1S94.] 275 [Annual Meetingr. 
Annual Mretino, May 2, 1894. 
President W. H. Niles in the cliair. Forty-nine persons 
present. 
The following reports were presented : — 
Report of the Curator, Alpheus Hyatt, 
The most remarkable accession of the year has been the gift of 
stuffed mammals, birds, and reptiles from the Boston museum. 
The history of tlie collection has been given, so far as related to 
the earlier years of its existence, in an article in the Boston 
herald ])rinted soon after it was removed from the Boston 
museum building. It began its public life in 1818 in the hands 
of Mr. E. A. Greenwood, who exhibited on Court Street. It 
combined at this time and subsequently what was then called the 
New York museum, said to have been exhibited in Boston in 
1812, Mix's museum purchased in New Haven, and what was 
called the Columbian museum, the latter, however, being described 
as a collection of wax figures. The museum was incorporated 
about 1818, under the title of the New England museum and 
gallery of the fine arts, as I am informed by Mr. Moses Kimball, 
but eventually fell entirely mto the hands of Mr. Greenwood, and 
about 1835-36 ]>assed by purchase into the hands of the Kimballs. 
Moses Kimball moved the collection to the building now occupied 
by tlie Methodist Church on Bromfield Street, and while it was 
piled up there it underwent revision. The portions selected out 
as unfit for exhibition in Boston were sent to Lowell and utilized 
in that city, and the remainder became the nucleus of the future 
museum in this city. In 1841 the collection was transferred to a 
building which stood on the site of what is now Horticultural 
Hall, and it was then called by Mr. Kimball the Boston museum. 
Financial prosjierity began in this building, and in 184G, the 
building on Tremont Street, between School and Court Streets, 
having been put up, the museum was transferred to that site. 
There was a large amount of room in this new building, and Mr. 
Kimball, who was an enthusiastic collector as well as a business 
man. bought largely and employed collectors. One half of the 
