy, a marvel. — The New English Dictionary
(Oxford)
. . . Or so I called it when Mr. Langford showed it to me.
Extraordinary it was, indeed, though not unnatural. Clearly
outlined on the freshly exposed surface of a split concretion was the
impression of a most curious prodigy. At one end of a dirigible-like body
was a spade-shaped tail; from the other end extended a long thin proboscis with
a gaping claw; across the body near the base of the proboscis was a transverse bar
with a little round swelling at each end, outside the body. Mr. Langford confessed
that he couldn't say what it was, and so did I when I came back from a field trip a few days later and had
a look at it. Mr. Tully kindly left a few specimens with us, and every now and then we looked at them
and pondered the matter. We showed them to our colleagues at the Museum and elsewhere; no one recog-
nized the creature. We could not even decide what phylum to put it in, and that was a serious and em-
barrassing matter.
Every animal belongs in a phylum. Every animal is either an arthropod, a mollusk, a chordate — three
of the phyla — or a member of one of some thirty others. It may sometimes be difficult to recognize which
phylum is appropriate, especially if one can't see some important character. This is sometimes the case
with fossils, since important features may not happen to be preserved. But usually one can recognize some
similarity to a known animal, and postulate a relationship. The technique is to get a sufficient number of
specimens and note all the characters you can find. We put the Tully Monsters aside; perhaps some more
specimens would turn up.
Some more did. In the course of strip-mining for coal, the Peabody Coal Company had moved on to
a new mine. Pit Eleven, south of Braidwood, and as the spoil heaps weathered, concretions appeared on
the surface of the hills. So did collectors. Before long we had several hundred Tully Monsters at the
Museum, and knew of other hundreds in basements, garages and front parlors around and about. Pit
Eleven was in business. Not only Tully Monsters were turning up there, but other curious fossils as well,
not found in Mazon Creek or the other strip mines.
From the older mines we had collected principally fossil leaves, with a smattering of invertebrates and
a few fishes and amphibians. The association of plants and animals led us to suppose that they
had all lived together in a swampy coastal plain or delta. There were a few marine inverte-
brates— a chiton, some scallops, a tube-building worm, a cephalopod — but they were very
rare. Apparently, we reasoned, the area lay near the shore and had been briefly covered
by a fluctuating sea. At Pit Eleven it was different. Chitons and scallops were fairly plenti-
ful, and there were also jellyfish, sea slugs and holothurians (sea cucumbers), all definitely
marine. Apparently this area was much more regularly covered by the sea. So Tully
JULT Pages
Monsters, being common here, were probably marine animals.
We can now say more about these creatures than when
we puzzled over the first ones. But we still cannot place them
in a phylum. It is possible that they are the only known rep-
resentatives of a hitherto unknown extinct phylum — a sug-
gestion that runs counter to our expectation of orderliness in
nature. The Monster has been familiar now for some years
to numerous collectors, and specimens have gone far afield as
one collector swapped with another. Wherever they went,
the name went with them, and we had the unusual instance
of a fossil with a common name but still not formally intro-
duced to Science. It had to have a proper name.
Accordingly, I wrote a formal description and properly
christened our orphan in a note in the weekly journal Science
of January 7, 1966, but still without being able to mention
the phylum. Since the common name was already widely
used, I simply latinized it, and called it Tullimonstrum gre-
garium. {"Gregariiim" means common.)
The picture on this inonth's cover shows several Tally
Monsters as they probably appeared in life, frisking about in
a marine environment, with a jellyfish, seaweed, coelacanths,
shrimps, a marine worm and a snail. The spade-like tail
contain fine black particles similar to what we find in the eyes
of the associated shrimps and fishes. But can they be eyes?
Many animals — notably shrimps and snails — have eyes on
stalks, but each eye has its own stalk; here the transverse bar
is a single stiff unit so that if one "eye" moved forward the
other would have had to move backward. Other functions
for the round organs have been suggested : a sonar device for
navigating in muddy water; suction discs to anchor the Mon-
ster to a shark, which could then be pierced by the proboscis;
gonads; kidneys; balancing sensors. None of these is quite
probable; on balance, I suppose that they are eyes.
The shrimp about to be grasped by one Monster in the
cover picture is drawn from a specimen of one of the unde-
scribed crustaceans from Pit Eleven, but it may be doubted
that Tully Monsters ate shrimps. Certainly, no shrimp shells
are observed in monsters' stomachs, nor does it appear that a
Monster had any means of chewing a shrimp. It may not be
far-fetched to suggest that it could suck the juices of a shrimp
through its proboscis. On the basis that the food in any nat-
ural community must be more abundant than the feeders, the
different kinds of shrimps that are present remain a possibil-
ity, but the leading contender is the Blob.
^^^^
^^K^^^r^^^^^
:. ' a^fflBa
/'Jn^^Hn
fti^^HH^v
"^^.M^
Left: the Tully Monstefs ''^head'^ begins at a transverse bar and stretches out to a claw on the end of a stalk.
The crescent would certainly be considered a mouth, but it appears on only one-fifth oj the Monsters examined.
Center: a tail showing color bands. Right: a "Blob,'^ about three inches across.
suggests that they could swim and guide themselves; the seg-
mented body, clearly seen on many fossil specimens, must
have been flexible, as is the body of an earthworm. The cross-
section, a flattened oval, is conjectural, as all specimens are
preserved as mere flat films. We know from many specimens
that the proboscis was flexible, and since the claw at its end
was armed with eight tiny sharp teeth, it must have been
used for grasping prey. Unfortunately, we are still com-
pletely in the dark about the mouth and the method of feed-
ing: there is no indication of a "throat" within the proboscis,
which was probably just a muscular organ for carrying prey
to the mouth. Some specimens have what appears to be a
mouth just in front of the transverse bar; some have one just
behind, but most have no indication at all of a mouth. The
matter remains obscure.
Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the Tully Monster is
the transverse bar across its "chest," with the two little round
organs at the ends. These round things are lentil-shaped, and
Blobs are enormously abundant at Pit Eleven and are
large enough to make a proper food supply for Tullimonstrum.
Nor is there a problem of disposing of shells. Unfortunately,
we know even less about Blobs than about Tully Monsters.
We can't place them in a kingdom (plant or animal), let
alone a phylum, nor do we know which side is up. A Blob
might be a type of jellyfish, but Pit Eleven provides speci-
mens of two perfectly good species of jellyfish, and they look
quite different. Essentially, a Blob consists of a relatively
smooth area, divided into a variable number of lobes, plus a
larger area that is rough or much wrinkled, the whole thing
making an oval impression as much as six inches long.
Though we have learned a great deal about the curious
animal that Mr. Tully pulled out of his bag eight years ago,
many significant points are still unknown : particularly its re-
lationship to other creatures and its manner of feeding — both
ordinarily among the first bits of information to be learned
about a newly discovered form.
Paged JULY
JULY EXHIBITION
FLOWER PRINTS BY HENRY EVANS
The fusion of science and art — of botany and
interpretative illustration — is the achievement of
Henry Evans, San Francisco printer-artist,
forty of whose flower prints are on exhibit
during the month of July in Hall 9 Gallery.
Mr. Evans' linoleum block prints drew praise
seldom given by scientists for interpretive
art in sciences. Said Dr. Louis 0.
Williams, Chief Curator of Botany, "These
have really caught the essential idea of their
subjects; everybody will know what plants
these are — yet much is stripped away.
They're gorgeous."
Praise from art authorities has been equally
enthusiastic, with emphasis on the fine inter-
pretative job done by Mr. Evans.
Among plants in the exhibit are American wild
and garden flowers such as swamp arrowhead,
sweet woodruff and water cress.
Mr. Evans' prints have been exhibited by the
Royal Horticultural Society in London,
Hunt Botanical Library in Pittsburgh,
the California Academy of Sciences and
the San Francisco Public Library.
The prints, in limited edition, will be on sale
at the Museum Book Shop, priced $5-$10.
Mr. Evans, a native of Superior, Wisconsin,
remarks that "when I began work on plants,
I suddenly felt as though I had stepped out of
the darkness into sunlight." He adds that
using wood, he was "unable to achieve the flow
of line which plant forms must have to be
convincing," but found the line he was after
when cutting the softer linoleum blocks.
Artist Henry Evans at worl<. His prints include
sucti plants as the graceful swamp arrowhead
with reflection in water, upper left, and the
ubiquitous grassy sedge, below.
JULT Page 7
DELEGATES VISIT MUSEUM
Hundreds of delegates to the record-breaking 61st annual meeting of the American Asso-
ciation of Museums visited Field Museum Jime 8, as part of a tour of Chicago's principal
museums. Many were taken behind the scenes and to outstanding exhibits on special
small-group escorted tours. One hundred and fifty of the visitors lunched at the Museum.
A general session vs'ith greetings by Mayor Richard Daley ojiened the convention. With
831 persons registered, this year's attendance vkfas the largest in AAM history. An AAM
Council meeting and dinner was conducted at Field Museum on the convention's first
day. E. Leland VV'ebber, Director of Field Museum, was local arrangements chairman.
MUSEUM HOURS EXTENDED FOR SUMMER MONTHS
Longer su.mmer hours are in effect from now through Labor Day. The Museum will re-
main open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. These
are the evenings on which the Grant Park Concerts are held at 8 p.m., in the band shell just
across the street. Dinner will be available in the Museum Cafeteria until 7 p.m.
CALENDAR OF JULY EVENTS
July 1-31 Botanical Prints by Henry Evans. Special exhibit of 40 linoleum block
prints of American flowers and plants. Hall 9 Gallery.
July and August, weekdays Guided Tours.
2 P.M. tour of Museum highlights, followed by 3 p.m. color film on Museum expeditions,
research and exhibit preparation. Tour may Ije joined at Information Booth.
July 7 J.^PAN. Children's Movie at 10 .a.m. and 1 p.m., also a cartoon.
July 14 A Day on the River. Children's Movie at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., also a cartoon.
July 21 Prehistoric Animals. Children's Movie at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., also a cartoon.
July 28 A Summer Walk — Wh.at can you see? Children's Movie at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Movies are shown in James Simpson Theatre. The second showing on July 7, 21 and
28 is scheduled at 1 p.m. to allow children to attend the 11 a.m. Young Peoples'
Concerts held in the Grant Park Band Shell across the street.
JULY MEETING Illinois Orchid Society. July 17 at 2 p.m.
Open to members and interested non-members.
EARL EDWARD SHERFF, 1886-1966
Earl Edward Sherff, 79, widely known for his writings on the taxonomy of the genera
Bidens, Cosmos and Dahlia, died May 16.
Among his 140 published papers on taxonomic botany, were many published by the
Field Museum. He was elected a Research Associate in Systematic Botany in 1936.
He was also named a Contributor to the Museum for his gift of nearly 14,000 herbarium
specimens and thousands of photographs of type or critical specimens. One of his earlier
works. New Species of Xanthium and Solidago, was a joint paper with Dr. C. F. Millspaugh, the
Museum's first curator of botany, published in Fieldiana in 1918.
He served as associate editor of the Botanical Gazette and of the journal Brittonia, as
president and as member of the Council of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists,
and of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of which
he was a Fellow. Both a new botanical library containing his complete botanical writings
and a new science building at Illinois Wesleyan University were named in his honor.
Born in Flint, Michigan, Dr. Sherff received his bachelor's degree from Albion College
and his graduate degrees from the University of Chicago. He began teaching in Chicago
public high schools in 1912, joined the faculty of Chicago Teachers College in 1923 and
became head of the Department of Science in 1929, serving until his retirement in 1951.
HENRY HORBACK, 1913-1966
Henry Horb.\ck, 53, Assistant in Petrology, died at his desk suddenly on June 13th.
He was first employed by the Museum on July 1, 1941, to assist in the cataloging of the
collection of fossil invertebrates. His Museum career was interrupted by three years in
the Army Signal Corps, 1 942-46, after which he returned to his work in the Geology De-
partment. Most of his time in the following years was devoted to the reorganization and
reinstallation of the department exhibits. Recently, he had been involved in the prepara-
tion of a catalog of the meteorite collection published last year in Fieldiana: Geology.
Pages JULY
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT RD. AT LAKE SHORE DR.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 6060S
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour
Harry O. Bercher
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
Joseph N. Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. I sham
Hughston M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
'William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Edward Byron Smith
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEES
Walter J. Cummings
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph TV. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis 0. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl.
Department of Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department of Zoology
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul,
Kathleen Wolff,
Associate Editors
COVER: Tully Monsters as Ihej
might have appeared in a by-gone sea.
drawn for the Bulletin by E. S
Richardson, Jr., Curator, Fossil In-
vertebrates, whose article on this per-
plexing species appears on page four
Volume 37, Number 8 August, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
book review
LIVING WHALES CATALOGED BY
FIELD MUSEUM MAMMALOGIST
People raise brows upon meeting a specialist on whales who
lives in Chicago, but it is successful repartee to observe that in
the jet age, Chicago is about equally convenient to the Atlan-
tic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. It might therefore be a matter
more for pride than surprise in cosmopolitan Chicago, that
one of its scientists has just produced an important volume on
the living whales of the world.
The author of this work, Philip Hershkovitz, has been a
mammalogist at Field Museum for many years. Presently
Research Curator of Mammals, he is the world's primary
authority on the mammals of South America. As a part of
his enduring and productive investigations of South Ameri-
can mammals. Curator Hershkovitz undertook to review the
whales, dolphins, and porpoises of South American waters.
Finding that about two score species were known for South
America and that this was almost exactly half the species of
living cetaceans in the whole world, he decided to do them all.
The results are published in the 259-page Catalog oj the
Living Whales, just issued by the Smithsonian Institution as
Bulletin 246* It is a scholarly list of the species of living
cetaceans of the world which Philip Hershkovitz finds ac-
ceptable as species from evidence published about them. It
provides references to the scientific literature of each spe-
cies pertaining to known geographic distribution and taxo-
nomic relationships. This is the first attempt for 100 years
to review the taxonomic literature on the whales, porpoises,
and dolphins and to present, by critical evaluation, a scien-
tifically acceptable list of the known species.
It often surprises people to learn that there are as many as
eight families of living whales: The family of freshwater dol-
phins, Susuidae, has only 4 species, but the regular dolphin
family, Delphinidae, contains 40 dolphin species, including
2 or 3 that are large enough to be called whales by laymen
(the killer whale, for example), and 6 species of porpoises.
The beluga and narwhal family Monodontidae, consists of
only 2 species, and the sperm whale family, Physeteridae, is
also composed of only 2. Hershkovitz's new volume recog-
nizes only 15 living species in the beaked whale family,
Hyperoodontidae. Thus, we know of some 69 species of
toothed whales. The remaining whales have baleen instead
of teeth; there are three families of these baleen whales, total-
ing among them 10 species.
Joseph Curtis Moore, Curator, Mammals
* Available from the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Govern-
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C, one dollar.
Page 2 AUGUST
The Library of Field Museum houses many rare
and curious volumes. Unfortunately, these books,
some purchased, many others the gifts of inter-
ested members, can only occasionally be exhibited
to the Membership and the general public.
For some years, the care of the rare books col-
lection has been among the responsibilities of As-
sociate Librarian W. Peyton Fawcett.
This issue starts an irregular series of articles
in which Mr. Fawcett will present various parts
of the collection to the readers of the Bulletin.
He views them not only as important historical
and scientific works, but as beautiful examples of
the printer'' s art. He begins here with the works
of the German-Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gesner.
<^
onrad Gesner
BY W. Peyton Fawcett, Associate Librarian
Perhaps the most admired of the early naturalists — for his
life as well as his works — is the great German-Swiss scholar
and physician Conrad Gesner (Gessner), styled by Linnaeus
"the ornament of his age."
He was born into a large and very poor family on March
26th, 1516 at Zurich, Switzerland. Because of their poverty
his parents could do little to encourage his early interest in
reading and learning. The rudiments of his education and
his taste for natural history, especially botany, he owed to his
mother's uncle, Hans Frick, a Protestant minister. In 1531
his father fell in the battle of Kappel, the same in which the
famous reformer Zwingli died, and Gesner was left to make
his own way in the world. He received from the city of
Zurich a traveling scholarship and went to the University of
Strassbourg to study medicine, and subsequently to the uni-
versities of Bourges and Paris. He remained for some time
in Paris studying the Greek and Latin languages and litera-
ture. When his means failed he returned to Zurich (1535),
married, and supported himself by teaching. In 1 537 Gesner
was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of Lau-
sanne. Three years later his native town gave him another
small scholarship to complete his medical studies. He studied
for a short time at the University of Montpellier; but went on
to the University of Basle where he completed his studies and
received his medical degree in 1541. Shortly thereafter he
began practicing in Zurich.
After this Gesner's life became more settled. He was able
to support himself by his medical practice and literary efforts.
Indeed, such was his success that he was appointed Chief
Physician and Public Professor of Philosophy and Natural
History by the magistrates of Zurich in 1 554. He built up
a large botanical garden and established in his house what is
probably the first natural history museum. The latter is de-
scribed by his biographer Schmiedel in this way:
"[It] contained fifteen windows. These windows he orna-
mented in a manner as unusual as it was agreeable; on each
of them he painted most elegantly on the glass, arranged ac-
cording to their classes, different species of marine, river, and
lacustrine fishes. His shelves contained an immense quantity
of metals, stones, gems and other natural productions, which
he has either obtained as presents from his friends, or pur-
chased. . . . Amidst these riches of nature, he was often wont
to spend his time, seeking tranquillity of mind from the con-
templation of them, and refreshing himself after the numerous
toils and vexations of life, from which the best are not ex-
empted."
He was able to make many tours among the Alps and in
Germany, France and Italy, studying natural history and vis-
iting libraries and scholars. From these he returned with
many new specimens for his botanical garden and museum.
