REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 23 
_ Two other works of the same series were completed, and would 
have been immediately published had the manuscripts not been de- 
stroyed by the fire. The first of these was a monograph of the 
Myriapoda, by Dr. H. C. Wood, and the other a monograph on the 
Limnobina, by Baron Osten Sacken. 
Reports.—The annual reports to Congress are printed at the expense 
of the government as public documents, with the exception of the 
wood-cuts, which are furnished by the Institution; and it is gratifying 
to be able to state that for a number of years there has not been a 
dissenting vote in Congress on the adoption of the order to print the 
usual number of ten thousand extra copies of this work. The manu- 
script of the report for 1863 was unfortunately mislaid at the Capitol, 
and the public printer was therefore obliged to delay the publication 
on account of other more pressing demands of the departments of the 
government. Itis much to be regretted that at the recent fire at 
the Institution all the copies of the reports on hand for general 
distribution to individuals were destroyed, so that at present it 
will be impossible to supply the many applications which are made 
_ for copies of the back volumes of the series. The reports for 1861 
and 1862 were stereotyped, and when the cost of press-work and 
paper is reduced to its normal state, a new edition of these may be 
struck off and disposed of at the mere price of production. 
The report for 1863 contains in the appendix a course of lectures 
on the principles of linguistic science, by Professor W. D. Whitney, 
of Yale College; a eulogy of Beautemps-Beaupre, translated by C. A. 
Alexander, esq., a continuation of the series of memoirs of distin- 
guished members of the French Academy of Sciences; an account of 
the origin and history of the Royal Society of London, prepared by 
the same; an exposition of the modern theory of chemical types, 
by Dr. Charles M. Wetherill; an original article on the method of 
preserving Lepidoptera, with illustrations, by Titian R. Peale, esq.; 
an account of a remarkable accumulation of bats at the residence, in 
Maryland, of M. Figaniere, Portuguese minister; a number of articles 
on ethnology, giving an account of ancient remains in various parts 
of America and Europe. There are also a number of translations 
made expressly for the Institution, viz: researches on the phenomena 
which accompanied the propagation of electricity in highly rarefied 
elastic fluids, by Professor de la Rive; report on the proceedings of 
the Society of Physics and Natural History of Geneva, by Professor 
Marcet; the commencement of Plateau’s researches on the figures of 
