Sliv raOCEEDETGS OF THE 



large proportion of them manageable as to size, their preserved 

 specimens, carcasses or skins, can be brought together under the 

 observer's eye in considerable numbers, exhibiting at once characters 

 sufficient for the fixation of species, whilst, with a few rare excep- 

 tions, a whole plant in its natural shape can never be preserved in 

 a botanical museum. And although good botanical specimens have 

 a general facies often sufficient to establish the species if the genus 

 is known, yet the most experienced botanists have often erred in 

 such determinations where they have been satisfied with external 

 comparison without internal examination. 



Identification of species, however, is but a small portion of the 

 business of systematic biology ; and for higher purposes, the classifi- 

 cation of species, the study of their affinities, the preeminence of 

 ordinary zoological over botanical specimens soon fails. Those cha- 

 racters distinguished by Prof. Flower as adaptive are proportionately 

 more prominent, and the essential ones derived from internal struc- 

 ture are absent ; and not only do the former thus acquire undue 

 importance in the student's eyes, but arguments in support of a 

 favourite theory have not un frequently been founded on distortions 

 really the result of bad preparation, although supposed to be esta- 

 blished on the authority of actual specimens, and therefore very 

 difficult to refute. Mounted skins of Tertebrata, showy insects in 

 their perfect stage, shells of Malaeozoa, corals, and sponges neces- 

 sarily form the chief portion of a museum for public exhibition ; 

 but science and instruction require a great deal more : museum col- 

 lections really useful to them should exhibit the animal, as far as 

 possible, in all its parts and in aU the phases of its Hfe. This ne- 

 cessity has been felt in modem times, and resulted in the establish- 

 ment of museums of comparative anatomy, amongst which that of 

 our own College of Surgeons has certainly now taken the lead. 

 But I have nowhere seen, except on a very small scale, the two 

 museums satisfactorily combined : the idea, however, is not a new 

 one ; several zoologists have expressed their opinions on the desira- 

 bleness of such an arrangement, which it is hoped will be duly con- 

 sidered in the formation of the new Xational Zoological Museums 

 about to be erected at South Kensington for the double purposes of 

 exhibition and science. The requirements of the gazing public are 

 sure to be well provided for ; and there is every reason to believe 

 that the exertions of scientific zoologists will not have proved use- 

 less, — that we shall, in the portion devoted to science and instruc- 

 tion, see the sldns of Yertebrata preserved without the artist's 

 distortion, accompanied, as far as practicable, by corresponding 