In 1 564 Zurich was ravaged by the plague, and Gesner,
as public physician, combatted it to the best of his ability and
at the risk of his own life. The disease abated that year but
returned to the city with renewed virulence in the middle of
July, 1 565. Gesner again went about helping the victims and
was himself stricken on Dec. 9th. What is described as a
large "pestilential carbuncle" appeared under his right arm
and another on his breast; but there was no pain in the head
AUGUST Page 3
or fever. Gesner had seen many die with precisely these
symptoms and therefore did not expect to recover. He called
his friends together, made his will, and serenely awaited death.
On the fifth day of his illness he felt that the end was near and
had a bed set up in his museum. There, on December 13th,
1565, "he expired," in the words of one of his biographers,
"amid the monuments of his labours, thankful for what he
had been able to accomplish, and supported by all the pious
hopes and consolations of a Christian philosopher." He was
only 49 years old.
Everyone who has written of Gesner has expressed sur-
prise at the amount of work he was able to accomplish despite
the difficulties of his early years, the many duties of his chosen
profession, his frequent illnesses, and his early death. One
writer, speaking of his "History of Animals" remarks that, in-
stead of being the work of a busy man of the world, "... one
would suppose it the labour of a recluse, shut up for an age in
his study, and never diverted from his object by any other
cares." Moreover, the range of his works is tremendous, in-
cluding studies in language, literature, medicine, natural his-
tory, and theology.
In 1 545 he published the first part of his famous Bibliotheca
Universalis, a critical catalog of all known Greek, Roman
and Hebrew literature, giving, m addition to the authors and
titles, some information on the contents of the works men-
tioned, a specimen of the style, and an estimate of the value
of the work. The second part, titled Pandectarum, was issued
in 1548 and is divided into 19 books, arranged by subject.
The 20th book, on medical subjects, was never completed;
the 21st, on theological subjects, was issued in 1549. In 1555
he published his Mitliridat'';, an account of about 130 lan-
guages then known, with the Lord's prayer in 23 of them.
He also issued many editions of Greek and Latin authors,
with notes and commentaries, dictionaries, more than one
edition of Galen, and several small works on medicine, in-
cluding one on milk and another on the plague.
Of his works on natural history the Historia Animalium is
the work usually associated with his name and the one on
which his reputation is principally based. The "History of
Animals" appeared in five folio volumes, published in Zurich
between 1551 and 1587. Vol. 1 (1551) treats of viviparous
quadrupeds; vol. 2 (1554), oviparous quadrupeds; vol. 3
(1555), birds; vol. 4 (1558), fishes and other aquatic animals;
and vol. 5 (posthumous, 1587), snakes. The whole work ex-
tends to 4,500 pages and contains several hundred woodcuts,
the great majority of the animals discussed being represented.
Two pages from Volume 1 of Gesner' s Historia Animalium. On the right is Dama vulgaris, the common fallow-deer, or as Gesner spells it,
''/alouue deere." At one time these deer were royal property and were kept and hunted in extensive park areas. Linnaeus, in preparing his Systema
Naturae, made great use of Gesner' s zoological work. Thus, the text and illustration shown below are cited by him in establishing the scientific
name of the species, Cervus dama. Today, this species is known as Dama dama of the deer jamily, Ccrvidae.
Page 4 AUGUST
Our library has only vol. 3 of the first edition. Vols. 1 and 2
of our set are of the second edition (Frankfurt, Germany,
V. 1, 1620, V. 2, 1617). Vols. 4 and 5 are German transla-
tions from the original Latin: Fischbuch (Zurich, 1575) and
Schlangenbuch (Zurich, 1589).
The general arrangement of the work is Aristotelian, the
main division being between land and water animals. Whales,
for instance, are included among the fishes, and bats among
the birds. Animals are assigned to different orders on the
basis of domestication, size, and similar criteria, and are dis-
cussed, for the most part, in alphabetical order. Each is de-
scribed under eight headings: 1 — the names in different lan-
guages, ancient and modern; 2 — external characteristics and
native country; 3 — mode of life; 4 — habits and behavior;
5 — capture, domestication, and rearing; 6 — uses as food; 7 —
vises as medicine; 8 — references made to them by authors,
moral uses, historical allusions, etc.
The many woodcuts that grace these volumes are, in our
time, probably their best known feature, particularly those of
monsters (the sea serpent) and mythical animals (the bishop-
fish, the monk-fish, and the unicorn). It is surprising that
Gesner could incur the expense of having so many engraved;
for, as one writer has pointed out, "He must have had what
may be almost called a little manufactory under his charge;
and we are told that the artists resided in his own house."
In Gesner's time and for many years thereafter this work
was considered the principal authority on zoological subjects
and was reprinted, abridged, and translated many times.
Despite its limitations, it is still useful to a certain extent to-
day, particularly in determining the names of animals in
many different languages, and as primary source for many
generic and specific names.
Gesner was well known to his contemporaries as a botanist
but his projected "History of Plants" was never written. Elli-
son Hawks in his Pioneers of Plant Study (New York, 1 928) gives
us some idea of what the text of this work would have been,
using as his sources some of Gesner's letters:
"He recognized species as falling into groups and genera,
and as varying in minor and less constant characters. It is
possible, therefore, that he had a clearer conception of classi-
fication into groups of progressively increasing generality than
any of his predecessors. He also insisted that flower, fruit,
and seed afford better indications of affinity than do mere
habit or foliage. This sound opinion he supported by adding
details of flowers and fruits to his drawings in a manner that
had not been done before." (Continued on page 7)
Two pages Jrom Gesner's Fischbuch (German translation of Volume 4 of Historia Animalium). The illustrations are ajter the "History of
Northern Peoples" of Olaus Magnus (Olaf Storr), 7490-7538, Catholic Archbishop of Upsala, Stveden. Besides ethnographic matters, the book
deals with game animals, birds, fishes, and various "midnight wonders" including the whales pictured below, and sea serpents. Gesner apparently
had his doubts about the validity of the latter, for he notes that the responsibility /or the truth and accuracy oj these illustrations rests with Olaus.
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AUGUST Paged
w-N SEARCHING OLD BOOKS for a cluc to what is important in
o^zoolog\-, I came upon an intriguing statement by Buffon,
who wrote the many volume "Histoire Naturelle . . . ,"
nearly 200 years ago. Comte George Louis Leclerc Buffon was
zoologist-laureate of the court of Louis XV. A brilliant man, a
polished courtier, and the innovator of a theory of evolution
a century before Darwin, he was criticized by church and sci-
entist alike. But his influence helped natural history gain re-
spectability, social prestige, and patronage. Once when
criticized for devoting more space in his books to some ani-
mals than to others, he quipped, "An animal should not
occupy more space in man's mind than it occupies in nature."
This is a wonderful statement to take for a text, or as the
basis of a debate. Perhaps there is something here that can
provide an objective criterion in a field dominated by sub-
jectivity. But first we should look at the statement and see
what it can mean.
If it means equating size of animal with its importance,
as seems the case, the solution is easy. Let us illustrate it
with this well known example :
Animal Weight
Moose 1,000 lbs.
Deer 200 lbs.
Meadow mouse 2 lbs.
At first glance the moose appears 5,000 times more im-
portant than the mouse.
But another interpretation of Buffon's statement is pos-
sible. By "an animal" one could assume a species rather
than an individual. The sum total of a small, common ani-
mal could outweigh that of a large, rare species. Let us look
at our three examples again, on the basis of the combined
weight of the individuals of a species (the biomas) per acre.
Individual
Individuals
Biomas
Weight
per acre
per acre
Meadow mouse.
. .2 lb.
100
20 lbs.
Deer
. 200 lbs.
.05 / per 20 acres
10 lbs.
Moose
.1,000 lbs.
.005 1 per sq. mile
1.5 lbs.
In the total amount of animal per acre, i.e., space occu-
pied, the mouse is nearly 14 times as important as the moose.
This is not an illusion. The mouse uses solar energy many
times greater than that used by the moose.
But there are many other factors besides size or bulk in
estimating importance in the complex world of nature. Just
as "no man is an island," so, no animal lives alone. It is part
of a web of life, each eats something and is eaten by some-
thing else. Each is part of the food chain of the web of life.
Again, let us illustrate with an example: To the Yankee
whalers who used to ship out of New Bedford, a blue whale
100 feet long, weighing over 100 tons was a pretty important
animal. But the small shrimp-like animals, smaller than
the shrimp served in a shrimp cocktail, that swarm in the
nutrient-rich waters of polar seas were no concern of the
whalers and were grouped imder the general name of brit or
krill. Yet these shrimp are the main food of the blue whales,
the "grass" of the ocean that the whale strained from the sea
water with its elaborate sieve of whalebone. Without the
brit, there would be few whalebone whales.
There are interrelationships even more obscure and com-
Page6 AUGUST
plex than the simple food chain mentioned. There is the
whole question of how animals get their energy from the
sun, the sole source; and how they get materials from the air
and the soil through the intermediate role of plants. The
relationship of plants and animals in maintaining the carbon
dioxide and oxygen content in the air, and the very impor-
tant role of certain soil bacteria which are involved in making
nitrogen available to living things, are all to be considered
in judging relative importance.
So many and such diverse ramifications of zoology may be
confusing. Can we pick out what is important to study in
animals? What aspect of our research is of most value? This
question of importance in non-commercial fields of human
endeavor, of values that cannot be counted by a banker, is an
old one. To follow an old custom, we can suggest a partial
answer by using an allegory. A stone building was being con-
structed. A certain stone was rejected. It did not fit into
foundation or wall, so it was put aside. But as the building
was nearing completion, a keystone was needed. Then it was
found that only the rejected stone fitted, unifying the whole
structure, making it complete and solid. The moral, of
course, is pointed up by asking what is the important brick
in a wall, the important link in a chain, the important thread
in a net? Similarly, what can be the important units in as
complex a system as that of the biosphere?
Biology is studied at many levels of organization : that of
the molecule, cell, tissue, organ, whole animal, ecological
community and fauna. There is structure, behavior, and
function at each level. There are also specialties such as
reading the genetic code, the role of hormones as messengers,
and intelligence and learning. Among the newer approaches
is the possibility of argon-potassium dating that may enable
us to study evolutionary rates of phyletic lines well docu-
mented with fossils. A scientist must specialize to excel in
the study of one small part of biology as applied to only a few
of the one million species of living animals. Museum zoolo-
gists usually specialize in some branch of knowing and under-
standing the kinds of animals there are, the diversity of kinds
of living things.
But when we look for importance, how are we judging?
A materialist may point to how science has been made to
pay. A humanitarian may point to how man's lot has been
bettered by science, providing more food or controlling dis-
ease. A transcendentalist throws up his hands. One scien-
tist may point out how his fashionable subject has gained
material support. A philosopher may point out that increase
in knowledge of animals, of which he is one, has enabled man
to understand himself and the world of nature in which he
lives and of which he is a part.
What is important in zoology may be a meaningless ques-
tion. But we can suggest that the most dramatic story in
biology, the epic of life, its saga, is the adaptation of living
things to their changing environment and to each other.
This is evolution that started with simple life forms in the sea
a billion years ago. From it has been produced the great
diversity of intricately fashioned and complexly interrelated
organisms we know. It has affected every organism at every
level, in every function, and it is a process that is still going on.
GeSNER {Continued from page 5)
At the time of his death he had accumulated about 1,500
of these drawings and 400 wood-blocks. These passed from
hand to hand for almost 200 years, the remnants being pub-
lished in two volumes at Nuremberg, Germany, 1751-1771.
Unfortunately, we do not have a copy of this valuable work.
Of his many smaller works, the library possesses a copy of
his book on fossils, De Rerum Fossilium, Lapidum, ft Gemmarum
(Zurich, 1565). In this
work he discusses all
things that are dug out
of the earth and provides
illustrations of various
fossils, stone implements,
and even a lead pencil !
The best summation
of the value of Gesner's
work appears, I believe,
in the "Memoir of Ges-
ner" prefixed to the vol-
ume of The jYaturalisf s
Library dealing with
horses (Mammalia,
v. 12; Edinburgh, 1841):
"With much that is
crude, obsolete, and use-
less, the necessary con-
sequence of the period
and circumstances under
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tbaawk M.O. LXXV.
Title-page from the Fischbuch.
which he wrote, his publications must be regarded as of great
merit, displaying a wonderful accumulation of knowledge de-
rived from previous writers, with an important accession result-
ing from his own observation and power of thought. Whether
we consider them as a repertory of the existing knowledge of
the times, or in reference to the light which they for the first
time shed on the subjects of which they treat, they must ever
secure for their author a venerable name among the "Fathers
of Natural History."
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ftftt) mit fUtbtt gt|}alt pcnijlid) allcr jicctXB
cims Sifcbotf* nnlid), i>n ecm p(}«b be)- mccre
bty polAitb iiAcl)(l gcfjngtn (crti woibtn / »mib Xxm
polcnbifti)? f iinip fiit0rtra(itit.lVcl<l)ca bucd) ureas
jd'dxn nunsClid) bt buncR tvilltn i bttxiucn vnt> bo
pi^rtn / baf te tin grofli bejitb l?ab« tvibtr m bj mccr.
ja tvdd)<m ale«8 ttefOtt iji woibt/ fol C9 (id) jfi |hmb
bartyn0(m«>f^'n,vnbmbie ticf)v r(rfd)lof)to t^abm.
The common notion that everything on earth had
its counterpart in the sea is illustrated bji this
woodcut oj the sea-bishop or bishop-fish from the
Fischbuch. The story goes that the bishop-fish
was found on the shores of Poland, taken bejore
the king and given his freedom when he indicated
by signs that he wished to return to his native
element. Some have speculated that the creature
was a walrus.
AUGUST Page 7
MUSEUM REPRESENTED AT PACIFIC SCIENCE PARLEY
Four Field Museum scientists with research interests in the Pacific area will
participate in a three-week science conference in Tokyo beginning August 22.
Dr. Robert F. Inger, Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles, Dr. Joseph C. Moore,
Curator of Mammals, Dr. Alan Solem, Curator of Lower Invertebrates, and Dr.
Kenneth Starr, Curator of Asiatic Archaeology and Ethnology, will be among the
hundreds of scientists attending the Eleventh Pacific Science Congress.
The Congress, a regularly conducted gathering, focuses on a wide range of
scientific studies relating to the Pacific region. Its aims are promotion of the in-
vestigation of regional scientific problems, particularly as they affect the welfare
of the area's peoples, and to strengthen the friendly bonds between scientists of
various countries.
Field Museum representatives will present six papers. Dr. Inger's subjects are
"Reproductive Patterns of Lizards in a Bornean Rain Forest" and "Competitive
Relations Among Three Species of Rain Forest Frogs." Dr. Moore will report on
"Evidences of Maturity and Sexual Dimorphism in Beaked Whale Species of the
Genus Mesoplodon from the Pacific Ocean" and "First Quantitative Evidence
Upon the Relationship Between the Four-Toothed Whales, Berardius bairdi oi the
North Pacific and B. arnuxi of South Temperate Oceans." Dr. Solem's subjects
will be "Age and Origin of Pacific Land Snail Fauna" and "Morphological
Changes Associated with Vitriniform and Succineiform Shells and Their Bearing
on Gastropod Classifications."
Following the conference. Dr. Starr will visit Chinese collections in Tokyo
and Kyoto in connection with his study of the Chinese black pottery culture
and Chinese rubbings.
ALMA MATER HONORS CURATOR BLAKE
In recognition of his scientific work on neotropical birds, Emmet R. Blake, Curator
of Birds, received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science on May 29 from his
alma mater, Presbyterian College of South Carolina, Clinton, S. C. Blake has
been on the Museum staff" since 1935, and has contributed substantially to the
knowledge of the rich bird fauna of Central and South America. He is presently
working, under a National Science Foundation grant, on a "Manual of Neotrop-
ical Birds." in several volumes.
MUSEUM ATTENDANCE SOARS
The Museum has enjoyed increased attendance of over 30% during the first half
of 1966. With 950,000 visitors through June of this year, total 1966 attendance is
expected to far outstrip last year's million and a half. This year's peak attendance
so far came in April, with 249,000 visitors, the second highest of any month since
1934. April attendance represented a 60% increase over the same month in 1965.
The greater number of Museum visitors may be attributed to increasing public
interest in natural history and archaeology, as well as to more Museum visits by
school groups. New exhibits like the Chalmers Topaz, special shows like the Maya
Art show, and modernized display of existing exhibits such as the Benin Art and
that of Bushman, the famous gorilla from Lincoln Park Zoo, have all contributed
to drawing more visitors to the Museum.
CALENDAR OF AUGUST EVENTS
August, weekdays Guided Tours
2 P.M. tour of Museum highlights, followed by 3 p.m. color film on Museum
expeditions, research and exhibit preparation. Join tour at Information Booth.
Children's Movie at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., also a cartoon.
August 4 The Arctic Region and Polar Bears
Children's Movie aat 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., also a cartoon.
August 1 1 Water Birds -
Children's Movie at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., also a cartoon. Movies are shown in
James Simpson Theatre. The second showing on August 4 is scheduled at
1 p.m. to allow children to attend the 11 a.m. Young People's Concert held in
the Grant Park Band Shell across the street.
MUSEUM
AUDITOR
RETIRES
Miss Marion K. Hofl'mann, .Auditor
of the Museum, retired on June 30 after
14 years service. Miss Hoffmann was
appointed the first woman Auditor in
1957, in recognition of her capable rec-
ord in the auditing office.
She brought to the finance office a ver\-
real concern for the financial matters,
both personal and professional, she was
called upon to solve on behalf of the
Staff" and visiting scientists. Probably
only one who has been associated with a
museum with widespread activities in
many parts of the world can appreciate
the multiplicity of problems that arise,
iTiost of which are almost unique.
The period of Miss Hoffmann's in-
cumbency was one of growth of the Mu-
seum's financial operations, both in size
and complexity. It is a tribute to her
dedication to the Museum that the rec-
ords were in the fine condition they were
at her retirement, in spite of the con-
stantly increasing demands of the office.
The Museum is indebted to her for her
loyal service and also for remaining in
office for 3 years beyond normal retire-
ment, a period w-hich allowed much re-
organization of the financial records by
personnel under her supervision.
