746 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 
[Dec., 
arrangement of the mollusca has also been instituted. The entire 
series of alcoholics has been removed from the exhibition rooms 
and placed in compactly arranged cases in the basement, where 
some 100,000 specimens are within easy reach of the student who 
desires to consult them, being at the same time largely shielded 
from the light, the great destroyer of pigment. For exhibition 
there is being installed by the liberality of Mr. Clarence B. Moore 
a series of plaster casts of snakes, colored and mounted amid 
natural surroundings, which are far more instructive to the general 
public than the alcoholics that have been removed. 
In the Botanical department the modern plan of mounting the 
specimens upon uniform standard herbarium sheets, begun some time 
ago, has been finished during the present year, with the exception 
of certain special collections. 
The museum catalogues are the work of recent years. In 1893 
uniform catalogues were provided for all departments, except En¬ 
tomology and Botany. In some only the accessions since that date 
have been entered, but in the cases of the mammals, birds, rep¬ 
tiles, fishes and minerals every specimen has been numbered and 
entered in its respective catalogue. In the case of disarticulated 
skeletons every bone has been numbered. 
These catalogues are necessarily only accession lists, but a sys¬ 
tematic card catalogue of the mammals has been prepared, showing 
at a glance exactly what the Academy possesses in this department 
of the museum. 
The character of the exhibition specimens has also been much im¬ 
proved. In 1892, a taxidermist was employed and all mammals 
and birds since prepared for exhibition have been mounted in the 
most approved manner. A large number of mammals have been 
prepared during the past ten years, and so far as the larger forms 
are concerned, they have replaced the grotesque and faded stuffed 
specimens of earlier years, while a local collection of birds, 
mounted in groups, with nests and eggs, has replaced the old 
series. 
The Academy’s efforts of late years have been mainly devoted 
to the renovation of the museum, the increase of the collections 
and library, and the expansion of the publications. Nevertheless, 
a number of expeditions have been sent out in its interest through 
