13 



larger boats such as are controlled by the Fish Commission, this 

 is not a very serious difficulty. The expense of living at Wood's 

 Holl is practicaLly neither greater nor less than at other New 

 England summer resorts. 



I regret to report that the Visiting Committee of the Museum 

 appointed by the Overseers have been unsuccessful in their efforts 

 to obtain funds for some of the most pressing needs of the Museum. 

 The committee have shown the greatest interest in attempting to 

 supply the deficiencies to which their attention had been called by 

 the reports of the Professors and of the Curator of the Museum. 



Mr. W. E. D. Scott, who is greatly interested in the progress of 

 ornithology in this country, is making the attempt to collect funds 

 for an additional exhibition room of birds. The collection he pro- 

 poses to bring together is to be modelled on the plan of exhibi- 

 tion which has been introduced with great success in the British 

 Museum, and to a limited extent in the National Museum at 

 Washington. The plan embraces isolated cases of mounted birds, 

 representing single species as life-like and at the same time as 

 artistically mounted as possible. Next, cases illustrating the varia- 

 tion of such species as are non-migratory, but which range unin- 

 terruptedly over large geographical areas. Next, cases showing 

 the dichromatic phases occurring in many families, as well as cases 

 showing the various phases of appearance in any given species 

 correlated with sex, season, age, etc. 



There are many problems of a similar nature which have been 

 brought into prominence during the past thirty years. Many of 

 them can be illustrated in a satisfactory way to the public by 

 exhibits of the different classes of the animal kingdom. The 

 greater familiarity of the visitors with birds and insects will make 

 it comparatively simple to explain to them the object of a limited 

 exhibit of these classes. As regards the more general questions 

 of development, and the multitude of minor problems which 

 it would be interesting to place before the public, other classes 

 must be selected, and the Director of any public Museum will 

 only be at a loss to know what to exclude from the limited 

 room usually at his disposal, so as not to occupy his available 

 space with exhibits which, however interesting to the student, 

 will only have a limited interest for the average visitor. 



ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 



Cambridge, October 1, 1893. 



