1881.J NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 475 



made. Reckoning ten pamphlets to the volume, he estimates that 

 the librar\' now contains 29,485 volumes, exclusive of duplicates. 



Many of the works consist almost entirel}^ of dry technical 

 descriptions of objects, and are, in one respect at least, analogous 

 to dictionaries or encyclopaedias, which are referred to, but not 

 read from beginning to end. As a rule, circulating libraries do 

 not lend their dictionaries, nor recent numbers of periodicals and 

 serials. 



After ample experience and mature consideration of the subject 

 in all its relations, the Academj^ determined that its library, like 

 that of the British Museum, should be maintained as a library of 

 reference only, under a conviction that the interests of students 

 and of the members far and near would be, on the whole, promoted 

 by this policy. A large proportion of the books have been con- 

 tributed on condition that they shall not be loaned for use outside 

 of the building on any pretense whatever. Even if the Academy 

 were now disposed to change it to a circulating library, it cannot 

 annul the conditions upon which most of the books were given 

 and accepted, without breach of trust. It is not likely that a 

 majoi'ity of those entitled to A'ote here will ever consent that the 

 Academy shall merit the just odium of such action merely for the 

 sake of loaning its books. 



The Recording Secretary reports that twenty papers from 

 twelve authors have been accepted for publication in the Pro- 

 ceedings ; and that the fourth or concluding part of the eighth 

 quarto volume of the Journal has been printed, and distributed to 

 subscribers and to those on the exchange list. 



The volume of Proceedings of 1881 contains about 500 pages. 

 The third volume of a " Manual of Conchology," b}^ George W. 

 Try on, Jr., illustrated by 628 figures given in 87 plates, with 310 

 octavo pages of text, has been issued from the Academy by the 

 author ; and the Rev. Dr. Henry C. McCook has had published 

 by J. B. Lippincott Sc Co., an octavo volume, fully illustrated, on 

 " The Honey Ants of the Garden of the gods, and the Occident 

 Ants of the American Plains," much of which he had presented 

 at stated meetings of the Academ}- in the course of the yeav. 



Several papers from the Conchological, Botanical, Mineral- 

 ogical and Geological Sections have been accepted for publication 

 in the Proceedings of the Academy. The Entomological Section 



