animals immediately drop to the ground and burrow into the soil to dwell in darkness until that subtle influence called instinct calls them into the outer world.

But ere these little fellows have broken through the eggshell the weight of the branch beyond the point at which the eggs were laid, aided by the wind, may have caused the twig to break, and the leaves beyond the break may then turn brown. The injury to a large tree, aside from the unsightly appearance of the dead leaves, is slight and the tree soon recovers completely; but small trees, especially seedlings are often killed. All in all, little apprehension need be entertained by the farmer or fruit-grower as a locust year approaches, for at most he must needs only forbear to plant young trees that year; and to the lover of the curious in nature a locust year is one looked forward to with great interest.

In the group now installed on the third floor the insects are shown emerging from the ground through neat circular openings on a level with the surface where the soil is compact and bare of vegetation, and through the tops of mud towers or "cones" which the young cicadas have constructed where the soil is moist, particularly where there is a layer of leaves or grass. On the trunk of a sweet gum tree and on some of the leaves of the scrub white oak nearby are numerous shed pupal skins, and adults delicate and white are seen breaking through the skins, or expanding their wings after having just emerged. Fully colored adults, blackish conspicuously marked with red, are shown resting on the twigs, some in the act of egg-laying. Certain of the insects in the group are represented as affected by the fungous disease known as Massopora cicadina. Also egg punctures are shown on some of the twigs, and the result of these in the broken twigs with dead leaves is conspicuous among the fresh summer foliage.

An English sparrow, that inveterate destroyer of the cicadas among the many birds

MUSEUM NOTES

that prey upon them, has just captured one of the insects, and hosts of cicada wings (which are not eaten by the birds) are strewn on the ground. A nest of the ant Formica fusca subsericea is shown also with the ants feeding on the dead bodies of the cicadas. The cicadas are too large to be carried into underground galleries, so are merely dragged to the entrance of the nest and eaten there.

A small variety of the cicada which has been named Cicada cassinii and occurs locally in nature with the large form is shown in one corner of the group.

MUSEUM NOTES

SINCE the last issue of the JOURNAL the following persons have been elected to membership in the Museum:

Patrons, MRS. ARCHER M. HUNTINGTON, DR. CHARLES E. SLOCUM and MR. FRANK K. STURGIS;

Life Members, MRS. EDGAR S. AUCHINCLOSS, JR., MRS. GHERARDI DAVIS, MRS. W. B. DINSMORE, MRS. WILLIAM F. MILTON, MRS. JAMES M. VARNUM, MISS MARIE LOUISE CONSTABLE, MISS ANNA J. PIERREPONT, MISS E. LOUISE SANDS, MISS HARRIET WADSWORTH and MESSRS. CARROLL BALDWIN, THOMAS G. BENNETT, JOHN R. BRADLEY, EVERSLEY CHILDS, JOHN LYMAN Cox, GLENN FORD MCKINNEY, EDWARD LUDLOW PARKER, JAMES S. WATSON, J. GRISWOLD WEBB, WILLIAM P. WHARTON, WILLIAM WILLIAMS and EDWIN O. WOOD;

Sustaining Members, MRS. ROBERT F. BALLANTINE, MRS. G. GRANVILLE WRIGHT and MESSRS. W. C. BROWN and E. W. VANDERHOOF;

Annual Members, MRS. HENRY A. ALEXANDER, MRS. WILLIAM ALEXANDER, MRS. C. VANDERBILT BARTON, MRS. E. J. BERWIND, MRS. JOHN E. BORNE, MRS. GEORGE B. CASE, MRS. ALICIA D. CONRAD, MRS. THOMAS CRIMMINS, MRS. JOHN M. DILLON, MRS. CHARLES D. HALSEY, MRS. ENOCH PRATT HYDE, MRS. J. F. MCKEAN, MRS. CHARLES E. PROCTOR, MRS. GEORGE ROSE, MRS. H. L. SATTERLEE, MRS. GEORGE E. SCHANCK, MRS. GRACE LEE SMIDT, MRS. JOHN WOOD STEWART, MRS. C. W. TRUSLOW, MRS. ALFRED TUCKERMAN, MRS. ARTEMAS WARD, MRS. HENRY B. WILSON, MRS. T. DENON WILSON, MISS RUTH AUCHINCLOSS CHILD, MISS M. KATHARINE HUSTED, MISS ELIZA B. MASTERS, MISS CONSTANCE PULITZER, MISS JULIA L. WALDO, MISS MARGARET S. WHITNEY, REAR ADMIRAL C. H. DAVIS, DR. JOSEPH D. BRYANT, DR. MARTIN COHEN, DR. R. B. CONTANT, DR. ROBERT JOHNSTONE KAHN, DR. HARRIS KENNEDY, DR. JAMES STEPHEN LEMON, DR. HUGO LIEBER, DR. HUGO SCHWEITZER and MESSRS. GEORGE

