1872.] ia [Annual Report. 
case are the characteristic parts, likewise greatly enlarged, so 
as to be readily seen, but each figure accompanied by its cor- 
responding dissection. The characteristics of the family and 
genus are written opposite, so that the visitor sees at one 
glance the animal, its parts, and the family and generic char- 
acteristics. The outlines are drawn with the camera-lucida, 
and corrected by the most careful study, so that they are as 
accurate as it is possible to make them. 
This is the sort of work that should be done in every de- 
partment, if we would render our type collections really use- 
ful. A single assistant may slowly, and by dint of patient 
labor, accomplish a great deal, and in the meantime I venture 
to hope that an interest in what we are doing will be incited 
in the minds of those who are able to relieve our necessities. 
We are considered a wealthy Society, and so we are, as 
compared with other Societies, but we also have more to do, 
The times in which we live, the locality, and the cause of 
public education, demand an amount of progress which we 
have not means enough to sustain. This is not only felt in 
the Museum but in the publications, and through them by all 
‘the Naturalists in this section. 
Original investigations, which no publisher can afford to 
undertake, on account of their strictly technical character, 
have ever been the principal sources of knowledge, especially 
in Natural Science. | 
The usefulness of a Society, therefore, whichis founded and 
carried on in the interest of Natural Science, depends largely 
upon its ability to furnish means of ready publication. We 
have succeeded in publishing several of the Memoirs that 
have been presented at our meetings, but others of great 
value have been necessarily rejected. One of these is 
now being published by the New York Lyceum of Natural 
History. Nothing can be more injurious to the progress of 
science in this vicinity than such proofs of our inability to 
assist persons who spend their lives in the pursuit of the same 
objects as those for which this Society was founded, and is 
now carried on. 
