Abstract
AN interesting acquisition in the Department of Zoology is a series of the golden mole, Eremitalpa granti, presented by Captain G. C. Shortridge of the Kaffrarian Museum, King William's Town, South Africa. The gift comprises seventeen skins and skulls of this insectivore, and forms a valuable addition to the study collections. Mr. F. N. Ashcroft has presented to the Department of Minerology a further selection of well-crystallized minerals from forty-seven carefully recorded localities in Switzerland. The Ashcroft collection of Swiss minerals is unrivalled in the excellence of the specimens and the care with which the localities have been recorded. This latest gift brings the number of specimens added to the Museum's collection from this source in the last ten years to a total of 3,654. Another interesting gift comes from the McGregor Museum, Kimberley, through Miss M. Wilman, the curator, and consists of three specimens of the doubly refracting Iceland spar found in Cape Province, South Africa. A collection comprising about 4,900 gatherings of plants has been brought back from South America by Mr. A. H. G. Alston, assistant keeper in the Department of Botany. Of these about 1,900 are vascular cryptogams. The collection is rich in duplicates and there are about 20,000 specimens in all. Mr. Alston represented the Museum at the first South American Botanical Assembly at Rio de Janeiro last October, and later made an expedition across the north western corner of the South American continent from La Guayra in Venezuela to Bartacoas in southern Colombia, near the frontier of Ecuador. He studied the phytogeography of the area and collected specimens of the plants found.
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British Museum (Natural History): Recent Acquisitions. Nature 144, 188–189 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144188c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144188c0