124 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



notable institution of its kind in the world, and its advancement 

 toward thorough administrative efficiency should no longer be 

 delayed. 



Funds should be provided for the maintenance of a small 

 scientific staff. Its office force has up to the present time been 

 limited to the Director and his stenographer. The Director's 

 entire time has been devoted to the supervision of employees, 

 the inspection of equipment, the securing of living exhibits and 

 the training of men in their proper care, the writing of labels, 

 the purchase of supplies, bookkeeping and correspondence with 

 the general public. 



Lost in these multifarious details he has been able to do 

 little more in the way of making known the work of the Aquar- 

 ium to the world at large, than by the writing of an annual 

 report and an occasional number of the Bullethi of the Zoolog- 

 ical Society. 



Time has been found for the preparation of only a few nec- 

 essary documents pertinent to the work of the Aquarium, two 

 of which have proved to be of such importance that the editions 

 have long since been sold out. 



These documents should not only be enlarged and repub- 

 lished as volumes of the New York Aquarium Nature Series, but 

 certain other publications should be made available on Aquarium 

 subjects in which the public is interested and for which it makes 

 frequent inquiry. 



Two of the publications referred to above have been re- 

 printed by State Fishery Boards in different parts of the country. 



The Aquarium has long been in need of a guide book. This 

 document which has slowly been taking form, cannot at present 

 be completed by the Director on account of sheer pressure of 

 office duties. 



It is a matter of constant regret to the Director that the 

 Aquarium with its unusual opportunities for observations on 

 aquatic forms of life, cannot be made more useful to science and 

 to the public at large. 



With a small staff of curators to observe and record im- 

 portant facts of nature constantly presenting themselves among 

 the living exhibits of the building, such opportunities would not 

 be lost. It may be mentioned in this connection that another 

 publication of the Aquarium on changes in color among fishes, 

 presents something entirely new to ichthyologists. The hitherto 

 unrecorded facts therein set forth, could never have been ob- 

 served in nature, but must necessarily be studied in just such 



