498 THE NATURAL HISTORY REV:^W. 



quite of Philocosmos' opinion. Let us have the best men we can 

 get, without restriction as to age or anything else, for at the pre- 

 sent moment what we want is experienced Naturalists, sufficiently 

 advanced in their profession to be able to describe and systematize, 

 qualities not very often developed under the presci^ibed limits of 

 thirty-five years. But for the future we must confess that it would 

 be better, as a rule, to appoint younger men to inferior posts. 

 Fresh blood is a very good thing occasionally, but when an efficient 

 staff has once been secured, there can be no better or fairer method 

 of filling the higher appointments than by the promotion of those 

 who have earned their experience by occupying the junior posts 

 creditably. And for the junior posts we think the age of thirty-five 

 years an ample margin. 



Having said so much about our own National Museum of Zoology, 

 let us now look across the water and see what our continental 

 neighbours are about. In Trance, as we must all allow, the Jardin 

 des Plantes is theoretically at least the most perfect institution of 

 the kind in existence. Not only does it contain living and dead col- 

 lections of both animal and vegetable kingdoms side by side, but libra- 

 ries, workshops, lecture-rooms, and every other appendage requisite 

 for the due Avorking of such an establishment. A college, or body of 

 seventeen professors, comprehending the most eminent naturalists 

 in the country, is attached to the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, the 

 members of which are engaged in giving perpetual free lectures on 

 the different branches of Natural Science. Assistant naturalists are 

 employed to arrange and name the collections ; travellers are en- 

 gaged in collecting novelties in foreign countries ; and artists are 

 especially attached to the establishment for the purpose of figuring 

 the new or rare animals and plants belonging to the Museum, Grar- 

 dens or Menagerie. Yet those who are practically acquainted with 

 the working of the Jardin des Plantes are well aware that it is not at 

 the present moment the perfect institution, which it ought to be. In 

 the time of the illustrious Cuvier the Museum of Zoology, of which 

 alone we are now speaking, was unquestionably the best in existence. 

 Whether at the present time it can be said to excel its sister insti- 

 tutions in any one point is doubtful, in many parts of the series it 

 is undoubtedly inferior to them. One reason of this falling off" is, 

 we believe, partly traceable to the fact that (until recently, when 

 a wholesome change was made) there was no organised head of the 

 establishment — the Professors havin"; taken that office each in rota- 



