and Laboratory Methods. 



2685 



and homely displaced. Thus in shells the large and showy only would be exhib- 

 ited, the rest repressed ; in minerals, the fine crystallizations, rare and dull 

 species omitted ; in birds, the magnificent and sumptuous, the plain and gray and 

 dull neglected ; in fossils, perfectly preserved and entire specimens or those in 

 good relief, broken and shadowy things are consigned to drawers. The label- 

 ling would not be comprehensive or systematic but special. Each exhibit would 

 be well explained, its relations ignored. You might learn much about the giant 

 squid, you would not be shown its classification, congeners and physiology. You 

 would see wonderful examples of quartz, you would scarcely realize its position 

 amongst the other oxides. You would read of the habits of the bat, you would 



Fig. 97. — Natural History Museum, London ; bucks and antelopes. 



not understand the homologies of its limbs. You might admire the size of a 

 whale's skeleton, you would not realize its position amongst the mammalia. Of 

 course no museum of natural history to-day defers entirely to a system so juve- 

 nile and fractional, although all museums are increasing their respect for its 

 appreciation of effect, its evident intention to make the visitor stop and admire. 

 The popular system is a sub-dominant note in the chord struck by the whole 

 administrative faculty of a museum. 



The Philosophical system aims at unfolding an idea. It is less concerned 

 with a multitudinous display of species than with developing the regimen those 

 species illustrate. This treatment is well illustrated in the main central hall of 

 the British Museum of Natural History, where a series of cases present forma- 

 tive principles in animal life. Thus the group of pigeons, showing the varia- 



