354 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



tion should be allowed the Library Committee for needed binding and 

 for cataloguing our more than 30,000 books and pamphlets. 



A serious question which must be met in the near future is that of 

 securing more room for our always increasing collections. The build- 

 ing is already overcrowded. A small amount of additional space could 

 be secured were donors willing to allow us to separate their collections 

 and re-arrange them according to the general classification required, 

 due credit being given the donor of specimens on each label. Many 

 of the larger museums refuse to accept donations conditional on their 

 being kept intact — a wise precaution which we should adopt. 



That the Academy may extend a wider educational influence, short 

 descriptive papers on different topics of natural history, illustrated by 

 our specimens, might be prepared by Academy members in the line of 

 their special studies. Such elementary pamphlets would serve to per- 

 manently fix in the minds of the youth of the public and private 

 schools the objects seen in the collections ; and these pamphlets, if 

 properly arranged, might in time serve as a complete catalogue to the 

 Museum. Popular scientific lectures should also be made a regular 

 feature of Academy work at an early date. In speaking of the museum 

 it may be mentioned that while our duplicates are carefully labeled, 

 listed, and used for exchanges, casts of unique specimens might also 

 be added to the exchange list. 



It has been suggested by our Librarian, Mr. C. E. Harrison, that a 

 museum extension be arranged with other museums. This timely sug- 

 gestion should be worked out to a practical result. 



An important function of the Academy is the publication of scien- 

 tific papers on original investigations. This work has been success- 

 fully carried on, almost from the beginning of our organization, with- 

 out an endowment fund, mainly through the indefatigable and perse- 

 vering labors of Mrs. M. L. D. Putnam. Through the same generous 

 friend, an endowment of $10,000, chiefly from the estate of Mrs. Mary 

 Putnam Bull of Tarrytown, New York, has been secured for the pub- 

 lication fund, as a memorial to Mr. Charles E. Putnam and his son, J. 

 Duncan Putnam, both of whom were active workers in the Academy 

 and ably filled the presidential office. 



By means of this endowment fund, all regular and life members of 

 the Academy will hereafter be entitled to its publications free. Grat- 

 ifying results of this stimulus to original research have already 

 been felt, for the committee have now in process of publication two 

 valuable papers : "A List of Coleoptera," by Prof. H. S. Wickham, 

 of the University of Iowa, and " A Revision of the Truxalinge of 

 North America," by Prof. Jerome McNeill, of the University of Ar- 

 kansas. These, with others in course of preparation, will insure the 

 issuance at an early date, of the remaining parts of Volume VI. of the 

 Academy Proceedings. 



In future publications of the Proceedings, and parts as issued, it 

 might be advisable for' the Publication Committee to investigate the 

 proposed plan of the Royal Society of London, of a uniform method 



