ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUMS. 497 



the work hitherto performed by three. It is hardly necessary to 

 say that even this number was wholly insufficient. " Philocosmos," 

 who, as we have good reason to believe, is a very reliable authority 

 in such matters, tells us that the collection of Insecta— to which 

 favourite class he principally devotes his remarks, " absolutely re- 

 " quires four or five, instead of one Naturalist, to keep it in proper 

 " order." He states that every year the confusion is becoming 

 worse by reason of accumulations, large additions being continually 

 received, which it is impossible for a single person to attend to 

 properly. The cost of resetting and cleaning the whole collection of 

 Invertebrata he estimates at about £500, and that of re-arrangement 

 at £2000. If the collections are worth accumulating and having, 

 he urges, they are worthy of being preserved — " if they are worth 

 *' having they are worth utilizing — if they are to be retained, they 

 *' should exist to the national credit." Few of our readers, we fancy, 

 will disagree with " Philocosmos" in this matter, or will be iU dis- 

 posed to join in the prayer of two of his petitions to the Trustees. 



1. That a special grant of £2500 should be asked of the Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer with the object of overtaking arrears, for 

 the purpose of arranging, without delay, the collections of Inver- 

 tebrata. 



2. That the permanent staff of the assistant keepers of the 

 lusecta should be very materially increased. 



"With regard to Philocosmos' further petition, that the civil-ser- 

 vice rules, as to vacant appointments in the Natural History Depart- 

 ments of the British Museum, should be entirely abandoned, we are 

 not sure that it is necessary to go quite so far as this. As regards 

 the appointments now to be made, in order to bring up the staff of 

 this department of the Museum to its full requirements, we are 



as well as by the special organs of science, without anj explanation of it having been 

 vouchsafed by the Ti-ustees, but shall content ourselves by reprinting, for the benefit 

 of those who may not have heard of it, the following resolution, unanimously passed 

 by the Entomological Society of London on the subject, on the 5th of July, 1863 : — 



" Considering the state of the Entomological collection in the British Museum, 

 and the vast accessions, still unarranged, which it has recently received, and which 

 render it the most valuable collection in the world : considering also, that the 

 proper classification of that collection requires the sendees of more than one person 

 skilled in the science of Entomology — 



" Resolved, That the nomination, in the place of IMr. Adam White, of a gentle- 

 man previously employed as a transcriber in the Printed Book Department'of the 

 Museum and entirely unknown as an Entomologist, cannot but prove a gi-eat 

 detriment to the progress of the classification of the collection, and is virtually a 

 waste of the public money. Such nomination is the more objectionable as several 

 competent entomologists were candidates for the post." 



