File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17971713460).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo03amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL It is a law among birds that the adults undergo a complete molt immediately after the cares of the nesting season are over, and that there shall be no further feather-growth until the fol- lowing spring or summer. The Ptarmigan, however, obey only the first portion of this law. In response to what are evidently imperative physiological demands they molt directly after the nesting; but if they were to pass at once into their winter plum- age, as is customary among birds, they would become pure white before snowfall and hence be made conspicuous by the ))lumage which is designed to protect them. To bridge over the period between the normal, postnuptial molt and the season of snow, an additional plumage is assumed on the exposed parts of the body (group No. 4). This is worn only during late summer and early fall and is immediately suc- ceeded by the winter plumage. The changes in the nature of the birds' surmundings are, therefore, as it were, iinitated by the birds, which consequently are always difficult to see in the tree- less regions they inhabit. NEWS NOTES.
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HREE new fossil specimens of interest liave been placed on exhibition in the hall of Vertebrate Palasontolog^'. One is the skull of a Duck-billed Dinosaur, an immense biped reptile nearly forty feet in length. The skull is three feet ten inches long and has a broad fiat beak like that of the spoon-bill duck. This skull is part of a nearly complete skeleton which is being prepared for exhibition. The second specimen is the skull of a Mammoth of the largest size, with tusks measuring thirteen feet in length around the outside of their curvatures, probably the longest pair ever found. This specimen came from southern Texas, and is of a larger species than the Siberian nianimi illi. The third consists of the fore and hind limbs and a cast of the skull of the Diprotodon, an extinct Australian mammal of gigantic size. Like all the other Australian mammals it belonged to the Marsupial or l^nichcd division. 16

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