Miss Eleanor Sheffner, Assistant Audi-
tor, also left the service of the Museum
recently. Miss Sheffner resigned after
ten years' service to accept another po-
sition. Much of the progress made in
recent years in the financial records is
directly attributable to the meticulous
care with which she handled every aspect
of her work.
Both of these ladies will be missed by
their many friends at Field Museum who
extend best wishes to Miss Hoffmann in
her retirement and to Miss Sheffner in
her new association.
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT ROAD AT LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 60605 AC. 312. 922-9410
E. Leland Webber,
Director of the Museum
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul, Associate Editor
FOUNDED BY MARSHALL FIELD, 1893
Page 8 AUGUST
Volume 37, Number 9 September, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
FALL WORKSHOPS FOR MEMBERS CHILDREN
An opportunity to meet Museum staff, and work with specimens and materials from the Museum's scientific
collections, is again offered in a series of unique workshops open to the children and grandchildren of Members.
Designed by the Raymond Foimdation to stimulate and develop interest in the study of nature and man, these
small-group workshops, geared to different age levels, have been enthusiastically received by Museum Members
and their families since the fall of 1963. This year five new programs have been added.
Reservations are necessary and application forms are enclosed with this month's Bulletin. Since it will prob-
ably not be |x>ssible to accommodate all applicants, we urge you to mail in your applications early. Please list
the program, date and hour you wish, in the order of preference. Each applicant will be scheduled into
one program only, and reservations will be accepted in the order in which they are received. Applicants accepted
will receive a confirmation card which will serve as an admission card to the workshop.
OCTOBER 1
10:30 .\.M. for ages 6 and 7
Parents are also invited
1 :30 P.M. for ages 8 and 9
Parents are also invited
Life in an Old Dead Tree
Marie Svoboda
This is a special program for family
groups and will demonstrate the differ-
ent kinds of animals that might make
their home in an old dead tree. Such a
dwelling place is picked, not for its beau-
tiful setting nor for its beautiful view,
but for the protection it affords.
10:30 .\.M. for ages 10-12
Ocean Life
George Fricke
A glimpse of ocean life will be presented
through films and the handling of speci-
mens of marine invertebrates. The sea
is a source of wonder about which man
still knows very litde. Boys and girls will
learn a little of what is already known
and how much has yet to be discovered.
A short tour in the exhibition halls will
acquaint the youngsters with some of the
marine vertebrates.
OCTOBER 8
10:30 and 1 :30 p.m. for ages 10-12
Indians of Woodlands and Plains
Harriet Smith
In different regions, Indian tribes devel-
oped a life that fitted their kind of coun-
try by exploiting materials furnished by
nature. In this workshop, youngsters
will handle these raw materials and see
for themselves how their qualities were
utilized in the making of tools, weapons,
and household equipment. Movies that
show how Indian tribes lived in the
woodlands and western plains before the
settlers came give a basis for class discus-
sions comparing Indian ways of life.
10:30 A.M. for ages 6 and 7 accompanied
by at least one parent
Boneyard Menagerie
Ernest Roscoe
This workshop will "ratde the skeletons
in a few closets" by discussing the pre-
historic relatives of familiar animals
found in zoos and aquaria. Be prepared
for a few surprises !
OCTOBER 15
10 :30 .A.M. for ages 6 and 7 accompanied
by at least one parent
Boneyard Menagerie (See above)
10:30 A.M. and 1 :30 p.m. for ages 10-12
Ocean Life (See above)
OCTOBER 22
10:30 .A.M. forages 10-13
Caveman to Civilization
Edith Fleming
A movie on the life of the cave men,
which shows how they hunted prehis-
toric animals, opens this workshop. In
the following discussion-demonstration
period, boys and girls will examine real
tools used by cave men thousands of
years ago, learn how they were made,
and coiupare them with tools of today.
10:30 .\.M. for ages 8 and 9
Rockology
Ernest Roscoe
A beginner's introduction to rocks and
minerals by means of specimen study,
demonstrations, and informative session
in the exhibition halls. Topics include:
what are rocks? how are they formed?
what characteristics can the beginner use
in identifying rocks?
1 :30 p.m. for ages 10-13
Rock and Mineral Kingdom
Ernest Roscoe
This is a more advanced program on
rocks and minerals. Reading and writ-
ing skills are required for the work with
specimens and question sheets in the ex-
hibition halls, {continued on Page 12)
Page 2 SEPTEMBER
The Legacy of
MALVINA HOFFMAN
0\ FEBRUARY 21, 1930, a handwritten note came to the
Registrar of Field Museum, from the President of the
Museum: "Please open a new a/c [account] on the books
'Hall of Physical Anthropology' & put Mr. Marshall Field's
check to the credit of that a/c [signed] S. Field." That same
month, a telegram to Miss Malvina Hoffman, the New York
sculptor, "Have proposition to make, do you care to consider
it? Racial types to be modelled while traveling around the
world," brought Miss Hoffman to Chicago and a meeting with
Stanley Field and the Board of Trustees of Field Museum.
The relationship established at this meeting lasted for
many years, and produced "The Races of Man," Field Mu-
seum's most famous exhibit, and Miss Hoffman's most monu-
mental work, 104 bronzes, life-size or larger, revealing, as
Miss Hoffman wrote, "man to his brother."
The original plan of the project was worked out at the
Museum. Miss Hoffman wrote of the Board of the Museum,
"a very alert and courageous group of men. To keep abreast
of the times, they decided, after investigating the reasons why
the anthropology halls in all countries were generally empty
and the snake and monkey houses always crowded, to step out
of the tradition and take a long chance. They felt that 'The
Races of Man' should look dive, and be actual figures that
anyone could recognize and feel to be authentic ... so they
decided to try sculpture. . . ."
Though the conception of the plan belonged to the Mu-
seum, the work was Miss Hoffman's, and the final product
bore the stamp not only of her artistic skill, but of her strong
beliefs. The Museum had planned to hire four or five artists
to go to various parts of the world. Miss Hoffman pointed
out that such an arrangement could not produce a consistent,
balanced hall. She also pointed out the potential battles in-
volved in fom- or five artistic temperaments. She won her
point. She was couunissioned alone to do the job.
Again, the original plan called for plaster figures. Miss
Hoffman felt strongly about this point: "I signed up for
Miss Hoffman in her studio
"Daboa", Dancing girl of the Sara tribe. Lake Chad
painted plaster, real hair and glass eyes, knowing absolutely
that within six months this part of the contract would be
changed without a struggle." She had two of the figures cast
in bronze at her own expense in Paris and when Stanley Field
saw them at her studio, that part of the contract was changed.
She spent the next several years traveling the world for
the Museum, sketching and sculpting, and slowly assembling
the exhibit. Miss Hoffman had considerable skill in persuad-
ing normally shy people to pose for her. She was undaunted
by primitive conditions, and overcame inevitable difficulties
with great courage.
Only 80 per cent completed, the Hall of Man opened on
June 6, 1933, at the time of the opening of the International
World's Fair in Chicago called the Century of Progress. More
than 2,000,000 people visited the Hall in its first year, and
countless millions since that time.
When Malvina Hoffman died this summer in her home
in New York, at 81, a full and varied life, rich with achieve-
ment, was ended. She left books, sketches and statues. Man-
kind was her subject, and she left Mankind perhaps no greater
legacy than the sense of the diversity and unity of all people
to be found in Field Museum's Hall of Man.
SEPTEMBER Page 3
museum taxonomy serves medical research
BY PHILIP HERSHKOVITZ, RESEARCH CURATOR, MAMMALS
tHE VISITOR, an epidemiologist from the National Institutes
of Health, had a problem. He had been assigned to a
team of United States medical officers investigating a high
mortality febrile disease attacking man in the Amazonian
region of Bolivia. The disease, a hemorrhagic fever, had been
occurring in epidemic fashion for three years — since 1959.
The virus causing it was found in a sample of human
spleen from a fatal case of the fever. A wild rodent reservoir
of the virus was suspected. My visitor, Dr. Merle Kuns,
wanted information on the mammals, particularly the ro-
dents, of Bolivia. Little is known of Bolivian rodents but
happily much of it is contained in scientific publications of
the Field Museum. Dr. Kuns was provided with the litera-
ture he needed, and I agreed to identify the samples of sus-
pect animals he would collect in Bolivia and send on to the
Museum.
The specimens soon began to come in. The first ship-
ments of hundreds of mice, bats and other kinds of small
mammals had already been tested and had proved negative
for the virus of hemorrhagic fever. Serological tests con-
ducted in virus laboratories on the associated mites, ticks, lice
and fleas were also negative. The break came in 1963, when
the virus was isolated from two field mice trapped in the vil-
lage of San Joaquin, Beni. These mice, which I identified as
Calomjs callosus, resemble common house mice {Mus muscu-
lus). Like them, they live successfully in fields, gardens, houses
and towns. Further investigations by the epidemiologists re-
vealed that Calomys callosus was a natural reservoir of the
disease. It communicated the illness to humans by direct
contamination of their food, water, clothing and furnishings
with virus e.xcreted in feces or urine. Destruction of Calomys
Page 4 SEPTEMBER
callosus living in houses in San Joaquin resulted in a dramatic
end to human cases of hemorrhagic fever.
One of the scientific publications of the Field Museum
used by the Bolivian Commission in their investigations of
hemorrhagic fever was a taxonomic revision of the mice of
the genus Calomys. The treatise contains everything known
to that time about these rodents, including habits, preferences
for human habitations, ectoparasites, geographic distribution,
distinctive characters and keys to the species. Taxonomic
works of this kind are regularly produced by the Museum's
zoologists. Most of them may seem abstruse and of no prac-
tical value today. Tomorrow they may be crucial in tracking
down the cause of an epidemic devastating a far-away jungle
land or identifying the agent bringing a new disease into our
country.
ZOONOSES. — Diseases of wild animals transmitted to man
or his domestic animals are called zoonoses. The World Health
Organization lists over 100 zoonoses and more are being added
each year. A classic zoonosis is bubonic plague transmitted
to man by fleas from the natural reservoir in rodents. Rabies,
transmitted by the bite of infected dogs, wolves, bats and
other animals, is another example of a zoonosis which, like
Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, does not involve an arthropod
\cctor.
TRAVELING TICKS.— Ticks are known vectors of a great
variety of organisms causing diseases in man and domestic
animals. These arthropods may not travel far on their own
Distribution of the Corncrake, Crex cre.x. These birds are common in Egypt in
autumn when on passage Jrom their breeding grounds in Europe to their wintering
grounds in Africa, and many are found to be carrying ticks of medical importance.
power, but they can be intercontinental travelers when at-
tached to migrating birds. Dr. Harry Hoogstraal, a Research
Associate of Field Museum and Scientist with the United
States Naval Medical Research Unit Number Three, Cairo,
Egypt, examined ticks on tens of thousands of migratory birds
captured in Egypt. Associate Curator of Birds Melvin Tray-
lor collaborated by providing the identifications and migra-
tory patterns of the birds. These investigations revealed that
SEPTEMBER Page 5
European and northern Asiatic birds migrating south to trop-
ical Africa were infested with ticks from their northern habi-
tats, while birds returning north in the spring carried ticks
from their southern winter quarters. Nearly all air-borne
ticks were immature. The species of ticks proved to be known
reservoirs or vectors of many diseases afflicting humans and
domestic animals. One kind transmits Russian spring-sum-
mer encephalitis, infectious nephroso-nephritis and tulare-
mia. Another harbors the pathogen causing boutonneuse
fever or African tick typhus, a disease related to our Rocky
Mountain spotted fever. Still others are carriers of Q fever
and of brucellosis. Diseases of domestic animals spread by
tick sp)ecies found on migrating birds include Rickettsia fever,
bovine babiosis, anaplasmosis, tick paralysis, Gonderia, and
many others. Transportation of ticks far beyond the geo-
graphic limits of their normal habitat may explain the sudden
and explosive appearance of tick-transmitted diseases in pre-
viously uninfested regions along the routes of migrating birds.
The most difficult problems in the investigations of such dis-
eases, according to Hoogstraal and his associates, are the
ta.xonomic. Correct identifications are crucial : — of ticks, par-
ticularly in the immature stages, bird hosts, and viruses.
COOPERATION AND MUSEUM EXPEDITIONS.— Field
work on wild animal reservoirs and vectors of human dis-
eases is conducted by many governments, and they maintain
in their own broadly based research programs, some of which
include field studies of host-parasite relationships. The \V. S.
and J. K. Street Expedition to Afghanistan of 1965 returned
to the Museum with more than 2,000 specimens of mammals
and over 10,000 samples of the mites, ticks, lice, fleas and
batflies found on them. A medical entomologist of the .Amer-
ican University of Beirut, Dr. Robert E. Lewis, participated
in the .Afghan Expedition. The Museum's expedition to Iran
in 1962-1963, also led by the Streets, collected over 1,700
specimens of mammals with their assorted ectoparasites. The
ectoparasites are being studied by leading authorities at sci-
entific institutions scattered over the world. Mr. Douglas
Lay, the mammalogist of the Iranian expedition, has under-
taken a taxonomic revision of certain species of gerbils col-
lected on the expedition. Gerbils are small rodents of Asia
and Africa and important resers'oirs of bubonic plague.
Specimens brought back in recent years by Field Museum
expeditions to Borneo, Malaya, Philippines, Sudan, Peru,
Colombia, Surinam, Guatemala, Panama and many other
lands, make our collections of ectoparasitic arthropods among
the finest in the world. The collections of fleas, mites and
ticks are outstanding, and the batfly collection is the largest
anywhere. Dr. Rupert Wenzel, Curator of Insects and an
outstanding authority on batflies, has edited and is now see-
ing through press a weighty volume entitled "Ectoparasites
Left: Associate Curator Xlelvin Traylor
sorting a shipment of Asiatic birds. The
geographic distribution and migrating route
of each species will be determined from the
locality and dale of capture recorded on the
label of each specimen. Right: Shaw's
gerbil (Meriones shawi) from Egypt.
One oj several kinds of gerbils known to be
reservoirs of bubonic plague. Study of the
origin, evolution and dispersal of gerbils is
one of many Museum research projects.^
COVER : This month's cover shows a se-
ries of study-skins of Callomys callosus,
prepared in the field by medical workers for
the Public Health Service in San Joaquin,
Bolivia. The little rodents, identified by the
author of this article, were found to be reser-
voirs of Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever.
Their control prodiued a dramatic end to the
fever.
excellent cooperation and exchange of communication with
scientific agencies with taxonomic capabilities. Early last
year I received a letter from an epidemiologist in British Hon-
duras employed by the Ministry of Overseas Development of
the British Government. He was investigating mammalian
hosts and insect vectors of Leishmaniasis, and wanted some
small rodent hosts identified. I gladly did this for him. More
recendy, several s{>ecies of mice susp>ected or implicated in
the transmission of sylvatic diseases in Colombia were sent
to me for identification by Rockefeller Foundation virologists
conducting the field investigations. There is nothing unusual
about this. Samples of small mammals are sent here for
identification from many parts of the world.
The Museum's identification service is a voluntary con-
tribution. The Museum's biologists are primarily interested
of Panama." This will be a museum publication comprising
contributions by twent\- of the foremost authorities in their
fields. Cost of much of the research and of publication was
supported by the United States Army Medical Research and
Development Command.
Interest of medical entomologists in the ectoparasites of
Panama began with the classical studies of malaria and yel-
low fever during the building of the Panama Canal. Most
early investigations of arthropod-borne diseases in Panama
were directed toward establishment of a healthy environment
in the tropics for man and domestic animals. The forthcom-
ing volume "Ectoparasites of Panama," deals more fimda-
mentally with all known ectoparasites of Panamanian land
mammals and with the relationships between parasites and
their hosts.
Paged SEPTE.MBER
BATS AND RABIES.— Bats are also reservoirs of diseases
afflicting man and domestic animals. The bloodsucking or
vampire bats are the most important vectors of rabies through-
out Latin America. Human deaths from bat rabies have
been recorded. In some parts of the American tropics, cattle
losses from epidemics of this disease have been disastrous.
Vampire bats may also transmit rabies to other kinds of bats
with which they roost. However the disea.se may have been
transmitted, rabid insectivorous bats have been observed in
the United States, Canada, Europe and India, places where
vampires do not occur. The late Colin Campbell .Sanborn,
the Museum's Curator of Mammals until his retirement in
1955, was a world authority on bats and a consultant to the
National Institutes of Health in this specialty. His taxonomic
revisions of certain New and Old World species and genera of
bats published in the Museum's zoological series, are valuable
tools in the study and control of bat rabies.
MONKEYS IN MEDICINE AND MUSEUM RESEARCH.—
Many human diseases are studied imder controlled conditions
by using tame laboratory animals such as white mice, rats,
hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits and chicks. These animals are
usually of known strains and, in any case, present no taxo-
nomic problems. In recent years, however, there has been
an increasing use of captured wild monkeys as laboratory ani-
mals, many of them unidentified as to species. A large num-
periment cannot be repeated or controlled if its most impor-
tant ingredient, the experimental animal, is an uncontrolled
variable or if its precise identity is imknown.
The medical scientist or biochemist is neither trained nor
disposed to deal with intraspccific variables and the taxo-
nomic, zoogcographic and ecological problems posed by the
wild caught animals used in his experiments. The field nat-
uralist and museum taxonomist, often one and the same per-
son, is not only so trained but is largely engaged in solving
such problems. In some cases, solutions to particular prob-
lems are already available in published taxonomic revisions.
In the case of nonhuman primates, however, what is known
falls far short of meeting the explosive and overwhelming de-
mands for information.
During the last decade the Field Museum has been alone
among North American institutions in conducting basic re-
search on the taxonomy of living species of monkeys. Cog-
nizant of the importance of this work to human welfare, the
National Institutes of Health, particularly the Cancer Insti-
tute, are contributing to the support of the Museum's research
in primate taxonomy. Current projects at the Field Museum
include a monograph on marmosets (a family of small trop-
ical American monkeys widely used as laboratory animals)
and a taxonomic revision of the Old World group of monkeys
known as macaques. The medically and pharmaceutically
important rhesus is a member of this group.
