294 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly November 



some guide to many who might be glad to know the 

 whereabouts of specimens particularly interesting to them. 



Their geographical position, on the edge of the sea, 

 obviously fits these museums to excel in two distinct 

 categories of objects — marine fauna and curios from over- 

 seas, of which, as they lie handy to the newly landed 

 seaman in search of money to spend ashore, they often get 

 the first refusal. As a matter of fact, the necessary delays 

 of purchase, incidental to the prescribed reference to the 

 committee, are in many cases irksome to the thirsty 

 vendor, who cares little what he gets so he gets it on 

 the nail, and the curios therefore pass into the possession 

 of retail dealers or pawnbrokers. Such articles as savage 

 weapons and clothing are, moreover, easier to bring home 

 than zoological specimens, and are therefore more commonly 

 chosen as gifts by local travellers interested in the fortunes 

 of the collection. With the ethnological curios, which are 

 so important an element in provincial museums, this article 

 does not concern itself, since they are in great measure in- 

 appropriate to the pages of the Field Naturalist's Quarterly. 

 With one or two exceptions, indeed, the animal treasures 

 referred to in these articles will be found to possess a strong 

 local interest ; and the curators and committees of our coast 

 museums would, as a matter of fact, do well if they expended 

 their money and their care on the fauna and antiquities of 

 their own locality, leaving exotic material as the more fitting 

 concern of the National Collection in London. 



An exception of the kind is found in the famous giant 

 tortoise of the Scarborough Museum. Pleasantly situated 

 beneath the facade of the Grand Hotel, in a picturesque 

 valley spanned by a bridge that leads past a noisy rookery, 

 this museum has nothing that it values more highly than 

 this huge chelonian. It was presented by Mr. John 

 Wharton, as long ago as 1839, and its value is not so 

 much in its size as in the abnormal shape of the carapace. 

 Indeed, it is an open secret, and the subject of an entry 

 in the Proceedings of the Society which owns it, that 

 Mr. Walter Rothschild has in vain offered in exchange one 

 of almost twice the size. The committee, however, thinks 

 that anything coveted by that eminent naturalist for Tring 



