MENAGERIE. 
Since the last report the collection of animals at the Gar- 
den has been increased by the acquisition of many rare, valua- 
ble and expensive specimens. A careful valuation of the 
stock on hand March 1st, 1875, places it at $43,620 99. The 
list hereto annexed in appendix [ B ] shows in detail the animals 
acquired since last report, and the manner of their acquisition. 
There is also a table of losses attached, appendix [C]. It is the 
aim of the Managers, not only to afford the public an agreeable 
resort for rational recreation, but by the extent of their collec- 
tion, to furnish the greatest facilities for scientific observation. 
So far as their means allow, they are on the alert to procure all 
desirable specimens of animated nature. The great interest 
which the Society has inspired in Philadelphians abroad, in 
merchants owning vessels trading to foreign ports, and espe- 
cially taken by the Smithsonian Institution, the President 
and the Secretaries of War and the Navy, who have with great 
kindness, issued circular letters in behalf of the Society to 
their officers, has greatly enlarged our means of acquisition 
and lead us to believe that, at no distant day, our collection 
will rival those of the most famous Gardens of Europe. 
As yet the Society has been unable to publish any scientific 
observations, or to establish any system by which the additions 
to scientific information which its collection will surely educe, 
can be given to the world ; hereafter, when the completion of 
the grounds, buildings, &c, will leave us the means, 
methods for these purposes, similar to those used by kindred 
societies, will probably be adopted. In the meantime dissec- 
tions valuable to the comparative anatomist and pathologist 
have been made, and notes thereon published, by the Prosector 
of the Society, Dr. Henry C. Chapman, in the procedings of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, for 1874, 
pages 94 and 95, on the Disposition of the Latissimus Dorsi, 
