ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 1 3. 



Warwick. 11 As the history of this Museum has been written by 

 Mr. W. Cole in one of our little " Handbooks " I am relieved 

 of the necessity of entering into historical details. 12 It is not 

 without interest, however, on the occasion of this— our twenty- 

 fifth — annual meeting, to recall the fact that the idea of forming a 

 museum was entertained by those who founded the Club, and 

 was distinctly explained by our first President, Prof. Meldola, in 

 his inaugural address. There is probably no member 

 of our Club ignorant of the way in which that idea, though 

 long in abeyance, was ultimately carried out through the 

 enlightened policy of the Corporation of West Ham, associated 

 with the munificence of Mr. Passmore Edwards. 



On entering the Passmore Edwards Museum, anyone familiar 

 with the details of museum work will be struck with the 

 admirable way in which modern ideas have been carried out. It 

 is not a museum run on old lines, like many of those which are 

 themselves qualified to be preserved in a larger museum as 

 interesting, but rather melancholy, records of obsolete science. 

 True it is but a small museum, yet it is arranged in harmony 

 with the state of knowledge in the twentieth century. In a 

 discussion on " The Museum Question " a few years ago in 

 Liverpool, Prof. Herdman, one of our most distinguished 

 naturalists, condemned the usual methods of exhibiting natural 

 history objects as suggestive of the days of Linnaeus, rather than 

 of present day biology. 13 At Stratford, however, he would find, I 

 venture to think, little or nothing of an antiquated character. 

 Mr. Cole has taken care that the biological clock should not be 

 put back to the time of Linnaeus. Let the visitor turn to the 

 left as he enters the building, and he finds himself at once in a 

 recess surrounded by cases which contain beautiful illustrations 

 of the leading Principles of Bionomics. Here are several well- 

 chosen series of specimens, chiefly insects, illustrating such 

 subjects as protective and aggressive resemblance for conceal- 

 ment by colour and form ; protection by warning colours ; 

 mimicry, or imitation of protected animals ; and dimorphism or 

 differences relating to season and sex. In a yet more prominent 

 position in the body of the hall is a wall-case devoted to specimens, 



11 Essex Naturalist, Vol. xi. (1901), p. 319. 



12 The Essex Museum of Natural History. By W. Cole, F.L.S., Museum Handbook, No„ 

 3, 1900. 



13 " The Museum Question." Report of Liverpool Geological Society, Vol. ix. (1901),. 

 p. xxvii. 



