20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 



been for a considerable time an arrangement with the proprietors of Silliman's Journal, 

 by which some of the papers read before the Society and some of its proceedings appeared 

 in that periodical. 



At the annual meeting of May, 1832, the report upon the collection in the different 

 departments stated that donations were withheld from the Society awaiting its having 

 proper accommodations for their preservation and exhibition. 



At the election of ofl&cers the following changes were made : Dr. John Ware was chosen 

 first Vice President, in place of Dr. George Hayward, resigned ; Mr. Francis C. Gray was 

 chosen second Vice President, in place of Dr. John Ware. Dr. Amos Binney, Jr., was 

 chosen Treasurer, in place of Mr. Simon E. Greene, resigned ; Mr. Charles Amory was 

 chosen Librarian, in place of Dr. Seth Bass, resigned. Dr. Winslow Lewis, Messrs. Wil- 

 liam B. Fowle, Clement Durgin, Dr. George W. Otis, were chosen Curators, inplace of 

 Mr. P. C. Gray, Dr. Amos Binney, Jr., Rev. J. S. Copley Greene, and Dr. Joshua B. 

 Flint. 



As in the sketch of the Linnsean Society the earlier proceedings were more fully 

 described, so in the account of this Society they are given in greater detail than will 

 be possible to accord to the subsequent records, consistently with proper limits. It has 

 seemed well to dwell somewhat at length upon early transactions, in order that the reader 

 may better imderstand the character and scope of the work undertaken by the first 

 members, and the better appreciate their earnestness and devotion. To do fall justice 

 to their merits, it would be necessary to understand the great difl&culty of procuriag any 

 information upon many of the objects sent to the Society. It was sometimes impossible 

 to make out their character, and often found indispensable to await the reception of works 

 on natural history before any adequate idea could be expressed concerning them. 

 Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, in a brief sketch of the history of the Society, given some years 

 since, quotes what seems particularly appropriate to repeat here. One of the original 

 members recalling, in after years, the success of their undertaking, wrote thus of the 

 difficulties encountered : 



" At the time of the establishment of the Society there was not, I believe, in New 

 England an institution devoted to the study of natural history. There was not a college 

 in New England, excepting Yale, where philosophical geology of the modern school was 

 taught. There was not a work extant by a New England author which presumed to grasp 

 the geological structure of any portion of our territory of greater extent than a county. 

 There was not in existence a bare catalogue, to say nothing of a general history, of the 

 animals of Massachusetts, of any class. There was not within our borders a single 

 museum of natural history founded according to the requirements and based upon the 

 system of modern science, nor a single journal advocating exclusively its interests. 



" We were dependent chiefly upon books and authors foreign to New England for our 

 knowledge of our own zoology. There was no one among us who had anything like a 

 general knowledge of the birds which fly about us, of the fishes which fill our waters, or of 

 the lower tribes of animals that swarm both in air and in sea. 



"Some few individuals there were, distinguished by high attainments in particular 

 branches, and who formed honorable exceptions to the indifference which prevailed ; but 



