4 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [Apr. 



[A.] 



EEPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



OF THE 



MUSEUM OF COMPAMTIVE ZOOLOGY, 



For the Year 1869. 



It is now ten years since, in 1859, the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology in Cambridge was organized. We have closed our 

 first decade, and it seems, therefore, appropriate to review the 

 work thus far accomplished and to see where it has brought us. 

 Beginning with very small means and scientific materials, the 

 basis for which was chiefly the Gray fund and my private collec- 

 tion of specimens, hardly known at all abroad and attracting but 

 little notice in those days at home, the Cambridge Museum occu- 

 pies now a very honorable place among the prominent scientific 

 institutions of the world. It is in no spirit of egotism tliat I, as 

 Director of this establishment, speak thus of its present standing. 

 But it is no more than fair that the legislature of Massachusetts 

 and the individuals who have so generously sustained this un- 

 dertaking should know that their liberality has not been misap- 

 plied. Familiar as I am with the history of museums, it is an 

 astonishment and a gratification to me to find that in this short 

 time we have attained a position which brings us into the most 

 intimate relations with the first museums of Europe ; we have 

 a system of exchanges with like establishments over the whole 

 world ; while the activity of original research in our institution, 

 and its well-sustained publications, the possibility of which we 

 owe to the liberality of the legislature, make it one of the 



