Report of the President 93 



Thomas G. Hull, Ph.D. Yale, 191 6, has been appointed 

 Assistant in the Department, with special responsibility for the 

 exhibition work, while Mr. William Romberg, who has assisted 

 Dr. Kligler for four years, will have direct charge of the bac- 

 terial collection, under the general supervision of Dr. Hull. 



THE LIBRARY 



Department of Books and Publications 



Ralph W. Tower, Curator 



The year just past has proved for the Library an unusually 

 busy and memorable one. To the Library, perhaps more than 

 to any other department in the institution, the European war 

 has come as a direct and disturbing influence, exceedingly 

 hampering both the maintenance of the periodical files and the 

 acquisition of new material. The publications usually received 

 from the belligerent nations have either arrived at most irregu- 

 lar intervals, or have not come to hand at all. Foreign peri- 

 odicals received on subscription have failed to be delivered, in 

 many cases leaving the subscriber doubtful whether his order 

 was ever delivered, or if delivered whether the publication in 

 question appeared in sufficiently ample edition to admit of 

 distribution in America. These delays, plus the unavoidable 

 losses in shipping and the natural and far deeper loss to sci- 

 ence, make it inevitable that the year should present a dreary 

 aspect in our international files of scientific literature. 



On the other hand, through the generosity of the Trustees 

 and individual donors, the Library has come into the possession 

 of an exceptional number of important and valu- 

 cqmsitions a ^ e books. By gift of Mr. Ogden Mills was 

 acquired an original manuscript by Titian Ramsey Peale, 

 entitled "The Butterflies of North America, Whence they 

 Come, Where they Go, and What they Do." This work has 

 never yet been published, with the possible exception of a 

 single small instalment which seems to have appeared in 1883. 

 The manuscript consists of nearly four hundred pages of 

 descriptive matter and is accompanied by three volumes of 

 original colored drawings made by Mr. Peale. Mr. Mills's 