Left: The bloodsucking or
vampire bat (Dcsmodus ro-
tundus) is the most important
vector of rabies throughout Latin
America. Right: The rhesus
macaque (Macaca mulatta)
is widely used as an experi-
mental animal in behavioral,
biomedical and pharmaceutical
research. The classification of
macaque monkey's is being re-
vised by Museum Associate
Jack Fooden.
ber of investigators believe that use of nonhuman primates as
experimental animals offers a more direct approach to solu-
tions of some of man's own biological problems. The simi-
larities between man and nonhuman primates are real, and
stem from a common and not very remote ancestry. The
history of primates embraces the story of man's beginning,
the evolution of his specializations, notably the ability to rea-
son, his behavior patterns, the history of his parasites, the
origins of some of his diseases, the manifestations of their
symptoms, and responses to treatment. The more man learns
about his primate relatives, the more he learns about himself.
Least known among nonhuman primates are the smaller
monkeys which are preferred as laboratory animals. The
need for correct identification of each of the many kinds of
small monkeys used in medical research is obvious. An ex-
INTERDEPENDENCE OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.—
Museum scientists do not study illnesses of men or ani-
mals. Museum zoologists study and collect animals in the
field and classify them in the museum laboratory. Sometimes
the examination of only a fragment of the form is sufficient for
purposes of identification and classification of little known or
extinct organisms. In the case of common living species
nearly everything that can be learned about them may be
taken into account. Knowledge gained by the taxonomist
in classifying animals serves the biomedical investigator in the
control and interpretation of research using experimental ani-
mals. In turn, what the medical investigator learns about
susceptibilities, immunities and other physiological charac-
teristics of his experimental animals, serves the taxonomist
in perfecting his system of classification.
SEPTEMBER Page 7
FALL
LECTURE
SERIES
Tea Pluckers
Ralph Gerstle's 'Ceylon'
i :1
Basalt Columns
Robert Davis' 'Iceland'
Lake Ohrid
Gene Wianckos 'Balkans'
li4*^'
Matterhorn
Philip Walkers 'Switzerland'
This year's Fall Lecture Series offers film studies on the people, the history,
and the natural riches of many areas around the world. The nine films, all in
color and all with personal commentary by well-known lecturers, are presented
by the Museum as the 126th Series of Illustrated Free Lectures. They will
be held in the James Simpson Theatre of Field Museum of Natural History at
2:30 P.M. on successive Saturday afternoons from October 1st through Novem-
ber 26th. Reserved seats for Museum members will be held until 2:25.
October 1 — Wildlife at Your Doorstep Howard L. Orians
A film that brings into focus the exciting and delightful world
of nature to be foimd all about us. Rather than ranging far
afield, the camera seeks out ever-present wonders close at hand.
October 8 — Incredible Iceland Robert Davis
An amazing land enjoying surprisingly temperate climate,
democratic government, and a high standard of living. Nat-
ural features such as glaciers, waterfalls and volcanoes abound :
— the film includes a sequence on the creation of a new island
by marine eruption.
October 15 — Field Museu.m Expedition to Afgh.'\nist.\n William and Janice Street
Mr. and Mrs. Street, Field Associates of the Museum, report
on their recent zoological expedition to Afghanistan, with
color slides.
October 22 — Morocco Nicol Smith
From the Moslem Holy City of Moulay Idris to the gleaming
new buildings of Casablanca, this film covers the colorful life
of the markets, oases, and Islamic and Roman ruins.
October 29 — Switzerland Philip Walker
Quaint charm, sophisticated elegance, the grandeur of the
Alps and the beauty of lakes — all contribute to this fine film.
Features the only complete authentic motion pictures ever
made of a free balloon flight over the Alps.
November 5 — Ceylon Ralph Gerstie
The richness of tropical jungle and seacoast, the heritage of
Buddhism in ancient monument and current practice, and
the interesting aspects of the local tea, coconut and mining
industries presented by an award-winning film-maker.
November 12 — Mysteries of the Balkan World Gene Wiancko
Delves into the fascinating past and colorful present of the
people of Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania's mountains.
Presents the Gypsies, the Shyptars and the "Children of the
Eagle," and their confrontations with "modern civilization."
November 19 — Ojibw.ay Country David Jarden
Combines rugged adventure with a look into the unusual life
of the Ojibway Indians who live in a Northern Ontario wilder-
ness which has changed little for centuries. The film is based
on a canoe trip made by photographer-narrator David Jarden
in company with a family of Ojibway Indians.
November 26— Only in Portugal Gerald Hooper
Features on the spot sound recording in addition to live nar-
> ration. Covers the sights of Lisbon, the resort city of Estoril,
religious shrines and native wine, craft and cork industries,
plus a capsule view of Portuguese history.
Dance
Nicol Smith's 'Morocco'
A new Zoology exhibit
in which the tongues of certain birds are used
to illustrate the biological principle of
CONVERGENCE
Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator, Zoology
A MONKEY-FACED owl and an owl-faced monkey of Africa
are two "look-alikes," whose convergence in physiog-
nomy is probably due to accident. The rattlesnake's rattle
and the tuft of quills on the tip of the tail of the African porcu-
pine are both shaken noisily, a useful convergence to warn
away enemies. The brush-tongued honey opossum and the
brush-tongucd lory, both of Australia, both use the peculiar
tongue to feed on nectar and pollen in flowers, a convergence
in form and function to use a special type of food.
The conventional view of evolution is one of divergence,
radiating to adapt to available habitats. But when the orig-
inal radiation continues in several phyletic lines, convergence
may occur. Reptiles and mammals are branches of a com-
mon stock. When each evolved forms for land, air, and water,
the reptiles produced four-footed lizards, fish-like Ichthyo-
saurus (now extinct), and winged pterodactyls (also extinct).
Mammals came up with four-footed mice, winged bats, and
fish-like whales. This is convergence on a grand scale.
Severa^ groups of small birds sip nectar through a tubular
tongue, much as we might drink milk through a straw. Com-
monly, the bird tongue is flat, and just long enough to fit into
the bill. The hummingbirds of the Americas, the sunbirds of
Africa and southern Asia, and the honeyeaters of the Austra-
lian region are not closely related, yet each has developed
an elongated, slender bill for probing into flowers, and an
elongated, slender, extensible tongue of which the edges are
rolled up to provide tubes through which each can drink
nectar. These, hummingbirds, sunbirds, and honeyeaters,
and their convergence in relation to flower-feeding, are the
subject of a new exhibit at Field Museum.
Though each group has a long, tubular tongue, the de-
tails of structure are different in each case. In the humming-
birds, the tongue is split lengthwise and the outer margins are
curled down to form two separate tubes that lie side by side.
In the sunbirds, the edges of the tongue curl up to meet or
overlap to give a single tube except at the tip where it is split
to form two tubes. In the honeyeaters, the central part of the
tongue forms a single tube, as in the sunbirds, but the tip is
divided into four parts, each fringed out to give a brush-like
tip, a structure lacking in the other two groups. Such fine
differences in detail support other differences in structure,
habits, and range, so that these birds form three unrelated
groups, and the gross similarities in tongue are ones of con-
vergence.
It is all very well to dwell on a small part of these birds,
the bill and tongue, to illustrate a biological principle. To
divide an animal into many parts and distribute them among
specialists for study is the rule today, and is necessary for
understanding processes and principles. But we must re-
member to put the parts together again, to see what the whole
bird is like. In line with this, a brief synopsis of each group
follows.
HUMMINGBIRDS. All 300 spccics live only in the New World.
They include the smallest of birds, and this feature was
stressed when they were first introduced into the literature.
This was in 1525, by Oviedo, Governor of Hispaniola, in his
"Hystoria general de las Indias," published in Toledo. He
called the hmnmingbirds paxaro mosquito, a name that still
survives in the French oiseau-mouche.
The brilliance of the iridescence is no less remarkable.
Many bright colors on birds are likened to the sheen of bur-
nished metals: steel, copper, bronze or gold. But imagina-
tive writers have likened the hummingbird's brightness to
that of polished jewels. This is reflected in the gem-words
incorporated in their popular names: emerald, sapphire, gar-
net, berylline, amethyst, ruby, and topaz.
The flight of hummingbirds is imique. They can hover,
stationary in the air, move into a flower, or fly backwards
out of it, with equal facility. This is due to an unusual socket
arrangement where wing bones join those of the shoulder.
The wing tip moves back and forth in a sculling, figure-of-
SEPTEMBER Page 9
Models of typical bird tongue and flowerfeeding tongue, from new exhibit
eight pattern, with both forward and backward strokes being
power strokes. With such unusual development of flight, it
is not surprising that the feet are tiny, incapable of locomo-
tion, and used only for perching on twigs.
Of course, not all hummingbirds are small. The largest
are as large as sparrows. Nor are all species brilliant, either,
and in those that are, it is the male that wears the vivid plum-
age. Correlated with the pronounced sexual dimorphism,
these birds are polygamous, and the female assumes all duties
of family life.
The neat cup-nest and the two pure white eggs are won-
ders of miniaturization. The female feeds the helpless nest-
lings by injecting them with food, thrusting her long bill well
down their throats.
One species, the ruby-throated hummingbird, nests as far
north as southern Canada. But a flower-feeder would fare
ill in a northern winter. The American Tropics is where
most species live and the ruby-throat migrates there for the
winter. Despite their small size, they make the more than
500-mile crossing of the Gulf of Mexico.
Hummingbirds as a group have their closest relatives in
swifts and perhaps nightjars, as indicated by structural de-
tails which are as unusual as their habits and appearance.
A wide gap separates them from our familiar songbirds.
SUNBiRDS. Their headquarters are in Africa, where most of
the 100 species live, but there are a fair number in trop-
ical Asia, and two adventurous far-colonizing species have
island-hopped recently (geologically speaking) through the
East Indies to reach the Australian area.
Sunbirds are a group of songbirds generally small, of
warbler size, that hop and flit through the foliage, and their
notable features, aside from flower adaptation, are in the
bright, even gaudy, colors of the males. They have some
iridescent patches, especially metallic greens and blues, but
much of their brightness is due to non-lustrous reds, blacks,
yellows, and purples.
Most of the females are dull, often olive-green, but despite
this sexual dimorphism the birds sing, form pairs, and both
sexes may take part in family duties. The nests are rather
unusual. Some are oval, pensile structures with an entrance
at the side under a little "porch-roof." Other nests, those of
the "spider hunters," are stitched tailor-bird fashion, to the
underside of a leaf. As with many songbirds, the eggs are
spotted.
HONEYEATERS. An early songbird colonist reached Aus-
tralia before its competitors did and found a flower-rich
habitat vacant. It evolved some 160 species to take advan-
tage of this vacant food niche, just as certain brush-tongued
lories and certain brush-tongued opossums did. While many
flower-feeding hummingbirds and sunbirds evolved bright
colors to rival the flowers at which they fed, so that one is
tempted to suggest a further correlation, the honeyeaters,
which feed much like sunbirds, did not, and bright colors are
an exception. The breeding biology is that of typical song-
birds, with pairing, a cup nest, spotted eggs, and both sexes
sharing nest duties. That the honeyeaters have been success-
ful there is no doubt, if one judges by their numbers of species
Ml
•"v . ^i
':^ ICO
HONEVCATCR
i
HUMHINGIIRB
SUNBIRD
Models and cross-sections of the tongues of the
Hummingbird, Sunbird and Honeyeater
Page 10 SEPTEMBER
and abundance. In a country where there was little compe-
tition they radiated more in size than did either of the other
groups we have discussed, and as well as tiny species there
are some that are as large as jays and feed in part on fruit.
But all retain the four-part tip to their tongue, indicative of
their common ancestry.
The idea for this exhibit grew out of a luncheon conver-
sation with Miss Frances Hooper of the Women's Board of
the Museum in which we discussed Miss Hooper's fascination
with the beauty, small size, diversity, and bizarre habits of
hummingbirds. A plan for an exhibit of hummingbirds and
their ecological counterparts on other continents developed.
Now we have a permanent exhibit illustrating the Biological
Principle of Convei-gence on view in Boardman Conover Hall,
Hall 21.
The scope of the thinking involved in planning this ex-
hibit went far beyond the birds and flowers actually involved.
Since starting this exhibit I have given a lecture on conver-
gence for a University of Chicago class, and as I have indi-
cated above, forms as diverse as fossil reptiles and honey
opossums can be used as examples. Beyond that I have sur-
veyed the whole subject of nectar adaptation in songbirds and
its importance in evaluating taxonomic evidence. A research
report on this entitled, "The Flower-Adapted Tongue of a
Tiinalinae Bird and Its Implications," is approaching publi-
cation in Field Museum's series Fieldiana: ^oology.
When we install a proposed hall devoted to "Ecology and
Evolution," we hope to devote a section to exhibiting the
whole scope of convergence, how similar adaptations in un-
related groups result in "look-alikes."
SPECIAL DELIVERY
LIBRARY DISPLAYS BOOKS ON BIRDS
Field Museum Library this month has a special exhibit of
rare books from the Edward E. Ayer Collection, relating also
to birds. Mr. Ayer was the first President of the Board of
Trustees of Field Museum, and among his first acts as Presi-
dent was the presentation of his ornithological library.
Among the books on display is a first edition of ^ Natural
History of Uncommon Birds by the noted English naturalist
George Edwards (1693-1773). The book has many colored
plates and descriptions of the birds in French and English.
It is even more noteworthy because it once belonged to the
Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, and has many marginal
notes in his hand.
A curious old work, // Canto de gV Avgelli, by Antonio Valli
da Todi, published in 1601, is also displayed. The book, on
songbirds and methods of catching and keeping them is illus-
trated with woodcuts, signed "Johannes Maivs," and beauti-
fully bound in crimson morocco, with gold tooling.
The exhibit was prepared by Carl Zangerl, a summer
assistant in the library. It represents only a small part of
the Ayer collection. Probably no other branch of science has
produced so many sumptuous and profusely illustrated books
as ornithology. Their cost is usually prohibitive to all save
the largest and finest libraries. It has been Field Museum's
good fortune since its inception to possess many of the finest
works on birds.
LAND HO Voyager Brenton enters Burnham Harbor
The Sierra Sagrada, a curious, jury-rigged craft, made of
two South American Indian dugout canoes connected by a
hand made wooden frame, arrived recently in Burnham
Harbor, near Field Museum, escorted by the Chicago Police
boat Morris Friedman. A Chicago adventurer, Francis Bren-
ton, 39, had piloted the vessel from Cartagena, Colombia,
across the Caribbean and the Gulf, up the Mississippi and
Illinois Rivers, and practically to the Museum's front door.
Brenton had been commissioned some months ago by
Chief Curator of Anthropology Donald Collier to purchase
a dugout canoe for the Museum's collection. Brenton bought
two, one a 26-footer at Santa Marta, Colombia, and a 22-
footer made by the Cuna Indians of San Bias Islands, Panama.
They were made from the hollowed-out trunks of the tropical
espave (Anacardium excelsum). Brenton's mode of delivery was
unusual. He fashioned the masts and the wooden framework
connecting the two boats himself, with only a saw and an ax.
Then, he provisioned the Sierra Sagrada and set sail for Chi-
cago. 81 days and 3,000 miles later astonished Museum offi-
cials greeted Brenton at the Burnham Yacht Club. The most
dangerous part of the trip was skirting Hurricane Alma in the
Gulf of Mexico, but the most unpleasant period, said Bren-
ton, who rather enjoyed the brush with Alma, was a period of
24 days of dead calm.
The canoes have been set up in Stanley Field Hall exactly
as they were during Brenton's voyage, and have attracted
thousands of viewers.
Sierra Sagrada appears to mean "Sacred Mountains";
however, its captain has assured Field Museum that sierra in
American Spanish also means fish, and in Colombia it is
widely used to mean "mackerel." The name of the craft,
then, given it by the builder, is "Holy Mackerel." Most
Bulletin readers will probably concur in that sentiment.
YO HEAVE HO Museum canoe specialists work with a will
SEPTEMBER Page 11
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TEENAGERS STUDY INDIAN SITE
Flossmoor dig
is climax of
Summer Program
Learning by doing, as well as through textbook and classroom lecture, made Field
Museum's Summer School in Anthropology a complete educational experience for
the 25 specially-qualified high school age students who participated. The excite-
ment of discover)- gave an added fillip to the whole process, when during a week-
long dig near Flossmoor the youngsters turned up arrow and spear points, pounding
stones, deer and wildfowl bones and clear-cut dark circles left by lodgepoles in
yellow sub-soil clay. Stuart Struever, of the Department of Anthropology of North-
western University, who with Museum staff members Harriet Smith and Edith
Fleming headed the "dig," told the youngsters that their exciting finds had been
of Indian winter communities during the period 1450-1650 .■\.d. Excavations were
on a meadow near Butterfield Creek, in an area soon to be bulldozed in preparation
for housing construction. The 25 young archaeologists and their instructors worked
in broiling sun and soaking downpour with only the shelter of a nearby Norway
maple (see above site photo) . They worked first with shovel, then below the six-
inch plough line, gently and delicately by trowel. All soil was screened in search
of artifacts and evidence of Indian occupation (in photo from left, Theresa Gentry,
Mary Doria, John Simon, Kevin Sullivan and Susan Teshima). Shown measuring
the location of a posthole (note dark circle in the clay) are Heidi Thompson and
James Demopulos. Miss Miriam Wood, Chief, Raymond Foundation, Field Mu-
seum, directed the program, which was supported by National Science Foundation.
CALENDAR OF SEPTEMBER EVENTS
September through November F.-vll Journey "M.asks,"' features American In-
dian masks, showing through exhibits how they were made and used for healing,
rainmaking and inspiring fear. Direction sheets for this self-guided tour are
available at the Museum Information Desk.
September Meeting Illinois Orchid Society. September 18 at 2 p..\!.
