Page:Condor21(3).djvu/37

 May, 1919 COMMUNICATIONS 131 how this situation may best be handled to the interests of the Club at large. DEPARTMENT OF ORNITHOLOGY AND MAM- MALOGY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SClENCES.--The Museum of the California Academy of Sciences has recently acquired by gift the entire ornithological and oolo8:ical collection of John W. and Joseph Mailliard. The collection is devoted exclus- ively to North American birds. There are about 11000 skins representing 777 species. The oological collection contains more than 13000 specimens, in 5240 sets representing more than 600 species. This is one of the largest and best selected collections in western America, and contains numerous specimens of species that are now rare or that possess unusual interest because of locality or other important fact. The col- lection represents the joint work of the Mailliard brothers during their many years of field work and study of American birds. The collection is especially valuable because of the unusually full and carefully kept rec- ords that accompany the specimens. The water birds have already been in- stalled in the Academy Museum; the land birds and the nests and eggs will remain at the residence of Mr. John W. Mailliard for the present, until adequate facilities for properly housing them are provided at the Museum. With the transfer of ownership of the col- lection to the Academy of Sciences, and at the urgent request of the Council of the Aca demy, Mr. Joseph Mailliard consented to ac- cept the Honorary Curatorship of Ornitho- logy in the Museum. Having retired from active business, Mr. Mailliard is able to give practically his entire time to curatorial work in the I)epartment, to field work for enlarg- ing the collection where insufficiently repre- sented, and in research work. The Academy has also secured the services of Mr. Luther Little, formerly of Los Ange- les, as Assistant Curator of Ornithology and Mammaiogy. Mr. Little is a member of the Southern Division of the Cooper Club, has had considerable experience as a collector and student of birds and mammals, and is regarded by the Academy as a decided acqui- sition to its Museum staff.--B. W. E. PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED THE ANIMAL LIFE OF GLACIER NATIONAL PAEK.--The animal life of our national parks is one of their best recreative assets. The cliffs, the lakes, the waterfalls, and the for- ests each and together tend to stimulate the senses and the mind to pleasurable excite- ment; and the efforts to secure these pleas- ures in full measure bring vigorous bodily exercise. But the animals, provided interest in them is once aroused, undoubtedly consti- tute a more subtle and even more alluring oblective, one that brings into play at keen- est pitch those more or less latent senses and instincts which were of vital importance in the earlier stages of human history. For, among mammals, large and small, and among birds and insects, one encounters the moving, elusive objective, the one character- ized by mannerism, by changing form, color tone and pattern, and by sound of great va- riety. Moreover, the animal life, and the plant life too, presents innumerable prob- lems of interrelations, of interdependences add of struggles for mastery--the contempla- tion of any one of which will provide unlim- ited stimulus for intellectual activity and enjoyment.. Desplte our belief in the instinctive human appeal of all these things, the average hu- man of today must be re-introduced, as it were, to this field of appreciation. A valua- ble service in this regard depends for per- formance upon those persons and agencies possessing the naturalist's knowledge and possessing also the power to make this avail- able to the people at large. People must be instructed at least to that most desirable point where each will pursue eagerly and independently his own study of natural his- tory. A splendid move has been made on the part of our National Park Service in the direction of realizing upon this special value of national parks by the inaugurating of a series of papers setting forth the more attractive features of their wild life. The first separate publication of the De- partment of the Interior dealing solely with the animal life of any one national park is the one lust published and entitled "Wild Animals of Glacier National Park? Hap- pily enough, the account of "The Mammals" is provided by Vernon Bailey, and that of "The Birds" by Florence Merriam Bailey; for each of these authors is exceptionally qualified to handle his subject both by rea- son of adequate field experience throughout the west generally as well as within the area dealt with in particular, and by reason of skill to put his knowledge into comprehensi- ble language and to develop an enthusiastic Department of the Interior. National Park Service (Washington, Gov't Printing Office), 1918; 210 pp., 37 pls., 94 text figs. Our copy received March 6, 1919. Price 50 cents.