74 Miscellaneous. 



would furnish a small income to students who have alreat.lv taken 

 their degree, and who, wishing to prosecute farther their stuclie's 

 under my direction, might thus earn the means of remaining in 

 Cambridge by assisting in the arrangement and preservation 

 of the collection, as well as in making the exchanges. The p< sir 

 tion of the Curators in the scientific school would thus be similar 

 to that of the tutors in the undergraduate department. In a well- 

 organized museum there should be as many curators as there are 

 branches in zoology, including embryology ,palaeontology and zoolo- 

 gical anthropology. In the course of time, these curatorships (to 

 which should be attached the duty of delivering a certain number 

 of lectures annually) may be endowed so as to afford the means 

 of appointing special professors for each branch, and as soon as this 

 is accomplished, our organization would be more perfect than that of 

 either the British Museum or the Jardin des Plantes. Beside the 

 curators, there should be one or two preparators, to mount specimens, 

 and to make the necessary preparations required for the illustra- 

 tion of the specimens. It would also be desirable to have an artist 

 attached to the establishment who would have to make magnified 

 drawings of such specimens as are too small to be at once studied 

 by the natural powers of the eye ; these drawings would be appro- 

 priate ornaments for the corridors, and at the same time assist iu 

 the courses of lectures which it should be the duty of every curator 

 to deliver annually upon the special branches entrusted to his 

 care. 



" Gigantic as this scheme may appear, I see nothing visionary 

 or unpractical in it; for, while it cannot be expected that so many 

 curatorships should be founded at once, it is plain that they are 

 not all needed now, and that the same person may take charge of 

 several departments simultaneously for several years to come, and 

 a subdivision of labor may be introduced as it becomes necessary, 

 and our means make it possible. It would, however, be desirable 

 that the services of four or five curators should be obtained soon, 

 — one to take charge of the vertebrates, one of the mollusks, one 

 of the articulates, one of the radiates, and one for the embryolo- 

 gical department; and I would add that the sooner the latter 

 curatorship is permanently founded, the better for our institution, 

 as I believe that the methods I am attempting to introduce in the 

 study of animals by comparing their different stages of growth 

 with the permanent forms of lower types, is likely to be a most 

 original feature in this museum, and that which is likely to secure 



