4 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY.  [Feb. 
[A.] 
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 
OF THE 
MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
For THE YEAR 1868. 
This year has been a memorable one in the history of our 
institution. When I prepared my report for the year 1867, it 
was under the depressing conviction that unless a large sum 
could be promptly obtained, the labor of years would be made 
of no avail, and the value of the materials collected in the 
Museum so impaired for want of the means essential to their 
preservation, that they would become in a great degree useless. 
By the intelligent liberality of the legislature, who took this 
matter into earnest and thoughtful consideration, and the gen- 
erous co-operation of individuals, this danger is averted. I 
have never felt so hopeful of the future of the institution which 
has so long been my care as now. With the prospect for the 
next three years of an income large enough to secure the aid 
of competent assistants in the different departments, we shall 
be able to put our immense collections in complete order, and 
to enlarge the building sufficiently to exhibit all our specimens 
in their true relations. I hope that in three years any intelli- 
gent observer will be able to say that a mere walk through our 
Museum teaches him something of the geographical distribu- 
tion of animals, of their history in past ages, of the laws con- 
trolling their growth as they now exist, and of their mutual 
affinities ; in short, that the whole will be so combined as to 
illustrate all that science has thus far deciphered of the plan of 
creation. This is my hope, and it is shared by the efficient 
