i6o The Irish Naturalist. August, 



Museum officers in answering inquiries about specimens sent 

 up from the country for determination. The better the collec- 

 tion under the officers' care, the more readily and fully can 

 they answer such inquiries. And not a few cases have arisen 

 in which such correspondence has proved of the greatest 

 benefit both to the inquirer and to the Museum, and tended 

 directly to the advancement of science, An isolated worker 

 begins to collect some group of animals. The identification of 

 his specimens sent to Dublin for determination increases his 

 interest in the study, and helps him to understand the system 

 of the group ; while his duplicates, gladly given, enrich the 

 Museum collection, and will in years to come benefit other 

 workers, and form a permanent record of the distribution of 

 species in Ireland. 



The growth of the Museum study-collections re-acts 

 beneficially not only on the individual worker but on the 

 Field Clubs as a whole. It becomes possible to make up small 

 loan collections for distribution to local centres, and series of 

 Irish I^epidoptera and Mollusca have in this way been already 

 sent to the Museum of the Cork Field Club, while a selection 

 of Irish Birds has been sent to form the nucleus of a City 

 Museum in Waterford. We must hope that a Waterford Field 

 Club may be a result of interest thus stirred up in the near 

 future. Several years ago a number of duplicate mammals 

 were lent to the Municipal Museum of Belfast, and quite 

 recently a selection of vertebrates representing all the classes 

 and several orders have been sent on loan to the Museum of 

 Queen's College, Galway. 



Thus by the joint action of the Museum officers and of local 

 naturalists, the private collections of the latter and the 

 national public collections in Dublin benefit mutually, and 

 the enrichment of the Dublin collections enables substantial 

 help to be given to provincial institutions. 



And not only by giving their duplicates can Irish naturalists 

 enrich our national collections. A sum of money is voted 

 annually for the purchase of specimens, and there can be a 

 patriotic as well as an unpatriotic action in the matter of 

 selling. We have all heard of the recent Gold Ornament 

 controversy. Collectors in this country having collections 

 they want to sell, or knowing of persons not particularly 



