32 EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



the members of tlie society, and to diffuse a taste for the refiued, iutellect- 

 ual pleasure, which is derived from tlie minute observation of the natural 

 workl, but also to furnish lists of local floras and faunas, and of miueral- 

 ogical and geological localities which may serve to establish the area 

 of distribution of special objects of nature, and thus contribute to the 

 extension as well as the diffusion of knowledge. The directors of muse- 

 ums of this character ought to be careful not to attempt to form general 

 collections, other, perhaps, than a limited number of specimens for com- 

 parison, since it will soon be found that the cost and labor of the proper 

 care and exhibition of the local collections will equal the means which 

 can be commanded for this purpose. 



Large museums or collections supported by Government appropria- 

 tions are of different characters, in accordance with the objects they are 

 designed to subserve. They may be intended exclusively for scientific 

 research, and for this purpose consist of large numbers of specimens and 

 duplicates, as it were, of the raw materials of science, which have never 

 been investigated, but which may serve for the study, of the produc- 

 tions of entirely unexplored regions. It has been the policy of this 

 Institution to make collections of this kind, to submit them to experts 

 for critical examination, and to publish such descriptions as would 

 render them subservient to the progress of scientific generalization. If 

 these descriptions were exhaustive, the original specimens would no 

 longer be required for further scientific investigation; but, unfortunately, 

 the characteristics and peculiarities of the specimens ai-e only partially 

 recognized and represented at any one period, and hence it becomes 

 necessary from time to time to go over the same ground in order to 

 verify or disprove new and ingenious suggestions as to peculiarities and 

 relations not hitherto recognized; the specimens must therefore be pre- 

 served, especially if they are of such a character as cannot readily be 

 replaced. In making such collections the Smithsonian Institution has 

 done, perhaps, more than any other establishment during the twenty-four 

 years of its existence. It might, however", have effected much more good 

 and extended its influence more widely if all the duplicate specimens 

 had been made up into sets and distributed soon after they were col- 

 lected. But this was impossible with the limited means at the command 

 of the Institution and the assistance it could obtain from voluntary 

 unpaid collaborators. Besides this, some advantages have resulted to 

 science from the retention in the Institution of a large number of every 

 variety of a class of specimens. This has enabled the naturalist to make 

 comparisons v/hich would have been otherwise impossible, to mark pecu- 

 liarities connected with age, sex, food, climate, etc., and to observe the 

 diversities of form and structure due to the varying conditions of lil'e. 

 As an illustration of this remark we may refer to the results which Pro- 

 fessor Baird has been enabled to arrive at from the unrivalled opportu- 

 nity which he has had in the extensive collection of the Institution, of 



