278 Rf:port 8.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



tiun would be that the difterent workers in the various inuseunis would 

 get more closely and personall}^ accjuainted with each other, and with 

 each other's work, resulting in more adequate appreciation of each 

 others efforts, and giving more free access to the large amount of store 

 material contained in the various study collections. If closer intimacy 

 among the various members of the museum staffs were established 

 there would be less hesitation to lend each other the material necessary 

 to study a certain group of animals, and here already we would have 

 an invaluable aid to scientific systematic research. If we co-operate 

 more and know more of each other and of the special lines and direc- 

 tions in which various members wish to work, we would do away with 

 a great deal of overlapping of work, of duplicating of material and 

 literature, we would avoid two or more people working at the same 

 subject, unconscious of each other and using a vast amount of material 

 and time double where it could be done singly. In other words, if 

 such a Museum Association for South Africa existed, and if we met 

 at regular intervals in different centres, we could divide the labour 

 amongst ourselves ; the more special work on entomology — or some of 

 its branches — could be done in one place ; the oi-nithological or mamma- 

 logical work in anttther, the botanical in a third, the molluscs, fishes 

 and reptiles could be made a speciality in a fourth place, and so on. It 

 would be a conditio sine qua non that each institution should remain 

 in absolute possession of its own specimens, and all material sent up to 

 another place would have to be returned to the original owner ; the 

 duplicates could be exchanged ; no museum would suffer the slightest 

 loss, each museum would gain very materially, and the knowledge of 

 our own fauna and flora would be advanced in a very high degree. 

 There cannot, there may not be any jealousy among our nniseums 

 except the jealousy to excel in scientific results. I have heard from 

 several quarters, "You will never get all to join in this movement; " 

 but surely we do not want to put ourselves, or to be put by others, on 

 a pedestal of mercantile jealousy or rivalry? Is not the advancement 

 of science, the recording of new discoveries, the pul)lishing, popu- 

 laiising of the results of our scientific investigations the main, I should 

 almost say the ordy, object for which we woik and for which we ask 

 the Governments to support us with public funds ? 



Another point — each museum and its staff works at present to a 

 very great extent independent of all other similar institutions in this 

 country ; the result is tiiat in classifying our exhibits each director or 

 head of the department follows his own mind, his own wish, his own 

 convictions. We see that the vertebrates in one museum are exhibited 

 in an ascending series, in another in a descending ; even in various 

 classes we find tiiat, for instance, in one museum the biixls of prey are 

 considered the highest and in another the natatores are heading the 

 exhibits. Going still further, we find that no uniform .system is u.sed 

 in the nomenclatui-e even of indi\idual specimens : one museum names 

 the bakbakiri bush shrike Laniarius bnkbdkiri, another Lnniarins 

 (ftithiraliti, a third Pplicininx zeyhmus. One museum calls the South 

 Af I'ican Ct)ly C'olins eryfhromeJon, another CoHnx colitis, a third Colins 



