ORNITHOLOGY COLLECTION

The ornithological collection consists of bird skins, eggs, and nests. The skin collection, numbering nearly fifteen hundred specimens, rests largely on the work of two men. The work of the first, Dr. William Avery, an avid collector and observer of birds in the late 1800s near Greensboro, is a collection of bird skins which constitute almost one-half of the collection at the museum.

The second major contributor to the Ornithology Collection was Dr. Ralph Chermock, who with his wife, Ottilie, prepared more than two hundred skins during the 1950s. Dr. Chermock was Professor of Biology at the University and director of the museum from 1961 until 1968.

Also in the Ornithology Collection is the Holt-Price-Golson egg collection which consists of approximately seven hundred groups of eggs, some of which are clutches from nests. Besides the eggs, there is also a sizable collection of nests. Most of this collection dates from before 1960.

The study of bird eggs has proven them to be useful biological indicators; for example, the first strong evidence that DDT was harmful came from measuring the thickness of egg shells before and after the introduction of this toxic chemical. All components of the Ornithology Collection are valuable in that they document bird life in Alabama in times past.

The museum staff, led by volunteer Edie Heine, is currently reviewing the collection and computerizing all of the data.

Dr. D. Thomas Rogers, Professor of Biology at the University, serves as Curator of Ornithology.

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ENTOMOLOTY COLLECTION

H. P.Loding, a Mobile florist, was a supporter of the Museum during the 1920s and 30s and an enthusiastic amateur naturalist. He was also a nationally known authority on beetles. Loding and museum curators made regular summer excursions known as "beetle trips" in the 1930s in search of scientific specimens. Among the group were Dr. Walter B. Jones, Dr. T.S. Van Aller, and Frank Cobb who camped out for weeks and traveled all over Alabama and neighboring states. Loding's collections are the basis of the museum's present insect collections,curated and enlarged by University Professor of Biology Dr. Earle Cross.

Another figure important to the museum's insect collections was Dr. Ralph L. Chermock, who was Professor of Biology and the first curator of the museum after it was moved to the University from the Geological Survey in 196 1. Chermock was a lepidopterist-a butterfly specialist and was assisted by his wife, Ottilie Chermock. Since her recent death, their butterfly collection, containing an estimated thirty thousand specimens, has come to the museum. Dr. Chermock and his wife prepared many of the specimens and were also primarily responsible for founding the museum's mammal and herpetological collections, as well as for enlarging the ornithological collection.

The Aquatic Insect Collection is a joint effort with the Department of Biology's Aquatic Biology Program. Several people, notably, Professor Art Benke, Professor Milton Ward, and Steven Harris of the Alabama Geological Survey, have contributed to this collection. It is primarily made up of immature or larval insects stored in thousands of small vials. These specimens are important to the ecology of streams and wetlands.

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MINERALOGY COLLECTION

The University's Rocks and Minerals Collection was started by Michael Tuomey, the first State Geologist, around 1847. The bulk of the collection is housed in the basement of Smith Hall with some specimens displayed in the Grand Exhibition Hall on the second floor. The collection contains roughly fifteen thousand items, some in powdered form and others, massive specimens weighing hundreds of pounds.

Because of the rarity of many of the specimens which have been collected or donated through the years, the collection is of great historical importance. Of special significance are two collections: one is the fine collection donated to the Museum by Hubert W. Goings, Jr.,in 1969; the other is the 1949 Ed Leigh McMillan quartz collection, containing more than three thousand specimens from Crystal Mountain, Arkansas.

Portions of Tuomey's mineral collection survived the burning of the University in 1865 and are included in the present collection started by State Geologist Eugene Allen Smith in 1873. The collection is presently undergoing inventory and computerization by museum staff and volunteers so that it may be used by researchers.

Gary W. Hooks, Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences, is Curator of Geology.

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ETHNOLOGY COLLECTION

The Ethnology Collection contains about a thousand artifacts crafted by peoples from all over the world, with a strong representation from the Southwest Pacific and Australia. Particularly noteworthy are the Michael Leahy materials from early 20th century New Guinea and featured in the museum's traveling exhibit, "First Encounters." The Ethnology Collection also contains some Caribbean and Amazonian materials. The collection has the distinction of being the first natural history collection in Alabama to be completely computer-catalogued. The technique used by the curation staff is now serving as a model for several other museums in the state.

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HISTORY COLLECTION

The History Collection, begun in 1985, is comprised of about fourteen thousand items, many from the Alan Blake Collection. Particular strengths of this collection include bottles, stoneware jugs, hand tools, and telegraph insulators--items associated with the history of Alabama's natural resources, such as agriculture, turpentining, lumbering, mining, pottery, and ironmaking.

These items can, indeed, "draw" other collections. A recent instance illustrates this fact. One of the more prominent portions of the Blake Collection is made up of a large number of telegraph insulators, including a carefully labeled collection and a number of duplicate specimens. A volunteer, who also collected insulators, helped sort and evaluate the collection. When she retired and decided to close her house, she donated her own collection to the museum where she was sure it would be safe and well cared for.

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THE PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION

One of the most important collections of the museum, the Photograph Collection contains an estimated 23,OOO images. The collection was originated by Professor Eugene Allen Smith. State Geologist from 1873 till his death in 1927, Smith bought a camera in the mid- 1880s and began to document his geological travels around the state. Many of these images are preserved on fragile glass plate negatives.

Several other figures of the early twentieth century Geological Survey, including chemist Robert S. Hodges and botanist Roland Harper, also took photographs. These images were joined in the 1920s and 30s by thousands of photographs from the archaeological digs at Moundville, the Tennessee Valley, and other sites.

In 1961, when the Alabama Museum of Natural History left the Geological Survey to rejoin the University, the collection was divided, with portions going to the Survey, the Alabama Museum of Natural History at Smith Hall, and Moundville. Later it became apparent that the photos were an interrelated historical series documenting the scientific history and early industrialization of the state, many with photographer's notes dating from the turn of the century. In a cooperative effort, most of the images have been reunited and will be curated in the Special Collections Library in the new Scientific Collections Facility. Because of its size and fragility, it has been estimated that the collection will require as much as $300,000 to preserve so that it is fully curated and useful to scholars.

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MARINE INVERTEBRATE COLLECTION

The newest museum collection is the Marine Invertebrate Collection, the career-long project of Dr. Thomas S. Hopkins, Professor of Marine and Biological Sciences at the University. Dr. Hopkins was for many years based at the Alabama Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium on Dauphin Island. His collection, the result of more than twenty years of effort, is composed of several thousand lots of crustaceans (crabs and lobsters), mollusks (oysters and clams), echinoderms (starfish), and many less familiar orders, mostly from the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Hopkins is Curator of Marine Invertebrates.

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