BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 249 



Superintendent's Report. 



The Report of the Superintendent, Mr. Henry R. How- 

 land, covering the work of the Society for the past year covered 

 in detail the arrangement with the Department of Public In- 

 struction by which the grammar school children come to our 

 lecture room mornings and afternoons through the school year 

 for the well illustrated nature study talks given by our lecturer, 

 Dr. Carlos E. Cummings. The year's work has shown a series 

 of 234 of these nature study lectures with an attendance of 

 nearly 20,000. Five special evening lectures upon Human 

 Physiology intended for teachers and for advanced pupils have 

 been given by Dr. Cummings covering "The Elements of the 

 Body", "Foods", "Circulation", "Mechanics of the Body" and 

 "Microscopical Anatomy". In preparing for these we added 

 very largely to our supply of experimental apparatus, so that 

 we are fully equipped to give the school children all the exper- 

 iments suggested by the Regents' Syllabus. We have also 

 added to our illustrative material for the other nature study 

 lectures. The glass sided hive of bees has been in constant use 

 and about forty new and very beautiful lantern slides have been 

 prepared by Dr. Cummings from negatives taken by him show- 

 ing the bees visiting the blossoms in search of honey and pollen. 

 We have also added about twenty five new slides showing bird 

 pictures to our previous collection used in the bird lectures. 



A series of special exhibits for the several grammar grades 

 has been prepared in the former lecture room. For the fifth 

 grade are shown specimens of the minerals of the United States; 

 for the sixth grade, tropical products, such as Rubber, Vanilla, 

 Cocoa, etc. ; for the seventh grade, bird enemies; for the eighth 

 grade, Indian implements and weapons and for the ninth grade, 

 collections illustrating the structure of bones and other matters 

 pertaining to physiology work. All are of interest to the 

 school children and are daily visited by the classes. 



During the summer Dr. Cummings visited the Yellowstone 

 Park and Colorado in the interests of the Society, securing 

 about five hundred negatives, most of which have been made 

 into lantern slides and added to our lecture supply. 



