MUSEUM BULLETIN

OF THE

STATEN ISLAND ASSOCIATION

OF

ARTS AND SCIENCES

NEW SERIES

VOLUME I

August 1914 to July 1915

Edited for the Publication Committee

by

ARTHUR HOLLICK, Secretary

MUSEUM BULLETIN

Beginning with this issue the Bulletin appears in a new form, which the Publication Committee trusts will meet with the approval of the members. The enlargement to two pages of current notes and news was authorized by the Board of Trustees last June, and was carried out in connection with the July number. The change of form was subsequently decided upon, to begin with this issue, inasmuch as the first number of the Bulletin was issued in August 1908. In its old form the Bulletin, therefore, includes exactly six years of publication, and the seventy-two numbers may be bound together as a single volume. The current number is, therefore, regarded as beginning a new series and is so designated.

Through the courtesy of Mr. Richard H. Britton in placing his motor boat and automobile at the disposal of the curator-inchief a number of profitable collecting trips have been made along the shores of the Lower Bay and to several sections in the interior of the Island during the month of August. In company with Dr. N. L. Britton a beginning was made in collecting the local lichen flora, which class of plants is not represented in our herbarium, and a number of critical species of the higher plants were collected for careful study and identification. Several specimens of marine invertebates and others of geologic interest_were_collected in the waters and on the shore at Prince's Bay. It is planned to investigate several matters of local scientific interest, heretofore neglected, whenever opportunities occur, and to render our collections of local material as complete as possible.

The Staten Island Bird Lovers' Club held a remarkably well attended meeting in the assembly hall of the museum on the afternoon of August 14, notwithstanding the oppressive heat of mid-summer. The following members and interested persons were present: Mrs. Wilhelm Knauth (President), Mrs. A. C. Bohn (Secretary), Mrs. Norman Stewart Walker, Mrs. H. D. Wiman, Mrs. Walter W. Price, Mrs. J. W. Curtis, Rev. Dr. George C. Cressey and Mrs. Cressey, Misses S. Gertrude Clark, Irma Wilson, Evelyn Waite, Mildred Walker, J. H. Horak and Miriam Frazee; Messrs. Harold K. Decker and Howard H. Cleaves. Plans were discussed for furnishing the schools of the island with winter feeding stations for wild birds, both as a means of stimulating interest

STATEN ISLAND ASSOCIATION OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

among the children and of aiding the birds when the cold weather is here. It was decided to further help the winter birds by establishing several large feeding places in the woodlands and elsewhere-the grain and other food materials for the purpose to be paid for from the club treasury. In order that the residents of Staten Island might become more generally aware of the existence of the Bird Lovers' Club, and that a Junior League might the more easily be formed, it was decided to divide the island into districts, with a committee for each; and to have a representative appear before the assemblies of as many schools as possible, for the purpose of telling the children of the proposed work of the club and with a view to enrolling them as Junior members.

The O. P. Geoffroy collection of Mexican tiles, pottery, beadwork, etc., has recently been placed on exhibition in the art and archeology room on the first floor of the museum, and in the same room may be found a case containing various native implements from Mexico, South America, Africa and Alaska, part of which are from the collection of the late Richard Penn Smith, donated to the museum by Morton W. Smith.

Donors to the museum and library since the last printed list are as follows: Howard R. Bayne, Thomas Cunningham, Wm. T. Davis, E. C. Delavan, Jr., Alexander Forsyth, J. Blake Hillyer, Arthur Hollick, New Brighton; H. Sherman Ingalls, Mrs. Wm. G. Willcox, West New Brighton; C. S. Egbert, Rosebank: Nathan Kasner, Morton W. Smith, New York City; H. D. House, Albany, N. Y.; Mrs. John A. Grossbeck, New Jersey; D. W. MacDonald, Chicago, Ill.

The accessions are unusually varied and interesting, representing geological, zoological and botanical specimens, historical relics and documents, medals, foreign and domestic coins and paper money, books, pamphlets, maps, etc. Among those which may be specially mentioned are 116 additions to the Morton W. Smith collection, comprising minerals, zoological and archeological specimens; an addition of 146 herbarium sheets of violets, from Dr. House, which makes our collection of violets one of the finest in America; a photograph of Christopher Billopp's tomb-stone at St. John, New Brunswick, taken and transmitted by Mr. Mac