2,6 Report of the President. 



LECTURES AND CONVENTIONS. 



Department of Public Instruction. — The regular courses 

 of Lectures to Teachers, which are given by Professor Albert 

 S. Bickmore under the terms of a contract with the State 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction, have been continued 

 during the year, with a marked increase of attendance, made 

 possible by the opening of the new lecture hall. By request 

 of the Trustees, Professor Bickmore has given two courses of 

 four lectures each to the members of the Museum and their 

 friends, and four lectures on legal holidays, 



City Board of Education. — Even the greater accommodations 

 afforded by the new auditorium, however, have not been suf- 

 ficient to seat all the persons desiring to attend the free 

 lectures given under the auspices of the Board of Education. 

 In the fall, therefore, the Board decided to give, in coopera- 

 tion with the Museum, a course of lectures on Saturday even- 

 ings, in addition to the regular Tuesday evening course. The 

 Saturday evening lectures have been of a more scientific 

 character than those given on Tuesday evenings. The total 

 number of lectures in the Museum provided by the city was 

 thirty-seven. 



Other lectures have been given in the Museum by arrange- 

 ment with Columbia University and the Linnaean Society of 

 New York. 



The annual convention of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union was held in the halls of the Museum from the 12th to 

 the 14th of November. The national conference of the 

 Audubon Societies of America was held here on November 

 14, and many regular meetings of the Linnaean Society of 

 New York, the New York Entomological Society and the New 

 York Mineralogical Club have been held in the Reading Room 

 of the Library and elsewhere in the Museum building. Ar- 

 rangements have now been perfected for fitting up a small 

 meeting room capable of seating about one hundred and fifty 

 persons and adapted to the needs of such conventions. 



