1886.] 275 [Farlow. 



and explorers of this country among whom may be mentioned 

 Drummond, Richardson, and Menzies. 



After the reception of the Taylor collection it was sent to Prof. 

 Edward Tucker man who revised the determinations of the species 

 and enriched it with notes of his own. 



The first collection presented by Mr. Sprague included princi- 

 pally species collected and named by Prof. Tuckerman, Mr. J. L. 

 Russell and Mr. C. C. Frost. This donation apparently included 

 a set of Tuckerman' s Lichenes Americtuii Exsiccati originally pub- 

 lished in three volumes, the first of which appeared in 1847. The 

 specimens of this collection, donation 676, are particularly fine 

 and include most of the forms of the northern states known at 

 the time. 



The collection recently given by Mr. Sprague contains an ad- 

 mirable representation of the species of the United States belong- 

 inor to seventy-five different genera. Upon the study and arrange- 

 ment of this large and beautiful collection Mr. Sprague spent many 

 years' labor. The species have all been critically examined by 

 Prof. Tuckerman and the set includes many rare forms and some 

 new species which are to be published by Prof. Tuckerman. Be- 

 sides the numerous specimens collected by Mr. Sprague and his 

 friends in the northern states, there are many valuable additions 

 made by collectors in the little explored regions of Florida, Ari- 

 zona, California, Washington Territory and Alaska. 



The attention of the members of the Society should be called 

 to the fact that they also owe the most valuable part of their col- 

 lection of fungi to the liberality of Mr. Sprague who, not far from 

 twenty years ago, presented a set of fungi collected by himself 

 and his correspondents Mr. Dennis Murray, Mr. Frost and Mr. 

 Russell in New England. The specimens had been sent to Rev. 

 M. J. Curtis of North Carolina, the leading American authority 

 on fungi at that date, who named the collection which included 

 many new species. At the time of their presentation to the So- 

 ciety, most of the new species had not been published but they 

 were afterwards described by Mr. Curtis in connection with the 

 Rev. M. J. Berkeley of England, in Grevillea in 1872 and subse- 

 quent years. With the descriptions are references to the numbers 

 attached to the species in Mr. Sprague's collection. 



Mr. Scudder spoke of the arrangement of scientific libraries, 



