480 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



could see was very disappointing. Its collection of mounted birds, 

 though containing much that was typical, rare, and interesting, was 

 in the individual defects of a large proportion of its specimens in 

 painful contrast to the private one of the Milanese banker. The col- 

 lections of eggs were not arranged, and had not been procured with 

 any special care. They seemed to have been all accumulated by 

 chance donations, and required an immediate and very careful revi- 

 sion. It is, however, but justice to say that, since the zoological ]Dor- 

 tion of the museum has been under the charge of Mr. Sharpe, a sys- 

 tematic rearrangement has been begun, and, so far as it has proceeded, 

 is a great improvement. When the natural history portion of tlie 

 museum is removed to Kensington, and rearranged in the new build- 

 ing in the course of construction, it is to be hoped that the managers 

 of this institution Vill avail themselves of their great opportunities, 

 now so strangely neglected, and render this branch of the British 

 Museum better worthy of being the one national museum of a great 

 empire. The contrast between the Museum of London and that of 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or that of Liverpool, cannot but be painful to 

 tlie national pride of a true English naturalist. 



For popular attractions, for general excellence of arrangement, and 

 expedients for the instruction and education of the people in natural 

 history, the Derby Museum, or, as it is now called, the Free Public Mu- 

 seum of Liverpool, far surpasses anything of its kind. It was founded 

 by an ancestor of the present Lord Derby, and is under the admira- 

 ble direction of Mr. Thomas J. Moore; but it would extend this paper 

 too far to point out the excellence of its various devices for popular 

 instruction. Here you can see the external form of bird or animal, 

 and next to it its own skeleton, so that the bony frame and the out- 

 ward appearance may be studied at the same moment. In one com- 

 partment are a full-grown lion and lioness, and with them young lions 

 of various ages, from the tender nursling to the nearly full-grown 

 whelp. In another compai'tment is well represented water in which 

 appear disporting various forms of swimming-birds, old and young, 

 demonstrating to the observer their position, when swimming, both 

 above and below the surface. The collections are large and varied, 

 and so arranged as to atti'act and educate the visitors. 



In conclusion, only brief mention can be made of a few of the private 

 collections of natural history in which England abounds. In his private 

 apartments in Hanover Square, London, Prof. Osbert Salvin, of Cam- 

 bridge University, stores his rich collections of birds, and eggs, and 

 insects, gathered by himself in Central America. They are especially 

 abounding in specimens from Guatemala, are admirably arranged, and 

 well worthy of careful study. Howard Saunders, Esq., who makes the 

 families of gulls and terns his especial study, possesses collections that 

 are indescribably interesting. They consist of the birds (with their 

 eggs) of Europe, together with exotic representatives of the two fam- 



