Editorial Miscellany. 89 



Park, New York, to which Miss Catherine Wolfe has lately presented 

 a conchological collection, numbering 50,000 specimens, costing 810,000. 



The municipal government of that city is now erecting a magnificent 

 building for this museum, of very large proportions, for the first 

 section of which — one eighth of the ultimate structure — the sum of half 

 a million dollars has been appropriated. The city is only to erect the 

 buildings, the cost of collecting and preserving the specimens being 

 defrayed by a private society. The success attending the opening of 

 this museum to the public is said to have been something remarkable, 

 no less than ten thousand peofde visiting it daily. The departments 

 represented in its splendid collection are such, in variety and classifi- 

 cation, as to offer invaluable opportunities for special investigation, and 

 are already attracting scientific men from distant parts of the country. 



The Zoological department comprises the collections of Prince 

 Maximilian, of Xeurvied, M. Vedrey, and M. Vereaux, containing 

 nearly 4,000 specimens of mounted mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes, 

 including skeleton forms. 



The collection of North American Birds contains 2,500 s^^ecimens; 

 Lepidoptera are represented by 10,000 specimens ; Beetles aad Insects 

 by 4,000 specimens, besides a collection of foreign insects as yet un- 

 classified. Mollusca are well represented by various collections, 

 including the magnificent donation of Miss "Wolfe, which occupies an 

 entire story, accompanied as it is by a rare conchological library of 

 10,000 volumes. 



The Entomological department comprises 8,000 specimens of Amer- 

 ican Coleoptera^ representing 3,000 species ; also, sixteen skeletons of 

 the gigantic fossil Moas, of New Zealand. Mineralogy is represented 

 by 7,000 cabinet specimens. The museum also includes the fine 

 collection of pre-historic remains, belonging to Dr. Davis, formerly of 

 Ohio, which contains many typical and rare forms of utensils used by 

 the ancient Mound -Builders of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. 



Besides those mentioned, there are other collections which will be 

 classified and arranged when the society occupies its new building It is 

 the intention of the projectors to establish a system of scientific lectures 

 by persons eminent in the various departments of science, and to keep 

 the collections open to the public on easy terms. 



— While upon this subject it may not be uninteresting to refer, also, 

 to the magnificent museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia. This organization, which assumed the shape of a 

 legal entity in 1812, was formed by persons, who, prior to that time, 

 met at each other's houses for the purpose of mutual instruction in 

 Natural Efistory, and of devising the plan of the present institution. 



