BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 231 



On the announcement of the ballot the President elect said, " that in occupying the 

 position to which he had been called, he could only express the wish that the choice had 

 fallen elsewhere, for he felt he owed the Society any service he might be able to render. 

 Any one as long acquainted with its government as he had been, must be alive to the 

 responsibilities of its highest office, but knowing the hearty support which would be given 

 to one aiming to carry out the objects of our Society with singleness of purpose, he could 

 not foster such misgivings as naturally arose in undertaking them." 



Mr. Scudder then sketched briefly the Society's work, more particularly dwelling upon 

 its chief aim, popular instruction. The highly complimentary remarks towards the writer 

 and compiler of this history which followed, not only made by Mr. Scudder but by many 

 others, and the action taken by the Society, were of too personal a character to admit of 

 his presenting them here. Nothing certainly could have been more grateful to his feel- 

 ings than such a manifestation at the close of his long official life as President of the 

 Society. 



The Standing Committees elected by the Council for the official year 1880-81 were as 

 follows : Library, Edward Burgess, W. H. Niles, W. F. Whitne^^ Puhlkations, S. H. Scud- 

 der, S. L. Abbot, Edward Burgess, Alpheus Hyatt, J. A. Allen. Museum, Alpheus Hyatt, 

 S. H. Scudder, Thomas T. Bouve, John Cummings, Edward Burgess ; Walker prizes, 

 William B. Rogers, Alexander Agassiz, F. W. Putnam. IlemhersMj}, S. H. Scudder, M. E. 

 Wadsworth, B. Joy Jeffries, Edward Burgess, George L. Goodale. Lectures and meetings, 

 S. H. Scudder, M. E. Wadsworth, Edward Burgess, F. W. Putnam, W. H. Niles. Bird cer- 

 tificates, Edward Burgess, J. A. Allen. Trustees, Thomas T. Bouve, John Cummings, C. 

 W. Scudder. 



The fifth decade had now passed. If it could be said of the fourth that it was a period 

 of great events in the history of the Society, the same could be said of the fifth, thouo-h 

 those of the latter were of a less striking character. During the fourth, large donations 

 and bec^uests were made, enabling the Society to erect its magnificent museum and to 

 take a position among the leading institutions of the kind in the world, publishing freely 

 its Memoirs and Proceedings, and making exchanges with kindred societies, thus acquiring 

 for itself respect at home and abroad. During the fifth, scarcely a donation or bequest 

 of any amount was received, though the lack of means was felt in every department. 

 This prevented such expansion of the work of the Society as was deemed desirable, and 

 made it dependent on the individual contributions of its members, mainly upon one of 

 them, to accomplish much that it was able to do. What particularly characterized the 

 last decade was the great change effected in its plans and purposes, but more in its modes 

 of action and in the arrangement of its collections ; not through revolution but by evolu- 

 tion, the result of advanced views in relation to museums and teaching, growino- out of 

 the experience of the Society itself and of kindred institutions at home and abroad. No 

 longer would it suffice that great collections should be made in the diff'erent departments 

 of natural history, however well arranged and labelled the specimens might be in each ; 

 it was necessary that all should be subordinated to a comprehensive plan, so that they 

 should bear a proper relation to each other, and, moreover, include synoptical series which 

 should furnish to those seeking knowledge a key to the proper understanding of the 

 whole. A further development of thought upon the Museum led to the formation of a 



