1896. CASUAL THOUGHTS ON MUSEUMS. 379 



arrangement, and we sincerely hope he may have a long lease of 

 power, and plenty of strength in his elbow, as he certainly has a loyal 

 staff determined to help him. 



As is well known, what has been done for the mammals is also 

 being done for the birds, and I doubt whether anything so instructive 

 to the ornithologist has ever been shown in any museum as the case 

 illustrating the arrangement and the economy of the woodpeckers, a 

 scheme which is now being applied to the humming-birds. Here, 

 again, occasional skeletons are judiciously employed, and also prepara- 

 tions of the soft parts, which mark off and distinguish classes, etc., 

 and the tyro in systematic zoology is taught the principle underlying 

 scientific arrangement. 



One thing I would plead for very hard. There are rumours that 

 possibly the special collection of British animals will be done away with, 

 or distributed in the general series — this would be a serious disaster 

 for the great bulk of visitors who go to the museum for some other 

 purpose than flirtation or catching flies. The natural history of these 

 realms is a subject of prime importance to the school-boy, the collector, 

 the curator of the local museum, the sportsman, the field naturalist 

 who cannot afford to travel — these crowd to the museum to see what 

 they know best, namely, our English fauna and flora. If these English 

 specimens are distributed in the general collection, they will be entirely 

 lost to the special class of students just named, and besides it is a 

 great gain, apart from the general systematic arrangement, to show a 

 sample of a zoological province on a small scale, and it would be well 

 to bring together in one gallery the beautiful and dramatic series of 

 stuffed British birds, and thus to make room for similar groups of 

 foreign, and especially of tropical, birds, showing them with their 

 proper surroundings in the general Ornithological Gallery. 



When this is done, or, still better, as soon as possible, let us be 

 rid at all hazards of that ridiculous collection of cottage-window cases 

 in which Gould put his humming-birds when he wanted to make a 

 special show at the great Exhibition. They are literally absurd, and 

 remind one of the way in which the Hindoo ornam.ents his curtains 

 with green and golden beetles. A case of humming-birds, well stuffed 

 and arranged, with models of the flowers among which they live, 

 would be very welcome ; but the great national museum ought not to 

 house mere specimens of the bonnet-maker's style of taxidermy. By 

 the way, taxidermy is a fine art, and it would become a finer art still 

 if the true artist who sometimes produces an artistic effect were to have 

 his name commemorated on the cases as well as the ingenuous and 

 lucky gentleman who happened to give one out of twenty names to 

 some wild animal not at all anxious for notoriety. 



I have perpetrated enough impertinence for one number of your 

 Journal. If I put in any more, people may think I belong to the staff. 



Henry H. Howorth, 



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