HARVARD MEN DISCOVER NEW SPECIES OF BIRDS

Harvard naturalists, at work identifying and classifying for the Field Museum of Chicago a collection of birds gathered in south eastern Asia last year, have discovered several new species and sub-species.

A collection of more than 5000 specimens were gathered by the Kelley-Roosevelts Expedition of the Field Museum, in unexplored regions of Siam, French Indo-China, and the interior of Southern China.

The work in China was carried on by Theodore Roosevelt '08, and his brother, Kermit Roosevelt '12, and by Suydam Cutting '12. The Indo-China Expedition, led by H. J. Coolidge Jr. '27, included Dr. Ralph E. Wheeler '22, M.D. '26 and Dr. Josselyn Van Tyne '25. These six out of the eight members of the expedition were Harvard men.

The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard was chosen by the field Museum to do the work of classifying the new material because it contains the finest collection of birds from China and the neighbouring Southern-Asiatic countries anywhere in America.

The birds were collected mostly by shooting and by use of ingenious native traps set in the forest at night. The skins were all prepared in the field and many of them transported over a thousand miles down rivers, along mountain trails, in the rainy season, before they could be shipped home. They arrived in perfect condition.