ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 15 



Woolhope and Cotteswold Clubs many years ago, the late Prof. 

 John Phillips said, " I would urge all persons belonging to field 

 clubs, not selfishly to retain the specimens they gather, but to 

 deposit them where they may be of use to their fellow- 

 explorers." u Such advice may be repeated with advantage 

 to-day. Most members would, no doubt, be willing, if solicited, 

 to share their captures with the museum, but they are probably 

 not aware that such objects would be valued. Good examples 

 of common things systematically collected are, however, much 

 needed in many museums. It is a great encouragement to a 

 young collector, who is not likely to secure rarities, to come to 

 this museum and be able to identify the common species which 

 he has collected. 



By preserving the bulk of the local collection in cabinets 

 much space is gained in the exposed table-cases for the exhibition 

 of more attractive specimens not of local origin. While the 

 prime function of the Museum is to illustrate the natural history 

 of Essex, it has always been very properly regarded as a 

 desirable object of the Club to render the collection of wide and 

 even general educational value. Mr. W. Cole, in a suggestive 

 paper, read seven years ago before the South-Eastern Union of 

 Scientific Societies, 15 emphasized this idea, and advocated the 

 formation, even in a small local museum, of what is often called 

 a " type or index collection." As long as a student limits his 

 studies to the products of a special area, he finds himself unable, 

 in consequence of the serious gaps in every local collection, to 

 take a general and systematic view of any organic group. My 

 friend, Mr. H. M. Platnauer, the accomplished curator for so 

 many years of the York Museum, has aptly remarked that 

 " Teaching from a local collection was like teaching from a text- 

 book from which whole chapters and many pages have been 

 torn." 16 A visitor would form, in truth, but a poor idea of the 

 group of the marine mollusca, for example, if he limited his 

 attention to the shells of the Essex coast ; but by the exhibition 

 of a few typical shells from tropical seas, he gets a glimpse of the 

 beauty and wealth of nature's resources in this department. 

 Hence the table-cases in the Stratford Museum contain an 



14" On the Geology of the Malvern Hills." 

 15 "The Objects and Methods of a Local Museum." Trans. South-Eastern Union Scicn. 

 Soc. for 1897, p. 17. 



16 The Museums Journal, vol. ii. (1902), p. 54. 