190

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL

W. BACON, EDWARD L. BALLARD, LEMUEL C. BENEDICT, S. N. BOND, LEON DURAND BONNET, HILARY R. CHAMBERS, GEORGE L. CHENEY, HARRIS D. COLT, CHARLES S. COOK, JENNINGS S. Cox, MORGAN DAVIS, B. DELIN, SAMUEL R. DORRANCE, WILLIAM HARRIS DOUGLAS, EDWARD F. EBERSTADT, EZRA H. FITCH, RICHARD E. FOLLETT, AARON V. FROST, G. H. GENTZEL, HENRY G. GRAY, KALMAN HAAS, F. B. HOFFMAN, CLEMENT S. HOUGHTON, WILSON S. HOWELL, A. C. HUIDEKOPER, WALTER KERR, ROLAND F. KNOEDLER, REGINALD B. LANIER, J. LAWRENCE MCKEEVER, G. H. MIDDLEBROOK, MARTIN H. MURPHY, HUGO NEWMAN, JOHN E. NICHOLSON, WILLIAM H. PARSONS, T. H. HOGE PATTERSON, JOHN J. PAUL, JOHN C. POWERS, JAMES MCALPINE PYLE, WILLIAM RAUCH, WALLACE REID, SYLVAN E. ROSENTHAL, ARTHUR SACHS, H. J. SCHWARTZ, EDMUND SEYMOUR, W. HINCKLE SMITH, ENRICO N. STEIN, THERON G. STRONG, LOUIS S. STROOCK, EDWARD GRAHAM TAYLOR, WILLIAM R. K. TAYLOR, STEPHEN Dows THAW, WILLIAM LYMAN UNDERWOOD, REGINALD C. VANDERBILT, TERTIUS VAN DYKE, CARL VIETOR, W. G. WALKER, J. MCLEAN WALTON, and R. THORNTON WILSON.

Ar the regular meeting of the board of trustees on May 6, 1912 the following patrons of the Museum were elected associate benefactors in recognition of their generous contributions and continued activity in the growth of the institution: George S. Bowdoin, Cleveland H. Dodge, Archer M. Huntington, Arthur Curtiss James, Charles Lanier, Joseph F. Loubat, J. Pierpont Morgan, Jr., Henry Fairfield Osborn, Percy R. Pyne, William Rockefeller, Jacob H. Schiff and Felix M. Warburg.

THE MUSEUM was visited on April 9 by a committee from the Deutsches Museum of Munich, consisting of Director Oskar von Miller and ten of his associates. The committee was received by the president and director of the American Museum and by Mr. Felix M. Warburg of the board of trustees, the last-named always a great admirer of the work of administration and exhibition as carried out in the Deutsches Museum. It is inspiriting to the Museum that it was this American institution and its published plans for future extension that were said to have been the determining factors in deciding the Munich committee to visit the United States; and also to hear now that this committee maintains after visiting the large cities from the Coast to the Middle West that “of the works of man, they saw nothing equal to the American Museum in New York City" — all of which augments the institution's zeal to be worthy such distinction.

THE forty-third annual report of the president of the American Museum of Natural History, issued in February as a preliminary report to the trustees and members of the institution and to the municipal authorities of the city of New York, was published in permanent form during the past month. The volume is particularly instructive as to the Museum's administration and support as well as in regard to its work in exploration, research, exhibition and education.

THROUGH the African field work of Mr. Carl E. Akeley the Museum is enriched by a series of ten skulls of the African elephant ranging in size from the yearling to the old tusker of perhaps thirty-five years, the skull measurements showing increase in width from twelve inches to thirty-five and in length from sixteen inches to forty-five. Examples of this species of elephant are more rare in museums in America than of even the mastodon, and thus unusual value is attached to this new and very extensive series.

