EEPOET OF THE SECEETAEY. 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. It is 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 



