Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/175

Rh "wild animal" is to be feared. People instinctively want to know the names of things. There is the mere curiosity, perfectly laudable, which brings such questions as these to the museum in greater and greater number. It is as a popular source of information that no small part of the curator's time is occupied.

The economic value of birds and mammals to the agricultural interests of the state is one of practical importance. In our field work we obtain a great amount of information applicable along this line; and, further, our staff keeps posted as to the results of the important work carried on by our national government to ascertain the beneficial or injurious effects of wild animals. Either from knowledge acquired directly by ourselves, or from that published elsewhere, we are often able to give the information asked for. The museum is thus constituted a popular bureau of information as regards the higher vertebrate animals of the region with which, we are familiar.

The functions of a research museum may be summarized as follows r Collecting and preserving animals of certain groups from a limited region; recording in permanent form all obtainable information in regard to their distribution, variation, economic status and habits; serving as a bureau of popular information as regards the animals of the region worked in; the description and analysis of ecologic and faunal conditions as they are to-day; the publication of the immediately important data obtained, calling attention to whatever generalizations, these facts may point towards.