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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Cincinnati, April 6th, 1885. 

 To the Cincinnati Society of Natural History : 



Gentlemen : — As the duties of the Secretary of your Society 

 prescribed in section 3, article ii., of the By-laws, are purely 

 clerical, there is little of interest in his work to report. He has 

 thought it desirable, however, to tabulate two matters within the 

 range of his work, and to present them for your consideration. 



The correspondence assigned him by the By-laws has been 

 chiefly conducted by the Custodian. As it has almost exclusively 

 related to the library and the museum, it has been assigned to 

 the officer named, for the reason that his greater familiarity with 

 the wants of the library and needs of the museum seems to make 

 the Custodian the proper person to conduct the correspondence. 

 The donations have been acknowledged by the Secretary upon 

 blanks filled out by the Custodian from day to day as material has 

 been received. These acknowledgments have been quite numer- 

 ous, but as no separate record of them has been kept, numbers 

 can not be stated. The donation-book, however, will furnish this 

 information to any one curious upon the subject. 



Members have been notified of the meetings by postal cards, 

 mailed on the Saturday preceding each meeting ; about no have 

 been sent out each month. The custom of inviting guests and 

 representatives of the press has been observed, and no meeting has 

 passed without a notable attendance of non-members. 



The Society has held eleven meetings during the year, against 

 nine the preceding year. The only meeting failing a quorum was 

 that of January, 1885. On that occasion a number of invited 

 guests were present ; the paper announced for the evening was 

 read informally, and an interesting discussion followed. The at- 

 tendance for the year has been as follows. 



Attendance of Members, 1884-85. 



April, 28. May, 15. June, 16. July, 16. 



August, 10. September, n. October, n. November, n. 

 December, 12. January, 7. February, 12. March, 16. 

 Or an average of 13^ for the twelve months, or for the eleven 

 actual meetings, 14^-. 