The Annual Orchid Show, November 19-20, at Field Mu-
seum will be discussed.
Open to members and interested non-members.
WORKSHOP {continued from page 2)
OCTOBER 29
10:30 .A.M. forages 10-13
Understanding the Earth's Features
Ernest Roscoe
A movie reviews the changes which have
occurred on the earth's surface over the
last half billion years. Work in exhibi-
tion halls covers processes which are go-
ing on all around us to change the earth's
surface.
1 :30 P.M. for ages 10-13
Life Through the Ages
Ernest Roscoe
Two of the topics covered in this work-
shop will include: how plants and ani-
mals become fossils; how to identify the
major groups. Emphasis on those groups
found in the Chicago region will be
stressed. Session will include a movie
and work with specimens.
10:30 A.w. and 1 :30 p.m. forages 8 and 9
What Is It? Animal or Vegetable?
Marie Svoboda
This workshop will ask boys and girls the
question, "What is it . . .?" A grab bag
filled with mysterious objects to be
touched or tasted or smelled will be the
main attraction. "No fair peeking!"
Boys and girls who participate need no
paper or pencil — only hands, noses, and
taste buds. A short tour in the exhibi-
tion halls will be included.
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT ROAD AT LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 60605 AC. 312, 922-9410
FOUNDED BY MARSHALL FIELD. 1893
E. Leland Webber, Director
BULLETIN
Edward G. JVash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul, Associate Editor
Page 12 SEPTEMBER
PRINTED BY FIELD MUSEUM PRESS
Volume 37, Number 10 October, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
The station is some 7,000 feet above sea level, and
it is sometimes near 40° as the men shave and pre-
pare for the day's worl<. By lunch time, the desert air
has heated to 98° in the shade — if there were shade.
SUMMER SCHOOL IN THE DESERT
High ability undergraduate students for the last two years have par-
ticipated in a summer
school of practical and
theoretical archaeology
at Field Museum's Field
Station, Vernon, Arizo-
na. This past summer,
photographer James
Ballard spent eight
weeks working at the
Station. In this issue,
the BULLETIN presents
his photographic report
on life at Vernon.
Chief Curator Emeritus of Anthropology Paul S. Martin has worked in the American south-
west for nearly forty years. His published reports on archaeological sites in New Mexico,
Colorado, and most recently, eastern Arizona have filled a dozen volumes in the Museum's
scientific series Fieldiana: Anthropology. Martin has always had students at his dig, many
of whom are now prominent on Anthropology faculties across the country. A National
Science Foundation grant two years ago allowed him to adopt a more formal educational
program in connection with his research into Southwestern prehistory. This year, 16 under-
graduates and graduates came to Vernon, population twenty-five. Nearest large towns are
Flagstaff, Arizona, and Gallup, New Mexico, both over a hundred miles across the desert.
The day in the field be-
gins with a Branden-
burg Concerto at 6 AM.
On a loudspeaker. Bach
is as effective as a bugle
and, no doubt, a more
valuable cultural expe-
rience. After breakfast
(COVER) and morning
chores, the trucks are
loaded for the fifty-mile
trip to the site.
Page 2 OCTOBER
Dr. Martin and Chris White check ero-
sion data for the area. Students were
responsible for individual research proj-
ects as well as the general work on the
dig. White worked on soil analysis.
Below, students use a tetrapod sifter.
The 1966 site was called Hay
Hollow. A village of five houses
was excavated. 200 storage pits
were dug and the contents sifted
for material remains. The work
combines classical methods of
archaeology with modern tech-
niques of statistics, chemical soil
analysis and fossil pollen studies,
to determine not only the details
of the society, but also the cli-
mate and wildlife at the time the
site was occupied. At top, John
Fritz surveys the area; beneath, a
student measures a storage pit
in preparation for sectioning.
The arrow points north and the
meter stick indicates scale for the
photographic record.
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Middle photograph shows two students carefully excavating storage pits. Charcoal
found in the pits gave radio-carbon dates ranging from 500 B.C. to A.D. 200, thus
giving the tentative time range of site occupation. Above, left. Robert Blankmann
takes notes on the distribution of bifacial stone tools, such as knives and scrapers,
collecting data for his research project. Right, student Brantley Jackson uses a sift-
ing table, searching for stone artifacts.
OCTOBER Page 3
The students worked long
and hard on their individual
research projects. John
Zilien checks the distribu-
tion of fire-cracked rock
from the site. Presence of
this rock enabled the party
to predict the location of
cooking activities and then
dig for fire- pits.
Above, Thomas Volman reports on his
work. Volman studied stone grinding
tools found at the site. The Indians used
these tools to grind corn, nuts, grasses —
as well as decorative pigments.
Bull sessions among students and staff
helped clear up many questions. Con-
versation in the bunkhouse, r/ght, took
place before an exam.
Top, student plotting results of field
data on site map. Above, Dr. Martin
looks on as students use an aerial sur-
vey map of Hay Hollow to locate the
various geological features of the area.
Among the five guest lecturers
who came to the Field Station was
Dr. Douglas Schwartz of the Uni-
versity of Kentucky who talked
about problems involved in mak-
ing cultural inferences from ar-
chaeological data.
Don Crabtree, Idaho State Univer-
sity, is one of two men in the world
able to chip stone tools exactly like
stone age tools. A set of stone
skinning tools made by him this
summer were used to skin a bear.
Miss Vorsila Bohrer, University of
Arizona, lectured on the uses of
fossil pollen in site analysis, indi-
cating that the shape of a grain of
pollen provides clues to climate.
Page 4 OCTOBER
The group visited the University of Arizona
Field School at Grasshopper, Arizona, su-
pervised by Assistant Professor William
Longacre, a former student and associate
of Dr. Martin, who spent six summers with
Martin in the field. At right, students ex-
amine the Grasshopper site, a pueblo of a
later era than the Hay Hollow site.
Participation in community activities was
an important part of the life at the Field
Station; below, student I. B. Remsen plays
guitar at Vernon Day celebration.
An evening bull session on the day's work. Dr. Martin and students listen as former Vernon student Dr. James Hill, now
Associate Director of the Summer Program and Assistant Professor at UCLA, makes a point.
The response to the summer program, which has been supported by the Undergraduate Research Participation Program of
National Science Foundation, has been enthusiastic. The program provides an introduction to field work which many
students formerly did not receive until well along in their graduate training. The educational value to the students is balanced
by their own contributions to the continuing work on the prehistory of the American Southwest.
OCTOBER Page 5
Sheep dot
an Afghan hillside
^Vli^t^Vj
BY Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator, Zoology and Jerry D
The most important scientific mammal collection ever made
in Afghanistan is the result of the 1965 Field Museum
expedition financed and led by Mr. and Mrs. William S.
Street. Two thousand specimens of about 86 species were
shipped to the Museum for study. These represent all
parts of Afghanistan and will become a permanent part
of the worWs collections. Senior Expedition Fellow Jerry
Hassinger is now engaged in the preparation of a general
account of the expedition and a scientific report on the ter-
restrial mammals. The present article is a general over-
view of the kinds of mammal life to be found in Afghanis-
tan, and those actually collected bv the expedition.
j^FGHANiSTAN LIES SANDWICHED between Soviet Russia
■ / 1 and \Vest Pakistan, where the western end of the
t/ great mountains of Asia tail away to the Persian
plateau. It is a country' of great mountains and deep val-
leys, the highest peak reaching 23,000 feet and the lowest
point occurring at only 500 feet, for Afghanistan does not
descend to the sea. The low rainfall, 3 to 20 inches a year,
falls mostly in winter. Thus this land, with its huge stretches
of steppe and desert, is part of the great arid belt that runs
from Arabia to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Much of Af-
ghanistan is treeless, except in oases or in the mountains of
the east, which receive some rain from the Indian monsoons.
View after view recalls the scenery of our American West.
The strategic position of Afghanistan has invited both the
inroads and influences of other cultures through the centuries.
The Greeks under Alexander marched through; Genghis
Khan and his Mongols invaded in the 13th century; the old
silk route that ran from Peking to Damascus had branches
here; troubles with tribesmen led the British to force the
. H.\ssiNGER, Senior Expedition Fellow
Khyber Pass in the early 19th century. Today, Russia and
the United States are both engaged in aid programs.
Just as the country's geographic position has made it a
crossroads of history and culture, it has also acted to draw
animal life from neighboring faunal regions. Most zoogeog-
raphers place the fauna of Afghanistan in the same general
region as that of the temperate and arctic zones of .\sia,
Europe and North America — the Holarctic. In addition,
Afghanistan lies close enough to the southern edge of the
Holarctic zone to receive influxes from two other faunal re-
gions, the Oriental of India, and the Ethiopian of Africa and
Arabia. It was this varied fauna, reflecting influences from
several regions, that the Street expedition set out to study.
Many of the animals observed by the expedition are fa-
miliar to .■\merican eyes. Among these the wolves, red foxes,
and weasels are actually of the same species we have. Others
of different species, but similar enough to be recognized, in-
clude a hare (much like our jack rabbit), a pika (like the little
rock rabbit that stores hay in the Rockies), a ground squirrel,
a marmot (very like our woodchuck), a vole (a meadow
mouse type), a lynx (plainer and with larger ear tufts than
ours), and a red deer (similar to our elk). There is also a
bear which, like our black bear, comes in color phases.
Among animals familiar to Europeans is the hedgehog, a
prickly beast that rolls into a ball for protection when dis-
turbed. It was commonly seen on Afghan roads and was
given special attention by the expedition's Medical Entomol-
ogist, Dr. Robert E. Lewis of Beirut because of the abundance
and variety of its ectoparasites. Sana Atallah, Expedition
Preparator, skinned what is surely the world's most valuable
collection of this spiny species.
The cats are represented by the tiger of India, the snow
leopard of Asia and four wildcats which are more like our
domestic tabby than our bobcat.
Page 6 OCTOBER
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A rather peculiar inustelid is the marbled polecat, dark
brown marbled and spotted with white, which only vaguely
recalls our spotted skimk. It is alleged to rob graves. The
expedition found it secretive; the only specimen taken was
killed by a workman with a shovel.
Among the hoofed animals encountered, is a honey-col-
ored donkey, the onager, with a narrow black dorsal stripe.
A wild boar occurs, similar to that of Europe, and like the
one introduced into the Tennessee mountains for hunting.
In neighboring Pakistan, these animals are on the increase
and have been quite harmful to crops. The pale, slender
gazelle of the desert recalls Africa, where the group has many
species. There are three species of goats: one probably in-
volved in the ancestry of our domestic goat; one with long,
spirally-twisted horns; and another, the ibex, with a magnifi-
cent sweep of horns, whose range reaches west as far as Spain.
The sheep with the finest horns in the world — Marco Polo's
sheep — occur in the Russian Pamirs and in the far northeast
of Afghanistan. The expedition was unable to secure a speci-
men of this species, and got only the common species which
is probably involved in the ancestry of domestic sheep.
Rodents are often equated only with rats and mice. Af-
ghanistan has its share of these, but there are other types of
rodents as well. Of these, the porcupine is the most striking.
It is prickly like our porcupine, but more so. It has a greater
number of quills, some of which reach 1 2 inches in length.
The desert jerboas are remarkable, long-tailed, jumping ro-
dents recalling the kangaroo rats of the United States. This
similarity is due not to relationship, but to convergent adap-
tation to desert conditions. Seldom are rodents or their works
conspicuous, but the Afghan great gerbil {Rhombomys) is an
exception. Though a rather undistinguished, pale colored,
rat-like animal, its burrows in the hillsides are so plentiful
that in places they give a conspicuous pattern of dots to the
terrain. Often these slopes are further marked by horizontal
lines of the trails worn by countless sheep.
Among the smaller rodents is a subterranean vole, with a
mole-like fur (moles do not occur here) . The migratory ham-
ster is related to the golden one that has found favor both as a
children's pet and as a laboratory animal for experimental
purposes. The dormouse, a climbing mouse with a bushy
tail, is perhaps most widely known for sleeping through the
Mad Hatter's tea party in "Alice in Wonderland." Its name
derives from the fact that it hibernates through the winter.
In the holly oaks and cedars of the mid-altitudes of the
eastern part of the country, the monkey Macaca mulalta still
occurs. This is the common monkey of experimental labora-
tories. One difficulty in getting specimens was that, despite
its destruction of crops, the local people fear it. They believe
that if one is killed, the remaining monkeys will assemble to
wreak their vengeance. The species is Indian, and is at the
northwest limit of its range here.
The hyena, on the other hand, of an African group reach-
ing to India, approaches the northeastern limit of its range in
Afghanistan. Afghans use hyenas for sport, catching them
alive and pitting them against dogs in their form of "bear
baiting."
The many species of bats, perhaps three dozen, from caves,
rock crevices, and houses, are very confusing. One can see
that some are larger, some smaller, some paler or darker,
with long or short ears, with complicated or simple fleshy
patterns about the nostrils. A special report on these crea-
tures is being prepared by Expedition Fellow Hans Neuhauser.
It is likely to require many additional months of study to
deal with the large quantity of material brought back from
Afghanistan by the Street Expedition. These specimens have
added notably to the Museum's collection of source material
on this zoogeographically interesting area.
OCTOBER Page 7
CALENDAR OF OCTOBER EVENTS
October hours. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. .Admission Jree to members and their guests.
October through November Fall Journey, Masks
Features American Indian masks, showing through exhibits, how they were
made and used for healing, rainiiiaking and inspiring fear. Direction sheets
for this self-guided tour available at information booth.
October 1-31 Art Forms in Nature, a High School Exhibit
Work produced in this summer's ".'\ction Seminar in Art," a Board of Educa-
tion program for selected students from Chicago Public High Schools. Mosaic,
tie-die, batik and stitchery are shown in Hall 9 Gallery.
October 1 Movie: Wildlife At Your Doorstep
Close-up look at the world of nature with commentary by Howard L. Orians.
Octobers Movie; Incredible Iceland
Robert Davis speaks on his film of this surprising country.
October 1 5 Slide show : Field Museum Expedition to Afghanistan
William and Janice Street discuss color slides of their zoological expedition.
October 22 Movie: Morocco
The country's ancient past and present in a film narrated by Nicol Smith.
October 29 Movie: Switzerland
Philip Walker speaks on this land of variety and contrast.
Programs at 2:30p.m. in James Simpson Theatre; members' reserved seats held until 2:25.
OCTOBER MEETINGS
Meetings open to members
and interested non-members.
Chicago Shell Club, October 9 at 2 p.m.
Dr. Alan Solem, Curator. Lower Invertebrates, will
discuss shell names.
Illinois Orchid Society, October 16 at 2 p.m.
Illinois Audubon Society, October 30 at 2:30 p.m.
Inherit the Wind, a D. J. Nelson film, will be shown.
FASHIONS BENEFIT RAYMOND FOUNDATION
THE CHILDREN PARTICIPATING in Field Museum educational programs were the
prime beneficiaries of Marshall Field & Company's premiere presentation of its
Fall 1966 Designer Collection. The show, which was arranged jointly by Marshall
Field & Company and the newly organized W^omen's Board of Field Museum,
was the principal fashion event of the autumn season. The showing was widely
reported and commented upon in the press and on television. Presented in early
September in the Mayfair Room of the Sheraton-Blackstone Hotel, it was pre-
ceded by cocktails and luncheon.
Mrs. Gordon Lang headed the committee of tlic Woincn's Board which made
Mrs. Gordon Lang, Benefit Chairman. At right, models show a part oj the collection
against a background depicting the Sir John Soane Museum in London.
arrangements and handled invitations and ticket sales. She was assisted by Mrs.
Gaylord Donnelley, benefit co-chairman, and Mrs. Wallace D. Mackenzie, pub-
licity chairman. The entire proceeds went to the Raymond Foundation, an edu-
cational division of Field Museum.
THREE NEW TRUSTEES NAMED
Three new members were named to
the Board of Trustees of Field Museum
at the Board's September meeting.
They are William R. Dickinson, Jr.,
Marshall Field and Gerald A. Sivage.
Mr. Dickinson,
president of the
Chicago Zoological
Society, is secre-
tary of the Hospital
.Association of Lake
Forest and of the
Schweppe Founda-
tion, a director of
Children's Memo- Wm. R. Dickinson, Jr.
Marshall Field
Gerald .\. Sivage
rial Hospital and on the Lake Forest
Board of Education. He is a partner in
the legal firm of Wilson & Mcllvaine.
Mr. Field, who is the fifth of his name
to serve the Museum, returned to Chi-
cago last year, after military training and
work with the .Xew York Herald Tribune,
to become assistant to the general man-
ager of the Newspaper Division of Field
Enterprises, Inc. His great-great-grand-
father, Marshall Field, founded the Mu-
seum and was one of its principal bene-
factors. Mr. Field is the fourth Mar-
shall Field to have served on the Board.
Mr. Sivage, president of Marshall
Field & Co., is a trustee of Northwestern
University, Carroll College and the Or-
chestral Association. He was named
president of Marshall Field & Co. in
1964, the ninth man to hold that office.
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT ROAD AT LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 60605 A.C. 312. 922-9410
FOUNDED BY MARSHALL FIELD. 1883
E. Leland Webber, Director
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul, Associate Editor
Page 8 OCTOBER
Volume 37, Number 11 November, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
mong the most fa-
mous of the 18 th
century naturaHsts was the
artist-ornithologist to whom
the great Linnaeus wrote,
"Your performances are
A llegorical Jron tispiece and facing
title-page of George Edwards' A NA TURAL
HISTORY OF UNCOMMON BIRDS
The seal on the title-page is the Copley Gold
Medal, which the Royal Society
awarded him in recognition oj this work.
an ornament to the age in
George Edwards was born at Stratford, in Essex, England,
on April 3rd, 1694. His parents had decided on a business
career for him and apprenticed him to a tradesman. In the
middle of this term of apprenticeship his master fell heir to a
large collection of books that had been gathered together by
one of his relatives, a well-known physician. These books
were housed in Edwards' room and the perusal of them turned
his interest from trade to literature and science. In the rare
volume that is the source of much of our information about
him, Some memoirs oj the life and works oj George Edwards (Lon-
don, 1776), published and probably written by the bookseller
J. Robson, we learn that "He availed himself of this unex-
Page2 NOVEMBER
— FROM THE Museum's
pected incident, and passed all the leisure of the day, and not
infrequently a considerable part of the night, in turning over
this collection of natural history, sculpture, painting, astron-
omy, and antiquities."
