MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



5 



To Miss Cornelia Prime the Museum owes the copper plates 

 and original blocks, together with other conchological memorabila, 

 both published and in manuscript, relating to the Corbiculidae 

 that were utilized in the work of her brother, the late Mr. Temple 

 Prime. Mr. Prime was for many years an authority on this 

 family of fresh-water shells and gave his valuable collection of the 

 same to the Museum in 1875. 



Two large rail cases have been added to one of the exhibition 

 galleries for the display of a collection of butterflies and moths. 

 This attractive series of over five hundred specimens is the generous 

 gift of Mr. John L. Gardner. It includes many species of great 

 beauty and rarity from tropical America, Africa, India, Australia, 

 and the East Indies, but comparatively few of the common and 

 well-known species of North America and Europe. All the speci- 

 mens are mounted with the well-recognized skill of the Denton 

 Brothers, and since placed on exhibition, have added largely to the 

 instruction and pleasure of visitors to the Museum. 



To Mr. Agassiz the Museum is indebted for a series of corals 

 from the elevated reef of Mombassa and the adjacent coast of 

 British East Africa, and for an exceptionally large and fine speci- 

 men of the precious coral of commerce. 



Mr. Thomas Barbour's appointment as one of the delegates to 

 represent Harvard University at the Pan-American Scientific Con- 

 gress held in Santiago, Chile, gave him opportunities which were 

 eagerly seized to collect in several parts of South America, in Cuba, 

 and in Jamaica. From the latter, he amassed a large, and in view 

 of the changes now taking place in the fauna of that island, an 

 especially desirable series of reptiles, of amphibians, and of two 

 forms of Peripatus. Among other specimens received from him, 

 three examples of the rare monotreme, Proechidna, from New 

 Guinea, and six mounted Hedgehogs, Erinaceus europacus, are 

 noteworthy. 



To the New York Zoological Society, to its Director, Dr. W. T. 

 Hornaday, and to its Curator of Reptiles, Mr. R. L. Ditmars, the 

 Museum can but repeat an annual expression of thanks; the 

 specimens received from this source as mounted by Mr. Nelson, 

 have made the exhibition collections of reptiles of marked interest 

 and attractiveness. 



To the U. S. National Museum the Museum is indebted for a 



