1870.] 325 [Annual Report. 



the number of species, and orders have been sent abroad to 

 supply a portion of our wants from an appropriation for the 

 purpose, made some time since by the Council. The Curator 

 hopes that when the financial condition of the Society will 

 permit, an annual appropriation for additions to his collections 

 will be allowed. The department is indebted to Dr. C. T. 

 Jackson, Messrs. W. S. Coffin, T. Gaffield, J. E. Cover, J. 

 Parkman, Capt. G. H. Preble and others, for interesting 

 specimens presented during the- year. 



From these accounts it appears that while some collections 

 need a good deal of revision, and many are not yet entirely 

 supplied with the uniform system of labelling lately adopted, 

 the museum is in much better order and in a far safer condi- 

 tion than it has been at any time since our removal to this 

 building. The library also has increased and the lectures 

 have proved a success ; but in our publications and in the 

 interest of our meetings, we have sadly fallen off; last year, 

 with an income of more than twelve thousand dollars, the So- 

 ciety published no more than it averaged for the first twelve 

 years of its existence ; then its members were but a handful, 

 and the total annual receipts scarcely one thousand dollars ; a 

 yearly subsidy of three hundred dollars from the State was 

 considered a bounty, but could not prevent the constant in- 

 debtedness of the Society, — so important did the publications 

 seem to the founders of our institution ; they were men who 

 associated, not principally for the purpose of building up a great 

 Museum, not even to create a popular interest in a knowl- 

 edge of natural history, but — I use the language of a former 

 President of the Society, frequently quoted before — "drawn 

 together by a similarity of tastes and pursuits, for the pur- 

 pose of increasing their knowledge by frequent intercourse." 



Without being too tightly bound by the intentions of the 

 founders of the Society, we must not altogether lose sight of 

 the principles which they avowed. Should any urge that we 

 interpret those principles wrongly, let them examine the 



