264 



COLLECTIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



COLLECTIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



BY J. JAY SMITH, PHILADELPHIA. 



"Who loves a garden," says Cowper, 

 " loves a green-house too," and those who 

 admire truly the beauties of a garden, are 

 apt to love the feathered songsters who 

 cheer them in spring and autumn. Under 

 this impression, your readers will probably 

 be interested to learn of a Collection of 

 Birds, just acquired by the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences in this city, the history of 

 which is highly interesting. 



Dr. Thomas B. Wilson, a native of this 

 citv, has lately purchased the celebrated 

 collection of birds called, the " Rivoli Col- 

 lection," made by the Duke of Rivoli, the 

 son of Marshal Massena, in Paris. He 

 first purchased a part of the Duke's mu- 

 seum, amounting to eleven thousand speci- 

 mens ; a second purchase brought over two 

 thousand five hundred. He has since pro- 

 cured the "Australian Collection," made 

 by a, scientific Englishman, who is writing 

 a great work on the ornithology of that 

 strange and interesting country, and to make 

 the series complete, he has just received 

 the collections of Leyden and one from 

 Lyons. Altogether, he has thus assembled 

 twenty thousand specimens, without count- 

 ing a single duplicate, of which two thou- 

 sand have been discarded. 



With extraordinary liberality. Dr. Wil- 

 son has deposited the whole in the Acade- 

 my, and has, in the handsomest manner, 

 given a large sum to increase the size of 

 the room, and to make suitable, nay elegant 

 cases for their reception. Charles Lucien 

 Bonaparte, the ornithologist, pronounces 

 the Academy's collection, the greatest and 

 most complete in the world, and Dr. Gray 

 may well have asserted, in a late lecture in 

 Boston, that Philadelphia is now the Mecca 



of science, to which pilgrimages must be 

 made by the student of nature. 



These birds have cost Dr. Wilson twenty 

 thousand dollars ; in addition, his donations 

 for building and cases, have amounted to 

 sixteen thousand vaoxe. But his liberality does 

 not stop here ; every vessel from Europe 

 brings to the Academy the best, rarest and 

 most costly works on science, that can be 

 procured ; so that the sum of fifty thousand 

 dollars may safely be set down as the aggre- 

 gate of his donations. Here, you might rea- 

 sonably suppose the catalogue to stop ; but 

 he also maintains two young and enthu- 

 siastic naturalists to take charge of these 

 valuable treasures. 



We, in Philadelphia, do not boast as 

 much as some of our neighbors, but an at- 

 tentive observer cannot fail to congratulate 

 our city and the country generally on the 

 spirit and taste which governs the members 

 of the Academy. They previously possess- 

 ed De Schweinitz's and other celebrated 

 collections of dried plants, and Dr. S. G. 

 Morton's unrivalled musee of comparative 

 anatomy, which includes the greatest num- 

 ber and variety of specimens of the human 

 head of any other in the world, together 

 with other curiosities, books, minerals, etc., 

 etc, of extreme value. I ought to add that 

 the rooms containing all these things, are 

 open to the public twice a week without 

 charge. Yours. J. Jay Smith. 



Philadelphia, Oct. 27, 1847. 



[We have lately had an opportunity of 

 examining this magnificent and unrivalled 

 collection of birds, of the beauty, interest, 

 and variety of which, language would fail 

 to convey the least impression to the gene- 

 ral reader. We hope none of our readers 



