io8 NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



on anatomy, and, although at present but a few chapters are outlined, 

 I hope that at least one visitor in a thousand may leave the " Dead 

 House " with something besides the subject for a nightmare. 



It is true that anyone may learn from a text-book that the hand 

 of a monkey and the flipper of a whale are constructed on the same 

 plan, and that their external differences are due to the fact that one 

 wears gloves and the other mittens. But there is nothing like the 

 objects themselves to teach this and similar truths, especially to 

 people who never open a book on anatomy, and to teach these truths 

 is one of the objects of the anatomical collection. Moreover, it is 

 one of the provinces of anatomy to show adaptation to certain ends, 

 and if Sir Henry will come to Washington next year he may, if he 

 wishes, see series devoted to modifications of the limbs for walking, 

 flying, swimming, and the like, and he will find here and there 

 skeletons bearing labels calling attention to their mechanical adapta- 

 tions. But doubtless all this, and more, is to be seen at South 

 Kensington, whose methods are my models and whose resources my 

 envy and — almost — my despair, so I will simply touch on one other 

 point. 



If you must pull your skeletons out of the cupboards, where they 

 should be decently concealed — says Sir Henry — then you should mix 

 them with stuffed specimens, doubtless in order to hide their naked- 

 ness so far as possible, or else put them in the society of respectable 

 fossils. That recent and fossil forms should be shown together is 

 beyond dispute, but the manner in which skeletons are to be 

 exhibited depends largely on the purpose for which they are displayed, 

 upon whether one wishes to use them by themselves or as adjuncts to 

 other specimens. For example, the case in the Index Collection at 

 the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, illustrating the 

 morphology of the Batrachia, seems to me magnificent, although it 

 may contain too many bones to please Sir Henry, and yet I presume 

 that Sir William Flower would not consider that skeletons of 

 batrachians should not appear elsewhere in the museum. I certainly 

 hope that he may agree with me in thinking that a large museum 

 should contain a series of the skeletons of the higher groups of 

 vertebrates, let us say families, from Myxine to Man. Also if one 

 wishes to emphasise some point in the structure of an animal, to 

 illustrate some detail of classification, or to show how little a 

 creature's inside may have to do with his external appearance, place 

 the skeleton where it will do the most good. But if you wish to trace 

 the relations between various groups, to show their structural 

 similarities or differences, to make apparent to the visitor or student 

 the lines on which vertebrates are laid down, the room full of 

 skeletons is a necessity. More than this, they must not be mixed up 

 with stuffed specimens where the comparative purpose for which they 

 are shown would be utterly lost, but they must be shown side by side 

 in order that one may be compared with another, and they must be 



