316 



Besides these sixty-nine species, the eggs of about fifty others 

 can be procured, inhabitants of the Cordilleras, of the sea-coast, 

 or of some of the intermediate plains. But with all diligence it 

 is impossible to make a complete collection from so many different 

 points in the short space of a season ; and it will not answer for 

 this kind of collection, whose principal merit consists in authen- 

 ticity, to trust to the words of the natives. There exist a great 

 number of birds on the sea-coast and in the Cordilleras, whose 

 eggs probably will be procured another season. As, unfortunately, 

 the month of November is the time chosen by the greater part of 

 the species for hatching, a complete collection should not be ex- 

 pected until after three years of search. Some of the eggs, sent 

 in numbers, present quite a difference in form and color, and often 

 four or five varieties have been selected from more than fifty 

 specimens. The authenticity of all the eggs of this collection, 

 now in the cabinet of the Smithsonian Institution, may be de- 

 pended on, as they were personally collected by Mr. Germain, 

 up to December, 1859. 



The Committee appointed at the last meeting to nom- 

 inate a candidate for the Curatorship of Conchology 

 reported the name of Mr. Nathan Farrand, of Boston ; 

 and he was unanimously elected. 



Mr. Roswell Field, of Greenfield, Mass., made a verbal 

 communication on the footmarks of the Connecticut 

 river sandstones. 



Several years ago he came to the conclusion that these tracks 

 were not made by birds, and this conclusion has been confirmed 

 by the examination of great numbers of specimens since. Though 

 some of them look like bird tracks, there is much negative evi- 

 dence that they are not so ; his opinion is that they were made by 

 four-footed animals, in most instances reptiles, and perhaps in a 

 few cases marsupial mammals like the kangaroo ; the 'tracks 

 frequently do not correspond to those of birds, and the marks of 

 small anterior feet and a dragging tail are often perfectly dis- 

 tinct. He believes Dr. Hitchcock has fallen into many errors in 

 considering the animals that made these tracks as birds, or even 



