iS94-l • 2 / / [Anniml Meeting:. 
liowever, liave solid ends and are dark in consequence of this 
and of old-fashioned small panes, whicli also interfere with the 
observation of the specimens. The sashes also are so large that 
every time a case is opened, it requires a couple of men to 
unscrew a sash and handle it. After the labeling has been com- 
pleted and the cases screwed uj> tightly, the collection will be 
[•ractically inaccessible. 
The department of Mammalia was almost unrej)resented in our 
Museum, so that the accession of this collection was very desir- 
able, but the oM-fashioned cases in which it is stored and the 
crowding of the main hall occasioned by them are serious defects. 
The latter especially needs to be remedied, and it is to be hoped 
that the expense of building new cases and relieving our main 
hall so that the guide can do his work with more facility may be 
met by sjjecial donations and not fall ui>on the unaided income of 
the Society. 
As in past years, our Museum has been used more ()r less by 
classes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from 
Boston University, and by a greater or less number of students 
f-tudying separately in the collections on closed days. Permission 
to visit and study in the Museum on days when the public is not 
admitted has been granted to eleven teachers, representing nine 
schools and 127 pupils. This of course does not include the 
teachers and classes that come on public days. 
It will be noticed that this year no report is made by the 
Board of Directors of the Natural History Gardens and Aquaria. 
This Board resigned at the meeting of the Council of October 16, 
1893, and recommended the return of the subscriptions already 
paid to them. The Board of Directors, when the Curator was a 
member of it and had pcn-sonal knowledge of its doings, and sub- 
secpiently, have made the most strenuous efforts to interest the 
influential and wealthy citizens of Boston and to obtain subscrip- 
tions from them. The composition of the last Board was such as 
to insure success, if success had been possible, and their work has 
made it evident that the necessary funds could not be obtained in 
this city ; in other words, that up to the present date, sufficient 
interest does not appear to exist among our wealthy men to 
induce them to give the money to found natural history gardens 
and aquaria. It is idle to give the long history of all the efforts 
