280 REMARKS ON MUSEUMS OP NATURAL HISTORY. 



to be the richest collection in the world ; but this is by no means 

 the case : the display of mammalia at Leyden and Frankfort being 

 certainly better. The collection of birds at Paris is very line, but 

 not very much larger than that of the British Museum or of the 

 museum of the Zoological Society of London ; and, it is said, con- 

 siderably smaller than that of Leyden ; but hitherto the birds in the 

 Leyden Museum have not been exhibited to the public. The col- 

 lection of shells at the Jardin des Plantes is not to be compared 

 with some private ones in London, and is not so large as that in 

 the British Museum. 



It is not unusual to hear persons speak in raptures of the 

 beasts in the gardens of the Paris Museum ; yet it would be mad- 

 ness to compare them, in external appearance, to the collection of the 

 Zoological Society, in London. I should not make these comparisons 

 (for I consider these institutions as different in their constitution as 

 is the character of the two nations) had I not constantly heard per- 

 sons making similar comparisons, and almost always to the disparage- 

 ment of the English institutions. In my repeated visits to the Con- 

 tinent, I have, been ^induced to collect statistical accounts of the se- 

 veral institutions, and to observe their various peculiarities, with the 

 view of introducing into the British Museum any real improve- 

 ments I might discover. 



Blackheath, Kent, 



Nov. 5, J 836. 



COMPARATIVE ABUNDANCE OF THE CORN AND 

 YELLOW BUNTINGS, (Emberiza miliaria and citrinella) 

 IN ENGLAND. 



I can say, without hesitation, that in almost every part of Eng- 

 land I have seen the Yellow Bunting as twenty to one of the Corn 

 Bunting : in Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, I 

 can state, positively, that the Yellow Buntings are still more nume- 

 rous in proportion ; and although I have explored almost every inch 

 of parts of these counties, I never remember to have found a nest 

 there. 



W. C. Hewitson. 



Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Oct , J 836. 