Upon the expiration of his apprenticeship he decided to
travel into foreign lands "to improve his taste, and enlarge
his mind." He visited Holland in 1716, and in subsequent
years, Norway and France. In the latter country he jour-
neyed on foot to Orleans and Blois "in a disguised habit" to
avoid robbers and highwaymen. Unfortunately, an edict
was issued at that time "to secure vagrants, in order to trans-
port [them] to America, as the banks of the Mississippi
, N A TAJ Rk;L H I S T O R TT "^
O F
Uncommon BIRDS,
QUADRUPEDES,
REPTILES,
AND O V
Some other Rare and Undefcribed A N I M A
PC FISHES.
Si I N s E c T s, er<-.
Exhibi:cil in Two HuBitred anil Ten Coppn-Pi-ATESt
From Dcfigns copied iiTiinciliiitcIy from Nature, and corioiifly cok>urrd aj^ Ltrc.^
With J full wd tccurxe Deftiiptioa of eich FIGURE.
To which 11 tMtd.
A Brief and General Klea of Hkawinu and Paihtjno in ffal/r-Ctlnm i with laftru^iiAt
lor ETtHisG on Cop|ier vith ///»,; Pmiii. Likewife (aaue ThMgbtt aa the Pa<iau£ ur
Birds; aiid Auditions to many of tfie Siibjectj dcfcribed in this Woiir.
in Four PARTS.
' By GEORGE EDWARDS,
Lihurs-Kerftr to tlx Roml-ColLgt of PHYSICIANS.
LONDON:
Printed for the Awthor, at the Cs/igf o) Pb}J!dam, in Uaneick-Lmi,
which we Hve."
R.\RE BOOK COLLECTION, THE WoRKS OF GeORGE EdWARDS, BY W. PeYTON FaWCETT, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN
wanted population; and our author narrowly escaped a west-
ern voyage."
Once safely back in England he applied himself to the
study of natural history and to the practice of drawing and
coloring from nature. His early essays in drawing birds were
so well received that he was encouraged to continue and
gradually, by the sale of his work and by teaching, he ob-
tained a good living and a large number of friends and patrons.
One of the latter, Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Col-
lege of Physicians of London and physician to the king, rec-
ommended Edwards for the position of Library-Keeper, or
librarian, of the College. He was appointed in December,
1733, and given rooms in the College. "This office," we
read, "was peculiarly agreeable to his taste and inclination,
as he had the opportunity of a constant recourse to a valuable
library, filled with scarce and curious books on the subjects
of natural history, which he so assiduously studied."
In 1743 he published, somewhat reluctantly, the first part
of his A natural history of uncommon birds, and of some other rare
and undescribed animals, containing engravings and descriptions
of 61 birds and 2 quadrupeds, most of which had not been
delineated or described before. He tells us in his preface:
"I was discouraged, upon first thinking of this work, at the
great expense of graving, printing, and other things, which
NOVEMBER Page 3
I knew would be a certain cost attended with a very uncertain
profit, [until] my good friend Mr. Catesby (Mark Catesby,
1680?-1749, the author of the celebrated Natural history of
Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands) put ine on etching
my plates myself, as he had done in his works; and not only so,
but invited me to see him work at etching, and gave me all
the necessan' hints and instructions to proceed. . . . When
I had practiced a little while, I resolved to do such new and
uncommon birds as I had in my possession, since I saved ex-
penses and only employed my time."
His fears proved groundless, for the work was a great suc-
cess. He still, however, retained his reluctance to publish and
seems to have considered each part of this work the last.
Part 2 appeared in 1747; part 3 in 1750; part 4 in 1751. A
French translation "for the use of foreigners" was subse-
quently issued for each part.
The final part of this work is particularly famous for
its dedication: "To God ... By his most resigned, low, and
humble creature, George Edwards." This has shocked some
people and amused others; partially, I think, because the
dedication is in part 4, the others being dedicated to 1 , The
President and Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians;
2, Sir Hans Sloane; 3, The President, Council, and Fellows
of the Royal Society. Edwards explains in his preface that
"if a man would offer any thing to the Supreme Being of the
Universe, that is the mere production of his mind, I think
what is last produced by him ought to be accounted the most
perfect; for which reason I have offered and dedicated to God
the last work of this kind that I intend to perform."
For this work he was voted the Copley gold medal by the
Royal Society, given annually to the author of any new dis-
covery in art or nature. A few years later Edwards was
elected a fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of
Antiquaries, London. He was also made a member of vari-
ous continental academies of science and learning.
His A natural history oj uncommon birds was not, however, to
be Edwards' last production of this kind. In 1758 he con-
tinued the work, for obvious reasons under a new title:
Gleanings of natural history, with text in French and English
in parallel columns. Part 2 appeared in 1760. He gives us,
in the preface to it, a wonderful insight into why he found it
necessary to continue: ''Tho' I have no design to publish any
thing more in natural history, yet sometimes, when new and
curious subjects offer themselves, my strong passion for that
study makes me desirous to take drawings of them. . . ." In
this same preface he makes this petition to God: ". . . that
he would remove from me all desire of pursuing natural his-
tory, or any other study, and inspire me with as much knowl-
edge of His Divine Nature as my imperfect state is capable
of. . . ." This was not to be, for the third and final part
followed in due course, being published in 1764. Here he
makes his last farewell, "my age requiring it."
In 1769 he resigned his office, purchased a little house in
Plaistow, Essex, and sold the remaining copies and the plates
of all his works to J. Robson. The following year Robson
brought out a volume titled Essays which consists chiefly of
the prefaces and introductions to Edwards' works, to which
were added instructions for drawing, painting, and etching.
His last years were spent quietly among his friends.
Our library possesses a letter of his to the Welsh naturalist,
Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), dated March 26, 1772, that
gives us a touching picture of him in old age: "Good sir. If
you remember, I promised to bequeath you a large oil paint-
ing of the American pelican by Cha: Colings, but I have
considered that it may give you some trouble to procure it
after I am departed this life. I choose rather to send it
directly to any place in London where you would have it
lodged. I am obliged to remove from Physicians' College to
make room for a person lately chosen into the office [i.e. li-
brarian] who wants the whole apartment for his family. In
moving my things I believe there are some odd things that
you would like to have, and I [am] unwilling they should be
swept away to brokers after my death. I am obliged to you
for your kind inquiry after my health by your engraver.
Your [tour] in Scotland [i.e. Pennant's A tour in Scotland] has
yielded me more agreeable entertainment than any book of
the kind published of late years. If you will please to favor
me with a line or two, the picture above said shall be lodged
as you direct. After the first of May I shall be at my house
at Plaistow in Essex. In the meantime, or at any time, post
letters will be taken in directed to me at the College of Phy-
sicians, London. I hope this will find you and your family
in good health. I remain, good sir, your obliged and most
humble servant, George Edwards." He died, of cancer, at
Plaistow on July 23rd, 1773, aged 79.
Our library is the fortunate possessor of a rich collection
of Edwards' works. They are part of the magnificent library
of ornithological books given to the Museum by Mr. Edward
E. Ayer, the first President of the Board of Trustees. Most of
the information to follow is culled from John Todd Zimmer's
excellent Catalogue of the Edward E. Ayer Ornithological Library
(Chicago, 1926).
Our copies of the first editions of A natural history oJ uncom-
mon birds (1743-51) and Gleanings oJ natural history (1758-64)
are of unusual interest in that they belonged to Thomas Pen-
nant and contain many notes and some personalia. The
Latin naine of each species of bird, according to John Latham's
Index ornithologicus, is written in at the bottom of each plate in
Pennant's hand, and a manuscript index of these names is
laid in. The set is enriched with several extra plates, includ-
ing one, "the great pied mountain finch or bramlin, 1739,"
which Pennant cites as "Edwards first essay towards etching
a bird." The letter previously quoted is also included.
The library possesses a second edition of both titles with
the same dates on the title-pages, but with many changes in
the text. The illustrations, if any were published with this
edition, are lacking and are replaced by water-colored copies
by an unknown artist. The French translation of A natural
history oj uncommon birds, Histoire naturelle d'oiseaux peu communs
(London, 1745-51) is bound in with this set.
A posthumous edition of Edwards' two works, dated
1802-03, but probably published in 1805 or 1806, is in our
collection. Only 25 copies of this "large paper" edition were
issued.
A German translation, by G. L. Huth, of Edwards' two
works, together with Catesby's Natural history of Carolina,
Paged NOVEMBER
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Thomas Pennant cites the great pied mountain finch {left) as Edwards''
first essay towards etching a bird." The original is bound into the
Library's copy of "History of Birds," once owned by Pennant. Beloiv,
a characteristic letter from Edwards to Pennant, written in 1772.
Florida, and the Bahama Islands, was published in Nuremberg
between 1749 and 1776 as Sammlung verschiedenen auslandischer
und seltener Vogel. We do not have a copy of this work, but
we do have a Dutch translation of it. It was translated by
Martinus Houttuyn and published in Amsterdam, 1772 to
1781, as Verzameling van uitlandsche en zeldzaame vogelen.
Also included in our collection is the volume of memoirs
mentioned earlier. With it is bound Linnaeus' A catalogue of
the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, plants, &c. contained in Edwards's
natural history (London, 1776).
In the preparation of these works Edwards set himself two
main goals: to produce text and plates that were accurate,
and to produce at the same time plates that were aestheti-
cally pleasing. As a naturalist, he writes "They who draw
after nature, on account of natural history, should represent
things justly and according to nature. . . ." The text should
also conform to this rule. "In describing natural things noth-
ing ought to be omitted, that is any way remarkable, and may
fix and establish the character of the thing described, so as
plainly to distinguish it from all other things. . . ." The in-
formation given should be based on observation and should
be written up as such. Information received from others or
derived from books should be properly cited so that it can be
verified. As an artist, he writes, "I have made the drawings
of these birds directly from nature, and have, for variety's
sake, given them as many different turns and attitudes as I
could invent: this I chose the rather to do, because I know
great complaint hath been made, that a late writer on birds
had given his birds no variety of posture, but that they were
direct profiles standing in the same position, which sameness
is disagreeable. I observed also in his trees, stumps, and
grounds, a poorness of invention; therefore to amend that
part in mine, I have taken counsel and assistance of some
painters my particular friends, in order to make the work
not only as natural and agreeable as I could in the sub-
ject matter, but to decorate the birds with airy grounds,
having some little invention in them: the better to set off"
the whole, I have in a few plates, where the birds were very
small, added some foreign insects to fill up the naked spaces
in the plates . . ."
How well he succeeded is best siunmed up, I think, by
Linnaeus. In a letter to Edwards, dated March 20th, 1758,
thanking him for a gift of some pre-publication plates, he
writes "Nothing can more conduce to the advancement of
solid natural knowledge, than such beautiful and excellent
figures, accompanied by such exact descriptions." Again
on April 13th, 1764 he writes "I congratulate you on the
acquisition of such beautiful and innumerable rare birds,
beyond what any other person has seen, or is likely to meet
with; still less is any other hand likely to equal your repre-
sentations, in which nothing is wanting to the birds but their
song. Yet even these will sing your praise, as long as birds
or men endure."
NOVEMBER Page 5
recent acquisitions — zoology
BIERIG COLLECTION OF ROVE BEETLES
One of the notable research collections of the Division of
Insects, that of the rove beetles or Staphylinidae, has been
augmented by the recent acquisition of the Alexander Bierig
Collection, numbering about 26,000 specimens.
The rove beetles form one of the largest families of living
things. More than 30,000 species have been named, and at
least again as many are still to be described. The museum's
study collection of these insects, which now approaches a
quarter of a million specimens, includes more than half of
the described species and ranks among the several most im-
portant in the world.
Alexander Bierig was born in Karlsruhe, Germany. An
accomplished artist, he illustrated books and magazines. He
was also an ardent amateur entomologist and specialized in
the study of ground beetles (Carabidae). In 1923, at the age
of 39, he emigrated to Havana, Cuba. There his entomolog-
ical interests turned to the rove beetles. Between 1939 and
1940, he wrote 27 papers dealing with this family, and de-
scribed more than 150 new species.
Through correspondence, Bierig became a friend of Ferdi-
nand Nevennann, the "father" of Costa Rican entomology.
In 1938, while on a collecting trip with Nevermann in Costa
Rica, he was seriously wounded in a hunting accident that
was fatal to Nevermann. He returned to Costa Rica in 1939
and established permanent residence there. Soon, he be-
came Professor of Entomology at the University of Costa
Rica in San Jose.
During his early years in Costa Rica, Bierig turned his
attention to the Pselaphidae and published one short paper
dealing with these beetles. However, most of the papers he
wrote as a professional entomologist dealt with the biology
and control of insects injurious to tropical crops.
Bierig retired from the University in 1950. He continued
painting, producing some outstanding works and lived quietly
until his death in 1963 at the age of 79, following a long ill-
ness. After his death, his collections and library suffered
considerable damage and loss. However, his arranged col-
lection of Staphylinidae and Pselaphidae was still largely safe
when Dr. Rupert L. Wenzel, Curator of Insects, and Mrs.
W'enzel went to Costa Rica in July to make final purchase
arrangements and prepare the collection for shipment.
Two of the many fine drawings of beetles made by Bierig which were
included in the collection of specimens. At right. Assistant Michael
Prokop and Dr. Wenzel unpacking part of the collection.
Page 6 NOVEMBER
THE
STRENGTH
OF THE
TRIBE
by James Webb Young
Mr. Toung, an Associate Member of Field Museum, has been
deeply interested in Indian affairs for many years. He was
a member of the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board, De-
partment of the Interior, for a quarter-century and also belonged
to the Indian Defense Association. He recalls here a trip made
many years ago to the sacred country of the Taos Pueblo Indians.
The story is pertinent today, for the Taos tribe is still engaged
in its 60-year battle to preserve the religious character of the
land, described by a member of the Taos Pueblo Council, Seve-
rino Martinez, as "the most important of all our shrines because
it is a part of our life, it is our Indian church."
■&^^j
FRO.M TIME IMMEMORIAL thc 1 aos Indians of New Mexico
have lived on a high plateau at the base of the Sangre de
Crista mountains.
From an area of some 50,000 acres in these mountains,
known as Blue Lake, comes all the strength of this tribe.
When one visits the Taos pueblo — as increasing numbers
of tourists do today — it is easy to see in the clear mountain
stream flowing through its plaza, how here "water rights"
translate into "life's blood," for both domestic use and the
irrigation of food fields.
But what is not so easy for us of an increasingly urbanized
and industrialized society to understand is the passion of the
Taos Indians for preserving the sanctity of the high mountain
Blue Lake area whence these waters flow. For here also are
the shrines, altars, and cathedral aisles of a religion which is
inextricably woven into the fabric of Taos life.
Chief among the sacred and secret ceremonies held in the
Blue Lake area are the annual rites which induct the boys
into the tribe, after months of instruction and training.
In the summer of 1926 these ceremonies came under attack
from some misguided missionaries, who charged that they
were "pagan, sadistic, and obscene" — although no white man
had ever viewed them. And this brought a threat from gov-
ernment agents to prohibit these ceremonies, thus striking at
the very heart of the tribe's life.
Hence, almost in desperation, the tribal Council decided
that their only salvation might be to have some trusted white
witnesses to the coming Blue Lake ceremonies of that year.
And for that purpose they invited John Collier, then Execu-
tive Secretary of the American Indian Defense Association,
and myself, a member of that association, to accompany them.
For these ceremonies almost the whole tribe, except the
very old and very young, make a two-day trek into the moun-
tains, on horseback or afoot. We were to follow them, with
horses, camp outfit, and guides provided by the Council.
The photo at the left was taken on that trip. In it, I am at
the left and John Collier is in the center. The other two men
are guides.
When we arrived at the first night's camp the sun had
gone down, and a light rain was falling. But we found a
place set aside for us on the rim of a vast glade, in a grove of
aspen trees so large they suggested cathedral columns. And
all around the circle of this glade the Indian campfires were
already brightly burning, suppers being cooked, horses stamp-
ing and neighing, and friendly voices chattering.
Our own fire was soon added, with stew and cofTee pots
going. Supper was eaten, and cigarettes lighted. Then sud-
denly, as though an order had been given, or a curtain come
down, a pin-drop silence settled over the glade. And our
guides were called to a conference out in its center.
The Cacique, head of the religious hierarchy of the tribe,
had challenged the right of the Council to invite us to an
essentially religious cermony. And, as the conference had
been unable to resolve the issue, it was submitted to us.
We at once said that we were not there to create dissen-
sion; we were sure our horses could find their way down the
trail; and so we would saddle up and leave.
"No," was the reply. All were agreed that we could stay
for that night's ceremonies, but should leave in the morning.
So, that being accepted, it was as though the curtain had
gone up again. The camp came to life, wood was added to all
the fires, and in their light the ceremonies began.
These consisted of dance after dance, with varying inter-
vals of complete silence in between. Some dances included
men, women, and children. Some men alone. Some with
large groups, some with smaller. But all with the drum beat-
ing the rhythm, and most with the deep-toned men's chorus
in the background. No dance, however, that either Collier
or I could remember ever having seen before.
And so it went, throughout the night, in the light of the
fires around the glade, framed by the towering white aspen.
Until the finale. There had been a longer period of silence
than usual — perhaps half an hour — and all the fires had died
down. Then, just as the first gleam of dawn showed through
the aspens, out into the center of the glade came the shadowy
figure of one man. And there, without drum or chorus, he
delivered a solo invocation to the rising sun — ending just as
its color began to streak the sky.
