Report of the President 41 



Hall are of necessity housed here, the North American col- 

 lection is being gradually developed. 



As stated at the outset, progress has been made in all 

 lines, but while the question of exhibits is treated in the 

 reports of departments, it may be said that the additions 

 to the exhibits of insects are especially noticeable as are 

 the changes in the gallery devoted to Central and South 

 America. 



The work of the printing office continues to be as great in 



quantity and as high in quality as in the past, while its char- 



" . , acter is even more diversified. This year it 



Printing and , , r r , A ,, 



,. , ,. includes the printing of four plates for Anthro- 



Labehng , . , „ r & , , , , 



pological Papers, and two colored plates and 



fifteen in tint for the Journal, 85,000 plates in all, work that 

 called for 114,500 impressions; an illustrated leaflet of twenty- 

 seven pages, Our Common Butterflies, and a forty-eight page 

 pamphlet, The Public Schools and The American Museum of 

 Natural History. 



Owing to this work the output of labels has been slightly 

 lessened, though as an offset something over 2,000 labels for 

 shells, where little information could be given save the name 

 and locality of the specimen, have been hand printed. Some 

 of our friends have told us that more labels could be printed 

 if some of the many tickets, circulars and statements were 

 printed outside, but while this is undeniably true, experience 

 has shown us that this class of work can not only be done 

 more economically in the Museum than out of it, but that it 

 can be done much more expeditiously and just when it is 

 wanted, and it very frequently happens, in connection with 

 lectures or work with the schools, that circulars are called for 

 at short notice. A point that the outsider often fails to 

 recognize is the very considerable saving of time to the 

 members of the Museum staff and the consequent indirect 

 saving of money. The number of the more important general 

 or descriptive labels is, however, about the same as last year 

 and these include many of the large labels placed at the 

 entrances to the halls to give the visitor a clue to their con- 

 tents and an idea of the exhibits in the halls beyond. The 



