1881 .] 
187 
[Annual Reports. 
Among those whom death has taken, two were members of the 
Council and frequent attendants at meetings, Count L. F. 
Pourtales and Mr. L. S. Burbank. Of the other deaths, should 
here be mentioned that of Mr. George B. Emerson, one of the 
original members of the Society, and its second President, and of 
Dr. Charles T. Jackson, an early member, and for many years the 
holder of various offices. 
Meetings. 
At the sixteen general meetings of the Society the average 
attendance has been thirty-three, considerably less than that of 
the previous year. This falling off is probably due to the fact 
that several meetings occurred on the stormiest nights of an un- 
usually severe season. In interest of subjects discussed the 
character of the meetings has been fully up to the average. 
The section of Entomology has held eight meetings, with an 
average attendance of eight persons, as was the case a year ago. 
The section of Microscopy has practically been given up. The 
meetings have been regularly summoned in advance, but often no 
one and never more than two or three have appeared. 
Library. 
The noteworthy event of the year has been the increase of the 
library fund to ten thousand dollars. In 1866 a special fund of 
five thousand dollars for the use of the Library was given to the 
Society by J. Huntington Wolcott, Esq., in memory of his son, 
Huntington Frothingham Wolcott. This sum was gradually in- 
creased by the addition of portions of its income, to six thousand 
dollars, and Mr. Wolcott, in December last, generously presented 
a farther sum of four thousand dollars. By conditions of the 
gift, the income of the Wolcott Fund may be spent for books and 
binding, and also for maps, works of art, and the like, for the 
library; with these conditions is coupled the suggestion, which 
the Council has voted to adopt, that one-tenth the income be an- 
nually added to the principal. 
While the Society may congratulate itself upon this much 
needed gift, it cannot, unfortunately be forgotten how insufficient 
the Wolcott Fund income is for the support of its library. Prob- 
