130 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



pies, may be emphasized by quoting from the annual reports of 

 the director for the past three years : 



1916. "The Aquarium, as one of the public museums of 

 New York, continues, despite its unfailing attraction for the 

 people, to represent a neglected opportunity. Possessing a 

 greater interest for the public than any other institution, and 

 forced to carry on the office work of a great museum without the 

 proper facihties for doing so, the fund for its maintenance at 

 present is less than that provided ten years ago. It remains, 

 through lack of space and lack of consideration by the authorities, 

 in a condition of arrested development. Its unique possibilities 

 for usefulness and greater attractiveness have long been appar- 

 ent. They have, indeed, been set forth persistently by its officers, 

 yet its prospects for early improvement are not encouraging." 



1917. "While the institution has always had the patronage 

 of the people to a degree quite unusual among public museums, 

 it has not received official support commensurate with its popu- 

 larity, its actual field of work and its possibilities for greater use- 

 fulness. The unprepossessing external appearance which the 

 Aquarium presents to the visitor is due to the fact that it is 

 housed in an old and inadequately cared for building. It remains 

 the same unsightly structure that it has been for the past one 

 hundred years. Its interior aspects are better, and the structural 

 defects of the building are largely overlooked in the presence of 

 its admirable and extensive living exhibits. 



The Aquarium must, by reason of its great interest for the 

 public, be classed as a public museum, and its staff has always 

 been under the necessity of performing duties similar to those of 

 curators in such museums. The fact cannot be overlooked that 

 its work has hitherto been carried on under such serious disad- 

 vantages as lack of exhibition and office space and facilities for 

 collecting and caring for its exhibits. The space devoted to ex- 

 hibits reached its full capacity years ago, so that reasonable 

 growth of its collections has been altogether impossible. The 

 inadequacy of the building to the work required of the Aquarium 

 has not been due to lack of well prepared plans for its improve- 

 ment. The needs of the Aquarium have been recognized and 

 various plans for its betterment have been submitted and found 

 approval — but action has so far not been secured." 



1918. "The position occupied by the New York Aquarium 

 among the public museums of the City is not an enviable one. 

 Confined within its century-old walls and limited in exhibition 

 space to the original one hundred tanks, its growth is restrained 

 as effectively as that of a crustacean unable to molt its old shell. 

 Normal development, such as has attended the other city 

 museums, has been denied it in spite of the fact that in visitors it 