After that there was only profound silence again until the
sun was fully up. Then all at once the glade was filled with
the bustle of breaking camp. The Indians saddled up, as did
we. They went up the mountains, and we went down — en-
abled to testify only to a night of sylvan magic and beauty.
NOVEMBER Page 7
JAMES W. VAN STONE JOINS MUSEUM STAFF
fames W. \'anStone has joined the staff of the Museum as Associate Curator of
North American Archaeology and Ethnology. Dr. VanStone, born in Chicago,
studied at Oberlin College and the University of Pennsylvania, and has served on
the faculties of the University of Alaska and the University of Toronto.
His major research interest is in the cultures of the Indians and Eskimo of Alaska
and northwestern Canada. He is at present involved in a long-range research proj-
ect on the Eskimo of southwestern Alaska.
Dr. VanStone has published widely in journals, and serves as editor for several
anthropology journals. He is the author of three books, the most recent of which
is The Ethno- Archaeology oj Crow Village, Alaska {Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulle-
tin 199. Washington) which is in press at this writing.
CURATOR INGER HOLDS NSF BIOLOGY POST
Robert F. Inger, Curator, Reptiles and Amphibians, on leave from the Museum for
one year as of September 1 , 1966, is currently holding the post of Program Director
for Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Inger's appoint-
ment to this post follows three years of service as a member, from 1962 to 1965, of
the environmental biology panel, a body of scientists which reviews grant proposals
and makes recommendations to the Program Director concerning them.
Dr. Inger, on the Museum staff since 1946, has been Curator of Amphibians and
Reptiles since 1954. Among his most recently published works is The Sjstematics
and Evolution of the Oriental Colubrid Snakes oj the Genus Calamaria (with co-author
Hymen Marx), Volume 49 of the Museum's Fieldiana: Zoology series.
CONCERT SERIES OPENS AT MUSEUM
The Museum is pleased to host the second series of Showcase of Music Concerts
presented by the Indiana University School of Music. The concerts, to be pre-
sented at 8:15 p.m. on four Tuesday evenings in the James Simpson Theatre, will
open on November 15th with the Berkshire Quartet, an internationally famous
string ensemble, about which N. T. Times music critic Harold Schonberg wrote,
"one of the finest (chamber music groups) in action."
Other concerts scheduled to be given are by The Indiana University Opera Trio
on December 13th, The Baroque Chamber Players on February 28th, and The
Indiana University Jazz Ensemble on April 18th.
Advance tickets for the concerts are available at no cost by writing the Museum.
CALENDAR OF NOVEMBER EVENTS
Museum open during November from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. weekdays, until 5 p.m. on vueekends.
November 12 Movie: Mysteries of the Balkan World
Producer Gene Wiancko narrates his colorful travel film.
November 15 Concert: The Berkshire Quartet
First of four concerts presented by Indiana University School of Music.
8:15 p.m. in James Simpson Theatre. Write or phone museum for advance tickets.
November 19 Movie: Ojibvvay Country
Combines rugged adventure of the life of northern Ontario's Indians and the
beauties of their wilderness home. Made and narrated by David Jarden.
November 1 9-20 Orchid Show
Illinois Orchid Society's annual show exhibits hundreds of flowering plants in
dramatic settings, all labeled with scientific and common names. Hall 9.
November 26 Movie: Only in Portugal
Religious shrines, wine-making country and big cities. Gerald Hooper narrates.
Movies at 2:30 p.m. in James Simpson Theatre; members^ reserved seats held until 2:25.
Chicago Shell Club, November 13 at 2 p.m.
Lecture by Mrs. Betty Lou Girardi
Illinois Audubon Society, November 20 at 2 :30 p.m.
The film, Island Treasure, will be shown.
NOVEMBER MEETINGS
Meetings open to club members
and interested non-members.
Board of Trustees Adds Member,
William Swartchiid, Jr.
The election of William G. Swartchiid,
Jr., to the Board of Trustees of Field
Museum of Natural History, has been
announced by James L. Palmer, Presi-
dent. The action was taken at the Oc-
tober meeting of the Board.
Mr. Swartchiid is president of Swart-
chiid & Co.
He is a national advisory board mem-
ber and national council representative
of the American Ordnance Association
and a director of the Chicago Post of the
same organization. During the second
world war he served with the Army Ord-
nance Corps, and is at present a lieuten-
ant-colonel in the Ordnance Corps of
the U. S. Army Reserve.
A director of Illinois Blue Cross, he is
also an officer and
director of Chil-
dren's Memorial
Hospital, a director
of Michael Reese
Hospital and Med-
ical Center and a
director of the
Mid-America
Club.
Mr. Swartchiid, a native Chicagoan,
is also a member of the Home Care Steer-
ing Committee of the Visiting Nurses
Association. He has served as Chair-
man of the Elxecutive Committee of the
Health Division of the Welfare Council
of Metropolitan Chicago, and of the
Health Reviewing Committee of the
Community Fund.
Mr. Swartchiid is the sixth new mem-
ber to join the Board of Trustees this
year. His election brings its member-
ship to 26. Until 1966 the Board was
limited to 21 members, but a change in
the by-laws now sets a maximum of 27
members.
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT ROAD AT LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 60605 AC. 312. 922-9410
FOUNDED BY MARSHALL FIELD, 1893
E. Leland Webber, Director
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul, Associate Editor
PRINTED BY FIELD MUSEU.M PRESS
Pages NOVEMBER
-'-fc i.
i m
>
"'ifi.M-
J. K. SM»LL J
FLORA OF SOUTHCNN PCNNSVLVAMIA.
j/":/- •J/^tj e^iuM^'^iL
Volume 37, Number 12 December, 1966
BULLETIN FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
A curious historical event which tooi< place on an artificial lake near Paris almost
exactly 1 20 years ago is commemorated at the Museum by a small temporary exhibit
in Stanley Field Hall this month.
George Catlin, the famous painter of American Indian life, had taken a group of
Ojibwa and Iowa Indians on a tour of Europe. When they appeared before the
French Court, a boat race was arranged between four Indians in a birch bark canoe
and four French sailors in a "White Hall" racing boat, built in New York for the
Prince de Joinville. Present were King Louis Phillipe of France, King Leopold of
the Belgians and the royal families.
To everyone's great regret, the Indians lost. Catlin thought they might have
won if they had had only two men in the canoe, or "if they had put two squaws in
it instead of the men, as they are in the Indian country much superior to the men
in paddling canoes." ' •
The race had been preceded by demonstrations of the Indians' skill at archery
and lacrosse, as well as by several war dances. The ladies of the Courts were par-
ticularly interested in a young Indian mother and her papoose. After the race, the
Indians and Catlin retired to a wing of the palace, where a feast awaited them.
The race was recorded both by Mr. Catlin and by M. Gudin, Marine Painter to
the French King. Gudin's painting has been presented to the Museum by Mrs.
A. W. F. Fuller. The painting and a reproduction of Mr. Catlin's drawing of the
same scene are on view through the end of the year in Stanley Field Hall.
P^ge2 DECBMBklt.
PROBLEM PIECE
An Axe-Handle from Africa
by Leon Siroto, Assistant Curator, African Ethnology
NEAR THE OFFICE of the Anthropology
Department is a case containing
diverse artifacts; the front panel bears
a prominent question mark. The items
within represent the more difficult prob-
lems found in our large collections of
well identified ethnographic material.
This display was set up to draw atten-
tion to our lack of information about the
origin of these problem pieces or, in
many cases, their intended use. We
hope that visiting colleagues can relate
these enigmas to something from their
areas of special interest.
In the natural sciences the differenti-
ation and elaboration of forms follows
regvilar and limited lines; the literature
dealing with these forms is expected to
be comprehensive enough to avoid ma-
jor problems of identity.
The curators of a museum's anthropo-
logical collection face a different prob-
lem. The range of possible forms, of
human inventiveness — especially in non-
essential aspects — makes a comprehen-
sive visual catalogue unlikely. The per-
plexed curator looks not so much for pub-
lished counterparts of the entire artifact
as for small features that relate to a defi-
nite region or, with better luck, a certain
culture.
A clue of this sort saved a recent ac-
quisition from being consigned to the
department's problem case. This ob-
ject, a wooden axe-handle carved in
human form, was given to the Field Mu-
seum this year by Mr. and Mrs. John J.
Klejmanof New York City. Other than
being African, its origin was unknown.
A high vertical slot passes through the
trunk of the presumably male figure.
This slot doubtless served to hold a long-
tailed, iron axe-blade. The method of
setting the blade into the handle, the es-
timated width of the blade and the orna-
mental nature of the handle recall the
East Coast of Africa. Then, a minor
feature serves to narrow down the search
for a region of possible origin.
On the back of the figure's "skirt" and
on several ornamental bands around the
shaft itself occurs a decorative motive
that seems to be limited to the northern
part of Mozambique (Portuguese East
Africa) and coastal and southern Tan-
zania. This form, a concave, broad el-
lipse, is found modified and combined in
various ways throughout this area. It
probably derives from the decorative
tradition of the Zanzibar Arab culture
in which a similar form is important in
the floral embellishment of house parts.
The other decorative motives on the axe-
handle are less distinctive of the region
but are nevertheless often found in com-
bination with the "petals" that supplied
the first clue.
Within the area of possible origin
there is one people who seem especially
given to the use of this motive in the dec-
oration of wood carving. This people,
the Makonde, seem remarkable for their
DECEMBER Page 3
traditional practice of carving masks and
figures in a region otherwise lacking in
representational art.
This predilection has not been satis-
factorily explained. Rather than being
an isolated phenomenon, it could relate
to the Makonde stubbornly holding fast
to old beliefs and skills while the influ-
ence of .^rabs in the north and Ngimi
(cattle-raising and militaristic Bantu) in
the south wore down traditions of sculp-
ture held by adjacent peoples. The Ma-
konde plateau, considered a natural fort,
probably strengthened this conservatism.
The Makonde, a Bantu-speaking people,
depend upon the cultivation of maize,
sorghum and cassava. They formerly
lived in small, compact hamlets which
were quite difficult to find in the dense
bush of their plateau.
The head of the axe-handle is not
carved in characteristic Makonde style.
The face is somewhat naturalistically
modeled and lacks the characteristic, al-
most inevitable lip-plug. The stance is
angular. The shoulders are transformed
into a shelf-like structure which, while it
seems to be unique in East African figure
sculpture, could relate to the hafting of
the blade, providing a strut for protec-
tion of the otherwise fragile head-dress.
Once we consider a Makonde origin
we must take account of certain features
that make any other assignment difficult.
The head-dress, which seems to repre-
sent a queue of hair hanging down to
shoulder level, occurs among a sub-group
of the Makonde called the Mawia. We
find it on heads, representing Mawia
men, carved as decorative handles on
the covers of boxes for snufT and medi-
cine; the feature seems not to occur in
the traditional style of any other East
African people. On the figure's brow
and temples are clusters of squarish
knobs simulating ornamental scarifica-
tion, a practice more highly developed
among the Makonde than other peoples
in Tanzania and Mozambique.
.Although reminiscent of the Makonde
tradition, the style is not close enough to
give complete assurance. To the north
and west of the Makonde complex there
are little-studied peoples whose carving
shows some concern with art. This
vagueness around the edges of this style
province suggests that it is best to express
doubt by saying "probably Makonde."
|N^
K ^
The feature that would most conclu-
sively establish the Makonde identity of
the figure is ambiguous. In most Ma-
konde carving the upper lip protrudes
very markedly. This convention depicts
the characteristic lip-plug worn by all
Makonde women and by men of the
Mawia sub-group. The upper lip of our
figure does not protrude, but does show
a roimd pit.
We cannot with any certainty deter-
mine the nature of this pit. It may rep-
resent the hole left by the removal of the
lip-plug. The greater likelihood, how-
ever, is that an ornamental carving
would show all ornaments in place rather
than indicate their former presence. Pos-
sibly a bit of some material was once im-
bedded in the pit; if so, no trace remains.
The heads of small iron nails that rep-
resent the eyes are still in place. Five
brass upholstery tacks also remain above
and alongside the blade-slot; (these Eu-
ropean trade-items decorate traditional
Paged DECEMBER
Clues to the origin of the decorative motives on the axe-handle
are a composite door-frame (detail far left) said to be from
"German East Africa," but in the tradition of the Zanzibar Arab
culture; and beneath it, a gunpowder box and three box lids
from the Makonde region. Fifty years ago all men wore these
wooden containers on their belts. The actual-size segment of
axe-handle at left shows petal motive common to all three
illustrations, and zig-zag motive found on some of the box lids.
Possible form and ways of hafting the missing blade,
suggested by complete specimens collected in the re-
gion around the Makonde.
The face on the axe-handle, much
enlarged, showing the pit in the
upper lip. Compare with the pho-
tograph beside it of a Mwera
woman (a Makonde group), show-
ing lip-plug and ornamental raised
scars. (After Kuesters, 1930.)
Profile of the head of the figure on the axe-handle,
showing the sort of headdress said to have been worn
by Mawia men (a Makonde group). Note its similarity
to the headdress on the carving of a Mawia man, far
right. This drawing is after one by Weule, 1 908, show-
ing the knobbed lid of a box.
sculpture in many parts of Equatorial
Africa.) We cannot overlook the possi-
bility of the pit being a way of reproduc-
ing the natural groove of the upper lip.
Having to stop short of the conclusive
argument is disappointing; the combi-
nation of a man's lip-plug and queue-
like hairdress would enable us to attribute
the artifact to the Mawia. Were we cer-
tain that the piece had been made by a
Mawia or by a carver of another group
who was attempting to depict a Mawia
type, we might be able to say something
about the possible age of the piece.
The distinctive headdress is found only
in sculpture. We can assume, therefore,
that it became obsolete sometime before
the Makonde were studied by thorough-
going German ethnologists at the begin-
ning of this century. This, together with
the finish and careful workmanship of
the piece, could sviggest that the axe-
handle came into being around the end
of the last century. Old styles of dress,
however, are often "fossilized" in sculp-
ture styles, being represented long after
their abandonment.
The treatment of the lower body is
distinctive but of little diagnostic value.
Clothing seems to be represented, an vin-
usual feature in African traditional sculp-
ture. The nature of the garment, how-
ever, is not clear; its form could allude
to a strip of fabric — narrow in front and
flaring behind — passed between the legs
and held under a wide belt. We have
DECEMBER Page 5
little direct evidence for the traditional
attire of Makonde men: most of the
statues represent women. The Makonde
wore garments of hide, bark cloth and
domestically woven cotton.
The absence of a blade may keep us
from sufficiently understanding both the
general form and the special features of
the handle. The wood could have been
shaped to bring out the special qualities
of the worked iron. (The same man
coiJd have fashioned both parts; in many
societies smith and wood-carver were
one.) The ornateness of the handle sug-
gests a blade well decorated, possibly by
engraving or openwork. We know noth-
ing of the relative importance of blade
and handle in traditional African atti-
tudes toward ornamental implements.
In the case of certain types of axe, greater
care and imagination are expressed in
the making of the blade, but this cannot
be advanced as a rule for all types.
The original use of the object is as im-
precise as its origin. Although we see
that it was intended to serve as the han-
dle of an axe, we cannot imagine it used
in hewing. The shaft is too thin and the
form of the figure too attenuated to hold
up under working conditions. The
height and thinness of the slot indicates
a wide flat blade, probably more orna-
ment than tool.
At best, this axe did only minimal work
as a tool. Its main role was evidently
symbolic. Its decorative quality leads
us to class it with other axes characteris-
tic of many traditional African cultures.
These axes make up a category deter-
mined by their ornamental nature; they
are related to ceremony, ritual, and dis-
play for personal prestige. Implements of
this sort are often thought of as "dance
axes," on the vague supposition that
these rituals and displays are expressed
primarily through the dance. Those
authors who refer to implements of this
sort as "battle axes," usually do not tell
whether they were used in combat or in
peripheral display.
Knowledge of the use of ornamental
axes in most African societies is super-
ficial. It is generally believed that cere-
mony is important in simpler cultures
and that ceremony requires interesting
paraphernalia. Thus, any object of care-
fully worked and unusual aspect is, in
the absence of precise information, writ-
ten off as "ceremonial." Published
sources offer very few accounts, detailed
or otherwise, of the ceremonies which
purportedly gave these objects their rea-
son for existence.
A simpler and probably more accept-
able explanation of weapons and tools of
a primarily ornamental nature is found
in the high regard of traditional Africans
for skillful workmanship. .Mthough they
do not concern axes, cases abound of
traditional African leaders and com-
munities seeking to establish respect and
fame through the ownership of objects
showing remarkable beauty, complexity
or ingenuity. It is impossible to separate
these goals and their pursuit from reli-
gious beliefs, but, as far as our informa-
tion goes, ornamental versions of imple-
ments can come into being to fulfill
certain realistic objectives and personal
needs.
We must remember that in many Afri-
can societies experience of the diverse
and extraordinary was, in relation to our
own, very limited. The ownership of a
remarkable object made for a remarkable
man. In the pre-state societies of tradi-
tional Africa, prestige attained or in-
creased through the possession of un-
usual artifacts could relate closely to the
prospects of wealth and leadership for a
man or a community. The connection
between leadership and art was no less
apparent then than it is in our own cul-
ture today. W'e read of chiefs lending
their specially made staffs or weapons to
messengers as an assurance of safe con-
duct and proof of position in the chiefs
trust.
In many societies such artifacts were
not duplicated; once made, they became
emblem of the owner's uniqueness. The
history of one African community — a
village of the Ibo in eastern Nigeria —
dramatically illustrates this principle.
Its leaders hired an expensive carver to
fashion an enormous and unusually dec-
orated message-drum. As the carver
was about to return to his village, it oc-
curred to the villagers that their symbol
of excellence might be surpassed by his
subsequent commissions. To be certain
that they would own the artist's crown-
ing achievement, they killed him.
Without visualizing any such macabre
background for the axe-handle under
discussion, we do note that nothing quite
like it has been published. It, too, may
have been a costly, unique creation des-
tined to be the emblem of a man who
had attained or aspired to great impor-
tance in his society.
