The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-18

only would every animal be represented,
but each animal would be seen under all
possible local conditions. A summer coat,
for example, is very different from a winter
one and any thorough knowledge of an an
imal must take this fact, as well as long
list of others, into consideration. But no
ideally perfect collection is quite possible,
because animal life itself is so constantly
changing that there is always the posi-
bility of finding something new even in
locality that seems to have been thoroughly
investigated before.
If one knows the keeper of the Harvard
collection of mammals well enough to OBJ
tain look at these curious treasures in his
cases ones first impression is surprise that
there are so many of them Altogether
there are about 1900 skins, and of course
as many more skulls, making one of the
larger collections of North American man,
mails in existence, and one which is bound,
moreover, now that it has once been fairly
started, to increase greatly in the future
To examine ii intellgently requires rather
broad knowledge of physical geography.
The protective coloring of almost any speci-
men gives the trained student of animals
an immediate clew to the nature of the
country in which it was captured. All ami
mails fit themselves eventually more or less
to their environment, and the coat of one
mouse matches the general color scheme
of an alkali plain while another harmonizes
with the prevailing tone of a sand dune.
Some of the most interesting pelts have
bands or vivid spots of color that served
the living creatures as protection by their
likeness to a flower or a faded leaf, the rest
of the animal harmonizing with the sur
rounding grass or foliage. There are speci-
mems of exclusive" animals that appear
only on one small island, such, for example,
as the peculiar field mouse that lives on
Muskeget just off the coast of Massa-
chusetts. And there are the animals that
change their DeIts in winter to snowy
white among them the ermine, which wears
brown coat in summer, and the leming,
in the far north, whose feet develop minia-
ture and very convenient snow shoes with
the coming of winter.
HARVARD'S NEW TREASURE.
How such a collection grows is very well
illustrated by an addition just made to the
Harvard cases of more than 500 Central
American mammals collected in the neigh
borhood of Chiriqui, a small province lying
| between Costa Rica and Panama. The prov
ince includes the Volcan de Chiriqui. some
1850 feet high, with its slopes and foot
hills. Here the mammals of the region had
never before been studied at an altitude of
more than 500 feet while the new collection
includes animals living almost at the sum
nit of the mountain, the collector working
upward from the low. forested region at sea
he bar
feet above. In this way he covered the
various life zones and discovered four
new subspecies, fourteen new species, and
best of all, one new genus. The new genus
whose long, dense fur gave evidence that it
was an animal of high attitudes only, is in
some respects very like a member of the
squirrel family. Two specimens were cap
tured to the great surprise of the native
hunters who accompanied the expedition,
and who declared that the Syntheosciurus
brochus." as il has since been scientifically
named, was quite unknown TO their expe-
rience. Very freely translated the name
means a beast that is "a good deal like a
squirrel with projecting teeth" and the two
examples now at Harvard are the only ones
yet known to science
A tray of animals, neatly packed to-
gether in rows OF a dozen or more and
looking. in the case of the smaller ones,
strikingly like very well-made toys for
children, is an interesting object lesson
even to a person who is not a scientist.
Here are two rats, for example, lyirg
side by side and looking for all the world
like brothers. But they are not brothers
You pick them up and you find that there
is a distinct difference in the texture of
their fur-one skin is soft and the other
distinctly coarse and wiry TO the touch.
You compare them further and you find
other differences; they are not so exactly
alike in coloring as rat brothers ought TO
be Then you compare their skulls-which
came to the museum twenty or thirty hung
on a string like so many beads only that
each skull was numbered and has since
been cleaned and placed in order in Its
special tray-and you find that the two
specimens are not brothers. but cousins.
belonging to two distinct species. The skull
tells you also the age and habits of
the creature il once belonged 10. and
when you have compared few hundred
skulls and pelts you find yourself enter
tanning a new respect for the wonders Of
nature You begin TO realize why prac-
ticalIy all the important museums of the
world are making similar collections, and
how important is the study of even the
little mouse-like shrew. something over
an inch long. I'm the study Of man himself.
Less than twenty years ago the POSSIBLE
ity OF all these divisions and subdivisions
OF the animal kingdom was almost unsus-
pected. The whole matter OF variation
Individual seasonal and observation-disclosures