1884.] NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA, 331 



immediately after the collections of the British Museum, the 

 National Museum of Vienna, and the University of Leyden, it 

 has of recent years attracted but few students or specialists to 

 its cases, a deplorable condition, doubtless due in great part to 

 imperfect arrangement (incident to the want of a special curator) 

 and the circumstance of the 85,000 or more specimens being 

 mounted, instead of in the far more serviceable form of skins. 

 The absolute necessity of having a specialist, whose services 

 should meet with fit pecuniary compensation, in this, as in all 

 other departments, cannot be too strongly insisted upon. Long 

 neglect of a department means, practically, its collapse, at least 

 so far as the advantages to be derived from it by special students 

 are concerned, and unless it can be adequately supported, must 

 ultimately, by its occupancy of space and the use of time in its 

 preservation, become a drag rather than a spur to the institution 

 of which it forms a part. Despite the general richness of the 

 ornithological collection, it has, through want of adequate means 

 for its support, suffered to such an extent that at the present 

 time it lacks no less than about 170 species or varieties of North 

 American birds alone I 



The Conchological department, on the other hand, which has 

 for two decades enjoyed a constant supervision from the part of 

 a distinguished conchologist, is singularly complete, and both in 

 the number and variety of its forms, stands unsurpassed by any 

 similar collection, whether in this country or Europe. It com- 

 prises no less than 150,000 specimens, mounted on upwards of 

 42,000 tablets, and it alone, of all the various departments, rep- 

 resents the actual state of a zoological science as we now know it. 



During the year a selection of birds from the general collection 

 has been laid aside to complete a special collection illustrative of 

 North American ornithology. 



The work of re-arranging and classifying the geological and 

 paleontological specimens has made considerable progress. 



The " local collection," intended for the illustration of the 

 natural products of the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 

 is, as far as the resources of the general collection woujd permit, 

 complete, except in the department of entomology, for which no 

 suitable cases have as yet been provided. A cabinet of the 

 minerals belonging to the same geographical area has recently 

 been placed in the Museum for the benefit of students. It is 



