IV PREFACE. 



have received the prizes had they been regarded by the committees 

 as inferior. No society can honestly award a first pi'ize on a second 

 or third rate animal or article. 



But the point in which a society is most apt to fail is in the defi- 

 ciencies of its permanent record. A low level of effort hei-e marks 

 and stamps the whole character of the society, and it ought to be 

 felt and understood that duty to the public requires something more 

 than the bare list of awards ; that the Transactions, or the printed 

 record which goes out to the world, is a fair sample of the brains 

 of a society. By these it ought to be judged. By these it ought 

 to stand or fall. 



CHARLES L. FLINT. 



Boston, January, 1872. 



