REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 



To the Honorable, the Board of Regents of the University of the State 

 of Neiv York .• 



I beg leave to present herewith the Annual Eeport upon the State 

 Museum of Natural History, together with the schedule of additions 

 to the collections and library, a notice of the distribution of duplicate 

 specimens, and several special communications. 



I am able to report that the collections are all in good order and 

 condition. There have been considerable additions to the arranged 

 portions of the collection, and these are only restricted by the want of 

 space for their proper disposition. I have heretofore stated the neces- 

 sity which still exists, of proper working rooms and the difficulty of 

 carrying on work in separate buildings, distant from the Museum 

 proper. In these buildings our field collections in geology and palae- 

 ontology have accumulated to the number of several hundred thousand 

 specimens, which can be only imperfectly provided for. Of these 

 large collections of fossils there are at least twenty-five thousand 

 specimens which will be required in the final arrangement of the 

 Museum, whenever adequate room shall be provided. TJntil this pro- 

 vision shall be made it is scarcely practicable to make any final distri- 

 bution of the duplicate specimens, except of the more abundant species. 

 Of these the work of description of species is so far completed, that 

 with proper facilities, and some additional assistants competent for 

 the work, duplicate collections to a large extent could be arranged and 

 distributed to the institutions of learning within the State as heretofore 

 contemplated. 



The additions to the Museum 'collections during the year 1881 will 

 be found recorded in detail in the lists appended. 



In the botanical department there have been donated, from four- 

 teen contributors, thirty species. One hundred and nineteen species 

 have been added by exchange from a single contributor. Sixty-seven 

 species of fungi, of which forty are new, have been collected by the 

 State Botanist. To the zoological collections there have been added ten 

 specimens of vertebrates representing the same number of species. 



Dr. D. N. De Tarr, Mr. C. E. Beecher and Mr. George B. Simpson 

 have contributed collections of the Unionidae and other fresh- water 

 shells, of which lists w r ill be appended. 



To the collections in mineralogy, geology and palaeontology, there 



