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ercises. The Prksidext in the chair, and in tlie absence of the Secre- 

 tary Mr. PuTNAiM was appointed to the place; the record of the 

 preceding meeting was read; the donations to the library and cabi- 

 nets since the last report, and the correspondence, Avere announced 

 by the proper officers. 



The Pkesident in opening the meeting made a few remarks, al- 

 luding to this place as the geographical centre of the county 

 and before the introduction of railroads verj^ often selected for the 

 assembling of conventions of various kinds, political, educational, 

 religious, etc. The Agricultural Society held its first cattle show in 

 this town in 1820, when Dr. Andrew Nichols of Danvers delivered 

 the address ; an important meeting for organizing Lyceums in this 

 county was held in 1829, when the Hon. D. A. White delivered a very 

 valuable and instructive lecture ; the meeting for the completion of 

 the organziation of the Essex County Natural History Society, incor- 

 porated in 1848 with the Essex Historical Society, under the name of 

 the Essex Institute, was held in April, 1834. The first Field Meeting 

 of the Institute, under its present system, was held in the Academy 

 building in June, 1856, another meeting was held in 1860, and this is 

 the fourtli time that the society has assembled in this place. 



Mr. Samuel P. Fowler, who was present at the first meeting, was 

 called upon and gave a very interesting account of that first gathering 

 of a few devoted friends of natural history, including Dr. A. Nichols 

 of Danvers, Wm. Oakes of Ipswich, Eev. G. B. Perry of Bradford, B. 

 H. Ives of Salem, and others, who have long since been gathered to 

 their fathers ; and contrasted that day of small things with the meet- 

 ings of the present time. 



Mr. F. W. Putnam described his experience while on his way to the 

 pond, having picked up some zoological specimens under the fallen 

 trunk of an old pine tree, consisting of spiders, two or three spe- 

 cies of centipedes, including the common earwigs, and crustaceans 

 represented by the sow-bug and pill-bug, and specimens of several 

 kinds of snails. Three species of salamanders were also collected 

 under the log. On turning over a stone, a tree-toad jumped forth. 

 This animal, which he exhibited to the audience, will change its color, 

 like the chameleon, and has the power of walking up a pane of glass 

 as easily as a fly. Mr. Putnam described the large yellow spider, of 

 which he had several specimens, which has the habit, on the approach 

 of an intruder, of making its web vibrate so rapidly as hardly to be 

 seen. He also explained the structure of spiders generally, and com- 

 pared them with other insects, and described the interesting process 

 by which they spin their thread. He likewise spoke of the beetles 

 found on the potato vines here, which are not, as has been feared, the 

 much dreaded Colorado potato bug. He also exhibited a collection 