Living in small independent tommu-
nities, the Makonde probably had a great
number of chiefs who could claim to be
important. Personal distinction and
prestige would thus have received con-
siderable stress.
Why an axe as a symbol of status? .^s
African informants seem not to give any
explicit answer, we must piece together
possible reasons from what we learn of
their cultures. In many parts of Africa
the axe is a prime essential of cultivation;
without it, the land cannot be cleared
for planting crops. In many of the less
elaborate cultures — such as that of the
Makonde — an important man is by defi-
nition the head of an important family.
A family's importance is often measured
by its claim to the land : it is among the
first settlers and farmers. In this sense
the axe can bear a symbolism akin to
that of "the plow that broke the plains"
in our own culture. Its carrying or wear-
ing (ornamental axes often have long
blades which allow them to be hooked
over the shoulder) could serve as an ele-
gant statement about the owner and his
relationship to his land and people.
The axe hews and fells, but it also
splits. Perhaps the most important func-
tion of the family head is the division
and apportioning of various essentials of
life. He decides upon the sharing out
of farmland and village space to his fol-
lowers. The distribution of meat to units
within the extended family under his
leadership can depend upon the use of
an axe. In many, if not most, African
languages, one settles a dispute by "cut-
ting" it; the axe can thus have a judicial
significance.
As ideas of technology and social or-
ganization run together in our attempt
to explain the symbolism of an ornamen-
tal axe, we can assume that an artifact
whose background is so nuanced can
serve as an important point of departure
in our learning of its makers and their
way of life. This particular acquisition
is important for its unusual style, but no
less so for the questions it poses about the
social and cultural background of orna-
mental axes in Africa.
Page 6 DECEMBER
C7,
Traditional decoration for the holiday season has always
relied heavily on greenery. While the laurel, pine, yew, Ore-
gon grapp, red qedar, ground pine, wintergreen and perhaps
others have played their roles in Christmas celebrations, the
holly is by far the most widely used and highly prized.
The use of holly to decorate during festive and festival
occasions predates the Christian era. Its use as a charm or
symbol to ward off evil was common practice among the
Druids, who placed wreaths on their doors for this purpose.
European holly {Hex aquifolium L.) with its very shiny, dark
green leaves was very soon adopted by the early Christians to
help mark the Christmas season.
As use of the plant increased, its prevalence in nature de-
creased. Litde was known about the adverse effects of sea-
sonal pruning or cutting. The destructive practice of random
breaking resulted In a very reduced supply of the plant.
When the Europeans arrived and began to explore the
United States, they found the "American holly" {Iltx opaca
Ait. — all hollies bear the generic name Hex) growing in
relative abundance from Florida to Massachusetts and from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, excepting the
northwestern part of this area, which includes Chicago. Al-
though the leaves of this holly are not the shining green of
by
Qabriel Edwin, Assistant Curator, Vascular Plants
Xl^
^^\/U
_ y V
//
'//
DECEMBER Page 7
though the leaves of this holly are not the shining green of
the old world species, the two have in common prickly leaves
and copious production of red berries. Of the approximately
600 species of holly occurring throughout the world, only
about six have bright red berries and sharp, spiny leaf-mar-
gins. This new world holly plant was soon put to use in the
historic way. There are over 20 other species of holly in our
country but only Ilex opaca has caught on for wreath, sprig
and other related uses.
When the settlers were few in number and clustered along
the eastern seaboard, the cutting and priming of the plants
presented no problem. Almost everyone had at least one
plant growing nearby, and his needs were modest enough so
that the relatively few sprigs taken each year did no lasting
damage. It should be noted that holly plants are either male
or female. Since only the female bears the desired bright
red berries, cutting is almost always restricted to this sex.
However, with increasing population and growth of cities,
the inevitable came to pass; a decrease of woodland sites
available for plants, holly included. The net result was fewer
female American hollies farther away from their place of use.
With the passing years ever greater demands for sprigs and
wreaths were put upon each surviving plant, the same as with
the European holly.
In time, it became so difficult to get holly cuttings that the
expense prohibited most people from using hollies at Yule-
tide. Nevertheless, the most binding demands of tradition
■AiM^
Al left, a beautiful American holly
tree. Ilex opaca, just north oj
Baltimore, Maryland. Our cover
illustration, also Ilex opaca, is
Jrom a Field Museum Herbarium
specimen, collected in York County,
Pennsylvania in 1S92. This Her-
barium sheet is one of the more
than 2 Vo million in our botanical
collections, which are the fifth
largest in the world.
At right are leaf forms of various
English, American and Oriental
hollies.
Facing page shows Ilex opaca
"Cumberland,^' left, and Ilex
"* opaca ^'Knight,'' two commercial
varieties.
continued, and the cry for pieces of the plant did not abate.
.\t about this time, circa 1840, small groups of men, boys,
and occasionally women and girls, often in family units, un-
dertook to supply the demand. Thus were born the "holly-
breakers."' It may have been a labor of love or for profit or
both, but in any case little is written of these people in the
literature of .'American folklore.
Let us picture very briefly the times in which they worked
— transportation by foot or pack animal, refrigeration none,
commimication tediously slow. Christmas falls at the time
of year that (in our latitudes) is the least favorable for plant
growth and since refrigeration was non-existant, the "break-
ers'' were forced to collect their materials when conditions
for gathering cuttings were at their worst. Once collected, it
/. chinensis
I. aquifolium
'Whittington'
Page 8 DECEMBER
was imperative to get the yield to market as quickly as pos-
sible at the time that transportation was slowest; a dried sprig
has little or no value for ornamental purposes.
The sparse records of holly breakers contain stories of death
by freezing, and extreme suffering from exposure. This one,
probably true and certainly typical, illustrates the hardships
endured by the holly breakers.
In the 1850's near the city of Pocahontas in West \"ir-
ginia, a father and son on or about December 10, proceeded
to climb a mountainside (probably the famed South Moun-
tain) for the purpose of breaking holly to carry to market.
The weather was cold and clear when they began, but while
cutting the plants they were overtaken by a snowstorm and
separated. Only the son returned the next day with a load
of holly on his back. He had been severely frost-bitten
and otherwise badly used by the elements. At the clearing
of the storm, a search for the father was undertaken. He was
found dead on the mountain slope with his "crop" nearby.
When the search party returned to the home with their bur-
den, the son, too, was found dead as a result of the exposure
he had endured.
The hoUybreakers were not the only sufferers. Since it
was necessary to cut as much as possible from each plant in
order to make the task economically feasible, many stands of
plants were destroyed. The damage to both man and plant
is the basic fact in what little is known of the practice. By
1885, hoUybreaking had come to an end.
Increased knowledge acquired after the turn of the cen-
tury brought the realization that holly could be cultivated
over much of its range. Contemporaneously, early breeding
experiments, especially in England at Kew Gardens, resulted
in a number of new and attractive forms of the European
species. By 1960, over 300 desirable varieties were listed in
England's catalogues.
With this work as a spur, breeders in the United States
began to employ our species. To date almost 200 horticul-
tural varieties have been developed. Most recent work has
centered on the possibility of crossing the English or Euro-
pean type with the American, in order to breed the "shiny
leaf" into the usually dull-leaved Ilex opaca.
These two species are essentially incompatible. Few if
any fertile oflfspring result from direct crosses. In the course
of experimentation it wss discovered that offspring of crosses
between .American holly and certain Asiatic species could be
readily crossed with the English hollies, and so obtain man\
healthy hybrids. These crosses give promise of eventually
producing the desired forms.
As a few Asiatic species of hollies were used in breeding
and hybridization researches, others were introduced for their
particular horiticultural merit. For centuries, numerous spe-
cies were cultivated throughout the Far East, especially in
Japan and China, for their beauty of growth form and foli-
age, as well as for berry production. In the past fifty years,
over sixty species have been imported from this area. A num-
ber of these such as Ilex cornuta (Japanese holly), its form
bujord, Ilex pernyii. I. chinensis, I. pernyii-veitchii (a hybrid of
two Asiatic species), /. crenala and /. rotundijolia have gained
wide acceptance especially in our southeast. These species
can be found in both informal and formal gardens. They
are extremely resistant to disease, which makes them doubly
valuable. Lately these and other hollies have gained accep-
tance as Christmas plants.
A still untapped source of possible gene material to pro-
duce new and useful types of holly is found in the 200 tropical
American species. Although truly attractive plants are rela-
tively few in number, those few have great beauty and are
certainly worth serious investigation, especially Ilex obcordata
(found on the Island of Jamaica), /. boliviana of the Andes
mountains, and /. microphylla of eastern Brazil. These spe-
cies, exotic at present, may well be developed into a major
source for future Christmas decorations as well as year-round
adornment for our homes and streets.
Certain evidence exists that at least some hollies can be
grown over much of the United States if given careful atten-
tion. Breeding for hardiness in our local climate, as well as
in others, proceeds concurrently with breeding for leaf-color
and other useful characteristics. Given suitable time, a holly
will no doubt be developed which incorporates all or many
of these desirable traits. When that day arrives, it will be
commonplace to see Christmas holly in our yards and lawns
the year around. Until then, we will be obliged to purchase
our holly wreaths and sprigs as we do our Christmas trees.
DECEMBER Page 9
PUBLICATrONS BY
NEARLY A DECADE AGO, I wrote in the Bulletin that
the life-blood of science is the stream of pub-
lished research papers, large and small, which
comprise the "current literature" conveying the
information we read from specimens to those who get their
information by reading the printed word . . . our public.
I then examined the extent to which a Harvard professor
used material from Field Museum zoologists in writing a book
on animal distribution. I found he cited thirty papers by our
curators in his bibliography and gave them seventy-five page-
references in his index. This was a gratifying record.
With the publication of Field Museum's Annual Report
for 1965, it is opportune to look at the scope of our activity as
reflected in the publications of our zoology staff listed there.
Ten curators are listed, with forty published papers varying
in size from one to 351 pages. Twenty-two different pub-
lishers were used to present these forty papers to the public.
Field Museum put out seven of them. Others were published
by two other museums, the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
World Health Organization, Illinois Society of Medical Re-
search, three commercial publishers, general scientific jour-
nals such as Science, Nature, Quarterly Review oj Biology, Natural
History, and more specialized journals such as Ibis, Veliger,
Puku, and the Journal oj Mammalogy. Sixteen of these publi-
cations are American, five are European and one is African.
The groups of animals treated include mammals, birds,
reptiles, fishes, insects and mollusks. The parts of the globe
they represent include all continents and many islands, as a
selection of key words from titles indicates : Africa, Australia,
Bahainas, Bechuanaland, Barotseland, Cameroun, Colom-
bia, Egypt, India, Indochina, New Jersey, North America,
and Thailand.
It is as interesting to look at the audiences for whom these
papers are written, as at their content. Most are written for
our colleagues interested in the same geographical areas and
the same groups of animals. Again, key words of a different
sort selected from some of the titles indicate their content and
approach : Systematics and evolution (snakes) ; Relationships
and zoogeography (snakes); A study of squirrels; Taxonomy
and nomenclature (birds); Interesting birds from Barotse-
land; A whale new to the western hemisphere; A new species
of squirrel fish; A winter plumage (bird) and a mutant (bird).
Quite properly, specialized scientific papers represent the
greater part of our work.
But some of our research goes beyond the supply of more
information and different approaches for other specialists in
the same fields. Two papers point out that modern concepts
in systematics can be adopted to advantage by those using
experimental caged monkeys in medical and psychological
studies. Another paper deals with bird migrations; the ticks
born by the birds and their role in the occurrence of arthro-
pod-born viruses and related diseases in North Africa.
The book reviews our staff members were requested to
write drew on our specialized knowledge to comment on
Page 10 DECEMBER
STAFF MEMBERS
problems such as speciation and parasitism, as well as on
faiinal papers and check-lists. Some reviews received much
wider circulation than the original papers themselves, espe-
cially in such general journals as the Qjiarlerly Review of Biol-
ogy and in Natural History Magazine.
Beyond research and its publication, there is yet a further
aim to our writing. This is to convey knowledge and an
appreciation of the living world to the non-scientist. The
teachers in universities who read our research papers may do
some of this in their teaching but we do some of it directly.
"A New Dictionary of Birds" is a monumental volume, en-
cyclopedic in character and vivid in treatment, that helps
eliminate some of the gaps between the specialist and the
amateur naturalist. Members of our curatorial staff contrib-
uted a number of sections to this cooperative work.
At still another level, our staff contributed sections to the
two volumes on North American birds put out by the National
Geographic Society, written and illustrated to appeal to that
wide audience of nature lovers lacking special knowledge.
Children's books by staff members are available both in
English and in translations. From this form, requiring quite
specialized skills, to the most abstruse scientific paper, from
Bulletin article to book, there is a continuous effort by the
staff of all four departments of the Museum to present the
natural sciences to various audiences: fellow scientists. Mem-
bers of the Museum, and the interested layman.
— Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator, ^oology
recent acquisition — geology
MINERALS FROM BRAZIL, U. S.
Thirty-seven selected mineral specimens, collected by Mi-.
Glen Commons of Aurora, Illinois, are on display this month
in Stanley Field Hall. Recently donated by him to the col-
lections of Field Museum, they are outstanding examples of
their kind in size, degree of perfection, and in some cases,
rarity
The largest piece, illustrated below, 12 inches long, 10
inches wide and 8 inches high, is a marcasite from Galena,
Illinois. Shown with it in the center case are specimens of
indicolite, brazilianite, rose quartz, rubellite with albite, and
a very large piece of quartz intergrown with tourmaline, all
from Minas Gerais, Brazil, as well as two specimens of dan-
burite with quartz from Mexico.
The west case contains five specimens from Brazil and
Illinois, among them a marcasite from Galena of an interest-
ing domed form. Others displayed in this case are apatite
and tourmaline from Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The east case shows five large fluorites from Hardin
County, Illinois. Their strong rectilinear crystal structure is
clearly visible on the surface of the rocks, as seen in the bottom
illustration. The colors range from white-grey in the speci-
men containing shaleritc and calcitc, to very dark purple,
almost black, in the others.
These minerals have been accessioned and cataloged into
the study collections of the Department of Geology, where
they join many thousands of other specimens from all parts
of the world, gathered by the field collecting of staff mem-
bers, purchases, exchanges and, often, as gifts from interested
friends of the Museum.
DECEMBER Page 11
DR. WEISS TO DELIVER SCIENCE LECTURE
The fifth annual Holiday Science Lectures, presented by The American Association
for the Advancement of Science and Field Museum of Natural History will be held
at the Museum on December 28 and 29. The program provides selected high school
students and teachers with the opportunity to hear eminent scientists talk about their
work. The general purpose of the lectures is to broaden the scientific horizons of the
audience and to communicate to them some of the excitement and inspiration of
scientific endeavor. The program is made possible by a grant from National Science
Foundation.
Dr. Paul A. Weiss, of the Rockefeller University, will be this year's speaker. Dr.
Weiss has received international recognition for his experimental and theoretical
studies in the biological sciences. He will talk to the students and teachers on
"Living Form — The Nature and Origin of Pattern." He will tell how the ordering
of elements in space and time gives a living organism its form, and what progress is
being made in increasing man's understanding of life.
7965 Holiday Lecture Dr. Paul A. Weiss
In past years, the Holiday Science Lectures have been received with enthusiasm
by both students and teachers. Field Museum co-sponsors them as part of its rap-
idly expanding educational program.
PHILIP H. LEWIS TO NEW MUSEUM POST
Phillip H. Lewis, formerly Curator of Primitive Art, has been appointed Curator of
Primitive Art and Melanesian Ethnology. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in an-
thropology by the University of Chicago in September. His dissertation, entitled
"The Social Context of Art in Northern New Ireland," was based on field work
carried out in New Ireland. Dr. Lewis will continue his special research interest
in the art and ethnology of Melanesia. He has just returned from a month's trip in
Europe to study the New Ireland collections in the museums in Hamburg, Bremen,
Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Basel in preparation for a future field trip to New Ireland.
MUSEUM MEMBERSHIP UP
Membership in Field Museum of Natural History has doubled in the last ten years
and is approaching 12,000. The most dramatic increase occurred in the past year,
which saw a 15% rise in the Membership. The increase was due, in part, to the
public's growing interest in the natural sciences, and to their awareness of the im-
portance of The Museum to the cultural and educational life of Chicago.
Also important was the intensified efTort by Field Museum to broaden its base
of popular support. There are Members in most states and many foreign countries.
MEETINGS: Illinois Audubon Society, January 4 at 7 p.m.
Chicago Shell Club, January 8 at 2 p.m.
Chicago Nature Camera Club, January 10 at 7:45 p.m.
The Museum will be closed on Christmas Day and New Yearns Day. Hours Jor December
and January are from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekdays; until 5 p.m. on weekends and
during the week of December 26th.
Page 12 DECEMBER
FIELD MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY
Roosevelt Rd. & Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 6060S
Founded by Marshall Field, 1893
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Lester Armour
Harry 0. Bercher
William McCormick Blair
Bowen Blair
William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Joseph N. Field
Marshall Field
Paul W. Goodrich
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Henry P. Isham
Hughston M. McBain
Remick McDowell
J. Roscoe Miller
William H. Mitchell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
John Shedd Reed
John G. Searle
John M. Simpson
Gerald A. Sivage
Edward Byron Smith
William Swarlchild, Jr.
Louis Ware
E. Leland Webber
J. Howard Wood
HONORARY TRUSTEES
Walter J. Cummings
William V. Kahler
OFFICERS
James L. Palmer, President
Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President
Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President
Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President
Edward Byron Smith,
Treasurer and Assistant Secretary
E. Leland Webber, Secretary
DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
E. Leland Webber
CHIEF CURATORS
Donald Collier,
Department of Anthropology
Louis 0. Williams,
Department of Botany
Rainer ^angerl.
Department of Geology
Austin L. Rand,
Department of Zoology
BULLETIN
Edward G. Nash, Managing Editor
Beatrice Paul, Associate Editor
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