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[[underline]]17.[[/underline]]

As no statement of the character of exhibits prepared by this department for the Cincinnati Exhibition was included in last year's report, it is perhaps desirable that a brief account of the same should be given in this connection.   After a number of plans had been considered, it was decided that a series representing all the existing families of mammals would be more of general interest, and would indicate more perfectly the educational side of the work of the department, than any other collection which could be prepared in the time allotted.  A number of families were unrepresented in the regular exhibition-series of the Museum, but it was found possible to purchase representatives of many of them from the dealers in natural history specimens.   A few were unrepresented, except by pictures.  The real excellence of the collection is a whole is indicated by the fact that out of the eighty-eight families recognized, seventy-five were represented by from one to fourteen typical species. The whole number