SECRETARY'S REPORT. 139 



THE AGRICULTURAL MUSEUM. 



Constant efforts have been made to build up the State 

 Cabinet, the object being to make a collection illustrating all 

 branches of the natural history and the agriculture of the 

 Commonwealth, and many valuable additions have been made 

 to it during the past year, the aggregate number of specimens 

 exceeding three thousand. 



It is gratifying to be able to state that the interest in the 

 cabinet has largely increased, as its practical value has become 

 more and more manifest. A catalogue of the plants will be 

 found in the Appendix. In other departments the additions, 

 though not so extensive, are nevertheless valuable and inter- 

 esting. 



Mammalogy. — In this department of Natural History, acknowledg- 

 ments are due many individuals for donations of rare and valuable 

 specimens. The field is not large in this department, in this State, but 

 there are some species which are particularly interesting, both to the 

 farmer and naturalist, but which have not generally received the 

 attention they deserve ; for instance, those little animals, the mice, 

 shrews and moles, are greatly deserving the attention of the agriculturist 

 with reference to the amount of injury or benefit they may do him. 

 The mice are generally injurious to the farmer ; being vegetable feeders, 

 they do great mischief by feeding upon the roots of vegetables, and in 

 hay ricks by cutting up the dried hay into mere fragments, and render- 

 ing it entirely unfit for the use of cattle. But the farmer should not 

 confound the mice with the shrews, for the latter are generally beneficial 

 to him, being insectivorous, or feeding principally on worms and insects. 

 The moles are also beneficial to the farmer ; they render him considera- 

 ble service by loosening the soil, and by destroying insects which injure 

 the roots and herbage of plants. It is to be hoped that a complete col- 

 lection of these different animals, existing in the State, may be placed 

 in the State Cabinet, that the farmer may know which animals are his 

 friends and which his enemies. 



Joseph L. Pratt, of Reading, presented a fine specimen of the 

 Canadian Lynx {Lynx canadensis.) This animal (though the present 

 specimen was killed on Mount Hayes, in New Hampshire,) is included 

 in the mammalia of this State. In the " Report on the Quadrupeds of 

 Massachusetts, published agreeably to an order of the legislature, 

 in 1840, by Ebenezer Emmons, M. D.," we find that "it was once 

 common in this State, but appears now only in the depth of winter, and 



