The Puritan Expedition

Filmed during the Puritan-AMNH Expedition to western Mexico, 1957. Named for the schooner on which the AMNH staff members sailed, the Puritan Expedition's objective was the collection of specimens of the marine and terrestrial faunas of the islands in the vicinity of Baja California and the Tres Marias Islands. Among the members were William K. Emerson, AMNH malacologist and leader of the expedition, Richard George Van Gelder, AMNH mammalogist and photographer, Richard George Zweifel, AMNH herpetologist, and Donald F. Squires, AMNH paleontologist. The captain of the Puritan and sponsor of the expedition was Harry John Bauer. After a sequence on the preparations for the expedition, the film focuses on the collecting and processing of specimens for future study. One scene shows the work of Van Gelder in preparing a mouse skin. Interspersed throughout are scenes of local animals taken from the ship, including shearwaters, elephant seals, humpback whales, one of which is seen breaching and sounding, and a huge school of dolphins, one of which is captured and dissected on shore. A bottom dredging net is retrieved and its contents sifted and examined several times in the film.