VILLEMARETTE AND WILLIAMS are gone an hour, then they return with a truckload of animals, pulling up to the back door of the processing building. In the bed, there are a few garbage bags full of smaller specimens. A California sea lion and a grouper are wrapped in a tarp.

The guys crowd around the bags, now sitting on a lab table. There's a hedgehog and a Goeldi's marmoset, a lorikeet and a ferret. Williams pulls out a long hyacinth macaw, its blue feathers tinged with white frost, and says, "That's nice." He finds an amphibian and studies it.

"Surinam toad," says Villemarette.

"That'll make a cool skeleton," says Humphries.

"Not bad," says Villemarette. "No special mammals, though. I'm a mammal guy." After a bit, we wander over to Villemarette's office, a small, windowless rectangle. There are dozens of skulls in the bookshelves behind him, including one from a two-headed calf.

I ask Villemarette if he ever feels odd handling human bones, if he experiences moments of horror or transcendence. He shrugs. "Nah, I've seen too much of it."

What about offending someone's soul? "I've probably handled 2,000, maybe 3,000 human skulls," he says. "I've never gotten a complaint.

Is there anything he wants for the museum that he can't get? "There's not room for a herd of rhinos, unfortunately," he says. "Also, I'd like a panda, but I don't think that's going to happen."

Williams pokes his head in with news. "I just got an e-mail from the guy at Año Nuevo," he says, sounding very excited.

Villemarette jumps up, explaining, "There's a big die-off of elephant seals going on at Año Nuevo, in California. We're talking 4,500-pound males."

He sounds like a happy man.