The substantial catalogues series covers most of the inventory of both the Society’s museum and library. Museum catalogues provide detailed information regarding the genus, species and origin of their Mammalia Collection while catalogues of donations to the museum also point to interesting objects in their collection. Library catalogues list publications in the Society’s holdings. The series also provides important lists related to the Journals of Assembly and to the visitors of the museum.

The minutes series comprises eight bound volumes, two publications and one envelope of loose duplicate minutes. The minutes document proceedings from the annual, general, monthly, special, ordinary and extraordinary meetings held by the Society. It consists of the minutes from the Natural History Society (1827-1923), the Natural History Society Council (1827-1922), and the Natural History Society Committees (1906-1908).

The handwritten and typed minutes document the Society’s activities, including lists of members, newspaper articles, donations to the Society, elections, advertisements for sponsored lectures, and reports from committees. Handwritten copies of letters from Dr. Meade, Mr. C.U. Shepard, Major Delafield (File 5.2) and Robert Burn (File 9.1) to the Society as well as letters sent on behalf of the Society (Smithsonian Institute, File 5.1) are included with the minutes.

The accounting series consists of three account books detailing different financial dealings and assets of the Natural History Society of Montreal. The accounting details are varied, one being the treasurer’s ledger of income and expenses kept by Treasurers James Ferrier Jr. and E. E. Shelton (file 13.7); another showing closing account balances for 1905, 1914, 1915, and 1916 and sales clippings for properties: 52 University Street Property, 152 & 154 Drummond Street Property, and the 365 Mountain Street Property Diagram of the property of the Natural History Society (file 15.1); lastly an address book shows an alphabetical list of assets and their value, as well as a note in the front tracking “Field Day” surpluses and deficits from 1882-1890 (file 16.3).

The series consists of administrative documents such as notes and proposals on membership, correspondence, invoices, programs of the Society (1896-1897), pages from the Microscopical Journal (1890), newspaper clippings on varying topics and a notebook of the Field Day Committee (1887).

This series also contains a published copy of R. Lachlan’s A Retrospective Glance at the Progressive State of the Natural History Society of Montreal (see Essays and Lectures Series). In addition, the series contains a few materials produced by the Natural History Society after 1902 such as invitation cards to meetings.

The series consists of 20 maps produced by Meteorological Service, Dominion of Canada, showing only southern Canada. Each map depicts the average temperatures and precipitation for the month across the country. For the year 1886, there are several duplicates of some months. The years of 1895 and 1897 are incomplete.

The series consists primarily of incoming correspondence to various administrative units of the Natural History Society. This includes letters to the Recording Secretary, the Corresponding Secretary, the Chairman, the Librarian (dealing largely with book binding costs), the Chairman, the Editor of the Canadian Record of Science (primarily acknowledging receipt of the journal), and the Museum Curator. While most of the series consists of loose documents, it also contains two “Letter Books,” which have indexes of whom letters were sent by or to. These letters are highly administrative in nature, dealing with the daily operations of the Society and not the personal correspondence of its members.

The letters have substantial gaps between 1872-1878, 1881-1884, and in 1895. Many of the loose letters were donated to the Blacker-Wood Collection bundled together and they have been preserved together. However, many of the other loose letters were sorted by year by the archivist or librarian who originally processed them.

Notable Natural History Society members and other prominent people in these files include:
J.F. Whiteaves (non-member)
The Governor General of Canada (non-member)
David R. McCord (non-member)
Sir John William Dawson, as President
Professor David P. Penhallow, as Committee Chairman
Charles Robb, Librarian
E. J. Chambers, Librarian
R. Lachlan, Secretary

The administrative records series contains documents that reflect the structure and mandate of the Society, such as their constitution, acts, by-laws, yearly agenda, bookings, and membership lists. Summaries of meetings provide information of the NHSM’s interactions with other societies, notably the Horticultural Society, and also includes correspondence with society members, lists of addresses. An obituary of Society Librarian Charles Robb and an example of a membership certificate belonging to J. H. Joseph may also be found.

The reports series has a plethora of information about the functioning of the Society. Three files (10.1, 10.2, 10.3) contain the published and printed reports of the Society covering yearly highlights of activity. They cover the years 1828, 1830-1836, 1854-57, 1859, 1864-1871, 1873-1874, 1877-1878, 1881. Also included for each year are reports from the Treasurer, Librarian and Cabinet Keeper. The reports were signed off by the Chairman or President of that year.

In addition, included in this series is a ledger with Reports from the Indian Committee (file 13.3), with a handwritten report for the end of the year and survey forms. The committee members were W. M. McKay ( President of Committee), George Simpson, D. C. Napier, John Samuel McCord, A. F. Holmes, William Pardey, Robert Armour (Secretary).

The essays and lectures series is a small collection of published or handwritten documents amassed by the Society. The first essay (file 4.5), submitted by Thomas Stratton, is a handwritten document on the similarities of Gaelic and Latin. The second document (file 10.6) is the transcription of a lecture delivered by Major R. Lachlan on the progress of the Society to 1852.

The last document (file 10.7) is a copy of an essay which was awarded The Prize Medal of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Sciences in Canada.