The Harvard Museum Expedition to Australia

Abstract

THE announcement made by Science Service, and commented upon in NATURE of July 11, evidently gives a misleading idea of the objects sought by the Harvard Museum Expedition to Australia. It is not primarily an expedition to secure specimens for a museum, but for the study of the animals of the region when alive. Such work necessarily entails the killing of a limited number of forms, so as the better to understand their habits, feeding, movement, reproduction, and so on. But the ‘bag’ thus sought is trivial and not to be compared to the long series valued by philatelists and many former collectors of animals and plants. The idea of vastly long sories is dead so far as modern zoological museums are concerned, owing, amongst other reasons, to the fact that the public will not endow them sufficiently for such ends.