6 



MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [Apr. 



The same is true of many other collections of equal interest 

 in our Museum ; as, for example, that of the fishes from the 

 Amazons and other parts of Brazil. But a very small portion 

 of the rich harvest from the Thayer Expedition has as yet been 

 seen by the public. Indeed, since its foundation the collections 

 of the Museum have been immensely enlarged by exchanges, 

 which have been a fertile source of increase, as well as by gifts 

 and by purchase, the latter mainly made from the Gray fund. 

 In the past year this fund, which was our first important endow- 

 ment, has been chiefly spent in the purchase of a collection of 

 fossil insects from Solenhofen, and of a collection of fishes from 

 the West Indies, bought of Professor Poey. 



While I am preparing this Report, the welcome intelligence is 

 brought me by Mr. Lyman, treasurer of the Museum, that the 

 second instalment of the subscription from private individuals, 

 upon which is dependent the contribution of a like sum by the 

 Legislature, is just completed. This gives us f 50,000 for im- 

 mediate use, and will enable us to proceed at once with our 

 building ; so that I trust in the course of another year we shall 

 be able to show to the public, in tangible shape, the verification 

 of the above statements. 



Its rapid growth may give rise to the idea that the Museum 

 has had large means at its command. It has certainly owed 

 much to the generosity both of the State and of individuals ; 

 but I claim that its results, as compared with those of other in- 

 stitutions, are in more than due proportion to the money ex- 

 pended. The income of the British Museum and the Jardin 

 des Plantes, for the maintenance of the departments included 

 in our plan, is more than ten times that of the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology. I am not, of course, comparing equal things 

 in naming these institutions together ; but I maintain that 

 while the two former are on so much larger scale, ours is in 

 certain departments, such as corals and fishes, superior to both, 

 and that in activity of research and publication it yields to 

 neither, while the increase of its collections since its existence, 

 and the prominence it has attained among other museums is 

 such as no like establishment has reached in the same time and 

 with the same means. I find myself constantly in a dilemma, 

 between the modesty befitting a director and the desire, which 

 is also a duty, of showing those who have supported this insti- 