THE MUSEUM has received from Mr. Alfred J. Klein skins and skeletons ready for mounting of a pair of the very remarkable giant forest pigs, Hylocharus meinertzhageni. This species was discovered in 1898 in the wilds of British East Africa and is somewhat intermediate between the wellknown wart hog and the river hog, being like the former in that the face of the male is characterized by a huge excrescence.

MR. CLARENCE H. EAGLE of New York City has presented to the Museum his private collection of about eight hundred bird skins representing North American species. These will be known as the C. H. Eagle collection and like other collections in the Museum will be accessible to students.

THE department of geology has recently come into possession of some interesting meteorites which are now on exhibition in the foyer. The largest of these is an entire mass of the so-called Amalia siderite or iron meteorite, which is held to be a portion of the great Mukerop find, receiving its name from the farm near Gibeon, German Southwest Africa, on which it was discovered. This mass weighs 675 pounds and forms an interesting companion-piece to the model of the Gibeon mass from the same region. A polished and etched section of Amalia is displayed in connection with the large mass and shows some most interesting characteristics, chief among which may be mentioned the curving of the Widmannstätten lines. in certain portions of the mass, and a line of discordance running across the plate in such manner as to suggest that the original mass had been broken and welded together again before it struck the earth or that it consisted of two parts that were welded together. The other accessions are: a 370gram, polished slice of the Lampa aërolite or stone meteorite, from the desert of Atacama, South America; a 457-gram, polished section of the Cullison aërolite, from Pratt County, Kansas; and a 567-gram, polished and etched slice of the Shrewsbury siderite, from York County, Pennsylvania. All of these are newly-described finds and are valuable additions to our collection.

FOUR new radiolarian models prepared by Mr. H. Müller have recently been placed on exhibition by the department of invertebrate zoology. The glasslike skeletons of these minute sea animals are represented enlarged 1500 to 2000 diameters and show clearly their delicate and intricate struc

192

AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL

ture. While the radiolarians are so small as to be scarcely visible to the unaided eye, yet they are so abundant in the warmer oceanic waters that the skeletons of their past generations cover the ocean floor to a considerable depth and may form a layer compacted into flinty "Barbados earth" which is used commercially for polishing and finishing.

AN addition to the series of fishes on exhibition in the Museum is a case containing models of certain species that live in depths of the sea one or two miles below the surface where no light penetrates. Many of them are provided with special phosphorescent organs arranged along the sides or in some cases at the ends of fleshy filaments, like minute lanterns on long poles to light the sea bottom or to lure prey. The models represent some of the remarkable forms which have been obtained in the course of the work of the "Albatross" and other vessels equipped for deep-sea dredging. They were purchased from the modeler who made the original series for the British Museum and have been altered according to the researches of Dr. Bashford Dean and in part recolored by the Museum artists.

THE department of anthropology has issued to artists and teachers of art classes in New York City and vicinity a card calling attention to the remarkable collection of prehistoric Peruvian cloths recently put on exhibition in the South American gallery. Not only are these mummy cloths of unusual beauty but they also present an opportunity to study the evolution of primitive designs and color schemes.

DURING the coming summer Dr. Frank E. Lutz will continue the study of the invertebrates of the vicinity of New York City paying especial attention to the Ramapo Mountains and Pine Barren regions of New Jersey.

DR. HERBERT J. SPINDEN, assistant curator of anthropology, is on a Museum expedition in the Southwest. In January he visited the ruins of Copán in Guatemala returning to the Southwest to study the little-known remnants of Pueblo tribes formerly living on the lower Rio Grande in the vicinity of El Paso. He is now among the Rio Grande Pueblos proper near Santa Fé taking up again the work of former years on decorative art and material culture.

THE department of anthropology reports progress in local archæological discoveries. Mr. William Floyd of Long Island, while looking for archæological remains on his estate uncovered an Indian burial, the skeletons from which he has presented to the Museum. The grave contained three skeletons, one apparently that of a girl, the others of two middle-aged men. As is the case with most burials in this vicinity, no objects of any kind were found in the graves. Mr. Max Schrabisch of Paterson, New Jersey, has again begun his search for rock-shelters and reports the finding of a very important one near Stony Point, New York. The excavations of this shelter so far have been rewarded with rich finds of pitted hammerstones, knives, scrapers and pottery.