496 THE NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW. 



rhilocosmos, " the many objects composing them are so classified, 

 " named, and arranged, that the student can profitably examine 

 " them," and there is likewise, " a staff of officers eminent in 

 " science, ready and able to assist students in their researches." In 

 the British Museum, as regards the Invertebrate collections, 

 Philocosmos urges that this is not the case. As to the amount of 

 materials, he allows that "thanks to the untiring and well-directed 

 " zeal of Dr. Gray," our National Collection far exceeds any other, but 

 as to tlie arrangement of these materials he pronounces it to be the 

 most " chaotic." " If we except a few chosen groups of insects 

 " which have received special attention, this priceless material is 

 " stored away unstudied, uuarranged, unknown ; drawer after 

 " drawer, full of rare forms — forms that in private collections some- 

 " times are entirely unrepresented — exhibit nothing but a crude 

 " disorganization. Here is material sufficient to form two, three, or 

 " four really good national collections, and yet, by reason of its 

 " condition, without the scientific value of many a second-class 

 " private collection." 



The reason of this distressing state of things is simply that 

 there are not enough hands to work on the ver}^ extensive series of 

 Invertebrata in the British Museum. Our continental friends will 

 indeed be astonished when they learn that the duty of cataloguing, 

 arranging, naming, and describing the whole of these enormous 

 collections,* containing in round numbers about a million and a half 

 of specimens, is now committed to two naturalists, Dr. Baird and 

 Mr. P. Smith. A fe^v years ago, it is true, these gentlemen w^ere 

 assisted by a third Naturalist, Mr. Adam White, a well-known 

 authority in the classes Insecta and Crustacea. Since that gentle- 

 man's retirement from ill health, no competent person has been 

 appointed to succeed him,| so that there are now only two left to do 



* Philocosraos gives us the following estimate of the extent of these collections — 

 •' The collections of Insects in the Museum consist of 904,605 specimens, con- 

 tained in 3775 cabinet drawers and 121 store boxes. The late Eev. W. Hope, a 

 distinguished naturalist, and the founder of the Hope Museum and the Entomo- 

 logical Professorship at Oxford, used to say that, in superintending his own collec- 

 tions, he was able to take charge of a cabinet drawer a day ; if this rate of progress 

 U applied to the British Museum collection, twelve years must expire before the 

 whole can be brought under the care of Mr. Smith. It is probable that the rest of 

 the Invertebrata (under the charge of Dr. Baird) may consist of half a million of 

 examples, the grand total of the Invertebrata in the Museum being, in round 

 numbers, a million and a half." 



t We have no space here to go again into the history of the appointment of Mr. 

 While's successor, which has been so repeatedly canvassed by the ordinary press 



