CURRENT NOTES. 49 



of the collection, in fact without the conditions the collection would be 

 lost there, as have so many others, and as 8ir E. Ray Lankester must 

 know full well. Indeed, the illogical position taken up, that students 

 are not to be allowed to study an already excellently prepared collection 

 of one group, to which hundreds (nay thousands) of specimens will be 

 added annually (if it be under the care of an expert assistant), because, 

 in the Museum, there are over "one million specimens of insects (of 

 other groups) — representing about 900000 species, of which about one 

 quarter (240000) were, in 1904, unidentified, i.e., unstudied," is 

 amazing, and it does not seem to have occurred to the late Director 

 that the possibility of making this acquired unknown material ready 

 for use, suggests one of two things, either (1) that the present staff is 

 sufficient, and its work is being largely wasted in rearranging Orders 

 or Groups already comparatively well-known, and which might be left 

 alone except for placing additions where they fall, the rest of the time 

 being spent on the unknown material, or (2) that the present staff is 

 hopelessly insufticient for the work, and wants increasing to make the 

 material in hand effective, both of which points should have come 

 under his purview as Director. 



To talk about Mr. August Busck, the well-known American micro- 

 lepidopterist, as " A writer in Washington, U.S.A.," and his letter as 

 "foolish and ill-mannered abuse" is, one supposes, excellent form. 

 To call the governing body " a body of ill-informed Trustees, acting 

 in opposition to the advice of expert officials who have the grave duty 

 of administering a complex organisation by an annual vote of public 

 money " is no doubt the acme of good manners. We wonder if it 

 would surprise Sir E. Ray Lankester to learn that entomologists 

 prefer Mr. Busck's view of the matter to his own, and that the one 

 thing from which naturalists per se pray to be saved, is the handing 

 over of the management of these scientific collections to "professional" 

 scientists. Professor Adam Sedgwick's letter (published December 

 28th) and Sir E. Ray Lankester's diatribes are too transparently 

 simple to deceive anyone. The " Walsingham collection " is only a 

 detail in a much larger matter ; men like Sir Archibald Geikie are not 

 to be deceived by such simple devices any more than was the late 

 Professor Huxley. Mr. Carruthers says, "as Keeper of Botany for 

 24 years, I cannot recall a single occasion in which my department 

 suffered from the action of the Trustees ; I always found them intelli- 

 gent and sympathetic in the affairs of the department." It would no 

 doubt be a fine thing to hand over the management of the Natural 

 History Museum entirely to paid officials— for the officials ; entomo- 

 logists, at any rate, recognise that they are much better off under the 

 present conditions. 



It may be well to add that Mr. A. Busck estimates the value of the 

 Walsingham collection — consisting, as it does, of a minimum of 

 300000 carefully mounted, labelled, and determined specimens, in- 

 cluding thousands of types of new species from all parts of the globe — 

 at 250000 dollars, i.e., £50000, and that Dr. Dyar and Mr. W. Schaus 

 agree that this is a fair estimate, and we quite agree with him that 

 "several American museums would jump at the chance to obtain these 

 priceless collections, which Professor Lankester advises the British 

 Museum against accepting as a gift, subject to the condition of their 

 proper maintenance by a separate expert assistant." 



