flourishing condition, and now
have fifteen members. Our cabinet is crowded with specimens, all in good
condition. We occupy a pleasant room rented by the Chapter. We shall
enter the coming season with undiminished enthusiasm for the study of
Nature.

248, _Richmond, Va._ An informal meeting was held, and twenty-three of
us boys were enrolled as members of a Chapter of the A. A. We elected
our teacher, Miss Jennie Ellett, President. Committees were appointed to
draft by-laws, build cabinets, etc. Instead of forming a new society,
Mrs. Marshall has kindly consented to let us reorganize Chapter
248.--_W. T. Terry_, Sec., 109 E. Grace St.

252, _Utica, N. Y._ We have a most flourishing Chapter of forty-seven
members. In the past year our school building was enlarged, and a room
was made purposely to hold our treasures. In it is a cabinet overflowing
with minerals, shells, and plants, 3 cases full of _lepidoptera_, a
forty-dollar microscope, and a cabinet, which the boys are trying to
fill with microscopical slides of their own manufacture. We have also an
aquarium 12 x 24 inches, stocked with fish, newts, snails, turtles,
etc., also a bird's egg cabinet that will hold several hundred
specimens, and a Wardia case, 36 x 18 inches, which we are now using for
hatching chrysalids. At our last meeting a cecropia "came out,"
measuring over six and a half inches across the wings. Our Chapter is
divided into committees, each committee having a teacher for chairman.
The committees are expected to furnish each week specimens representing
their special branches. Of all the subjects before us the hardest "nut
to crack" was, "What is a sea-bean?" but owing to indomitable
perseverance, it has been most thoroughly cracked.

[_Please send us the kernel!_]

Agassiz's birthday was duly celebrated in the woods. Speeches were made,
poems recited, and the rest of the day devoted to a grand specimen-hunt.
It rained hard all day, but that could not quench the fire in this
Chapter, and we returned home loaded down with treasures. We have
shells, mica, and _lepidoptera_ for exchange. The Chapter desires to
express its deepest gratitude to the founder of the A. A. for two
delightful years.--Frances E. Newland, Sec.

[_Such a delightful report as the one which we have here
condensed, is more than enough to repay one for all the
labor connected with the A. A. The debt of gratitude is on
the other side._]

254, _Fulton