REPORT. 



To the President and Fellows of Harvard College: — 



It is well to recall in the centenary year of the founder of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology the indebtedness this Museum 

 owes, in common with similar institutions, to the genius of Louis 

 Agassiz. With broad interests in the investigation, instruction, 

 and the popularization of natural science, he planned the division 

 of this Museum into research collections and into collections for 

 exhibition, at a time when large collections of specimens were 

 useful to professional naturalists alone. For the research collec- 

 tions his zeal knew no bounds, and the investigator in problems 

 in variation, for instance, as a result of that zeal, finds to-day, in 

 certain fields, extensive series of specimens not easily duplicated 

 elsewhere. For purposes of instruction and for the popular exhi- 

 bition of animal life, Professor Agassiz departed from the usual 

 custom of one great systematic series with very many specimens 

 crowded together, and established the principle of the selection of 

 a small number of characteristic forms, associating recent species 

 and their skeletons in juxtaposition with fossil forms. Moreover, 

 Professor Agassiz's three ideas — first, synoptic collections show- 

 ing the principal types of form and structure ; secondly, systematic 

 collections with a more extended, though limited, series of typical 

 specimens ; and thirdly, faunal collections, where the main facts 

 of the geographical distribution of the animals of the earth and 

 ocean are shown — have the same interest and importance they 

 had when the Museum was founded in 1859, and have given the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology an individuality and character 

 of its own. 



The late Dr. Charles F. Folsom was a member of the Committee 

 appointed by the Overseers to visit the Museum from 1891 until 

 his death, August 20, 1907 ; he was also a member of the Com- 

 mittee on zoological instruction for the year 1906-1907. Dr. 

 Folsom's interest in the work of these committees was genuine 

 and disinterested. He was instrumental in securing for the Mu- 



