1915] The Ottawa Naturalist. 35 



be very bad in a wrong setting, wrong relations, or if it is not 

 harmonious, and not used wisely. 



The museum of the Natural History Society of New Bruns- 

 wick, located at St. John, has a comparatively small amount of 

 money to spend each year. In this the museum is perhaps for- 

 tunate, for in so far as the curator's funds permit, some of the 

 most up-to-date museum methods are actually being put in 

 force. The curator has insufficient help, a comparatively poor 

 building and miserable cases, yet he carries on field research, 

 conducts a lecture course for adults and one for school children, 

 so that two lectures are given each week during the school 

 season. Large parties of young people are taken out to investi- 

 gate and study in the field ; some publications are issued, material 

 collected by school children and sent to him by their teachers 

 is identified, and the teachers of the schools are provided with 

 nature study leaflets suggested by the object sent within twenty- 

 four hours of its receipt. Every school child is interested in 

 what Willie Jones of School No. 2 found yesterday. 



In autumn when the Canadian Pacific Railway supplies 

 two cars to be drawn over its lines and side tracked for a few 

 hours, more or less, at each station.where an audience may be had, 

 and when these oars are filled with exhibits under the auspices 

 of the Provincial Government of New Brunswick, the curator 

 accompanies the train. One of the cars usually contains ej^hibits 

 of pigs, chickens and other live stock; other exhibits relating 

 to agriculture consist of bees, nursery trees, cream separators, 

 or whatever the Government experts consider may uplift the 

 agriculture of the Province. Our curator friend installs material 

 from his museum, supplemented by specimens collected for the 

 purpose. Specimens of birds which benefit the farmer's crops, 

 insects which damage them, are shown, as well as drawings 

 hastily made with cheap materials, but which may be fastened 

 to the walls of the car or held up while lectures are delivered 

 to the rural audiences on subjects which will make their work 

 more successful and pleasant. But more interesting to us 

 in the present connection is the cheapness of the cases which the 

 curator of the above museum has had built as a beginning to- 

 wards those which he intends to have throughout the museum 

 for the housing of instructive and useful exhibits, his idea being 

 that while these cases are not all he would like to have them, still 

 they will serve the purpose so that the public, old and young, 

 scientist and layman, may derive benefit from the museum until 

 such time as he has secured funds for ideal cases, and has decided 

 what an ideal case is and what color to paint it. But now, he 

 has found that if the school children of to-day derive benefit 



