6 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [May, 



upon the progress of that branch of entomology in this country. 

 Besides this, Dr. Hagen has secured for the Museum a number 

 of special collections during his late visit to Europe. Mr. Alex. 

 Agassiz has also made many valuable acquisitions for the 

 Museum during his journey in the old country. Among the 

 additions to our means of study, I ought especially to mention 

 the large series of scientific periodicals presented to the Museum 

 by the University of Bale, and the many works and pamphlets 

 received in exchange for our own publications. 



The special reports of the curators of the different depart- 

 ments give a full account of all the donations received by the 

 Museum during the past year. There are, however, some 

 which require a special mention in this place : from Mr. G. V. 

 Fox, late under-secretary of the navy, sundry specimens from 

 Japan and the East Indies ; from Mr. Benjamin 0. Peirce, a 

 Cape Ant-Eater; from Professor Worthen, fossils of Illinois ; 

 from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst, from 

 Mr. Haskell in Deerfield, from Colonel Theodore Lyman in 

 Boston, and from Mr. W. W. Chenery in Belmont, valuable 

 specimens of domesticated animals. 



On the whole, the work done in the Museum during the past 

 year has been a continuation of that of the preceding year, 

 with this essential difference, however, that the accession of Dr. 

 Steindachner, Count Pourtales and Messrs. Leo Lesquereux 

 and E. Bicknell to our corps of officers, has made it possible to 

 take in hand parts of the collections which had been much 

 neglected of late. Thus Dr. Steindachner has begun the identi- 

 fication and final arrangement of the Fishes ; Mr. Pourtales has 

 carried forward that of the Corals ; Mr. Lesquereux has put in 

 order the whole collection of Fossil Plants, and Mr. Bicknell 

 has resumed the preparation of microscopic sections, entirely 

 neglected since the death of Mr. Glen. The large collection of 

 palms and other tropical plants intended to illustrate the vege- 

 tation of past geological ages is still packed up. Mr. Lyman 

 has determined and described all the Ophiurans obtained by the 

 Coast Survey's deep-sea dredgings. Mr. Alex. Agassiz has 

 done the same for the Echinoids ; Dr. Wm. Stimpson for the 

 Brachyuran Crustacea, and Mr. Pourtales for the Corals. 

 Meanwhile the monograph of the North American Astacida3, by 

 Dr. Hagen, and the papers of Mr. J. A. Allen upon the Eared 



