16 
The students in Nat. Hist. 6 spent the first half-year on types 
from Cartilaginous and Bony Fishes and Birds. In the second 
half-year, the Cat and Man, as representatives of the Mammalia, 
occupied their attention. The lectures in this half were con- 
fined to the osteology and myology, and the more interesting and 
important structural relations, of the group of Primates. 
The plan of work followed in the zoélogical half of the biologi- 
cal course was essentially that of progressing from the simpler 
to the more complex forms, instead of beginning with the verte- 
brate, about which everybody knows something, and thence to 
the unknown forms. Although the latter plan has been lately 
reverted to by such eminent authority as Professor Huxley, and 
that after a thorough trial of the former method, it was thought 
advisable, considering the preparation of the class, to adhere to 
the more difficult though more scientific method of work, and it 
is believed that the results fully warrant this choice. 
Twenty-seven students completed courses of Nat. Hist. 5 the 
past year, six of them passing the examinations in Nat. Hist. 6. 
As a result of studies, yet incomplete, of the vascular system 
of the interesting Chlamydoselachus anguineus, Gar., a paper has 
been prepared by Dr. Ayers for publication in the Bulletin, en- 
titled “ On the Morphology of the Carotids.”’ 
The course in Nat. Hist. 5 was conducted by Dr. Ayers and 
Dr. Farlow on the same plan as in previous years, and was at- 
tended by twenty-seven students, not including a few who did 
not do all the required work. By a special arrangement for the 
year 1887-88, the second course in cryptogamic botany, Nat. 
Hist. 23, was under the charge of Mr. Roland Thaxter, and was 
attended by four students. The course for original investiga- 
tion in cryptogamic botany, Nat. Hist. 12, was taken by four 
Graduates, of whom two had been in attendance the previous 
year. A paper by Mr. K. Miyabe, on the Development of Macro- 
sporium parasiticum, is now in press, and will appear probably 
in November. During the year the paper by Mr. Roland Thaxter 
on the Entomophthoree of the United States, including work 
done by him in Nat. Hist. 12, was published in the Memoirs of 
the Boston Society of Natural History. 
