XLIX. 
The only conditions attached by Sir William Macleay to his donation were—that the 
present curator should be continued in office; that the endowment of £6000 for the 
salary of a curator should be used for this and no other purpose ; and that the 
Museum should be made easily accessible to students of natural history and members 
of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 
The Macleay Museum building contains a single spacious hall, 200 feet long by 
76 feet wide, provided with a gallery 13 feet wide at the sides and 26 feet at the 
ends, the space below the gallery being divided by partitions into a series of bays, 
eleven on each side, each bay having a large window. 
The Macleay Collection is, as might be expected, richest in representatives of the 
Australian fauna, almost every department of which, except, perhaps, in the case of 
some of the soft invertebrates difficult to preserve satisfactorily, is, at least, fairly, 
and in many cases well, represented. The especial feature of the Museum is, of 
course, the entomological department, not only by reason of the historic interest 
attaching to it as representing the accumulation of more than a century’s collecting 
by Macleays of three generations, but as comprising the finest collection of Australian 
insects extant ; and it must ever be a source of gratification to Australian entomolo- 
gists that so remarkable a collection has not only been preserved intact, but that, 
held in trust by the University of Sydney for the nation, it will contimue to be 
available for study to present and future generations of workers. The following 
additional particulars will be of interest :— 
The anthropological and ethnological collections include over 200 crania of 
aboriginal Australians and natives of New Guinea and the South Sea Islands, six 
entire skeletons of natives of Torres Straits, and many hundreds of specimens of 
native weapons, implements, and utensils from Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia, 
ete. 
The collection of Mammalia comprises nearly 500 specimens (including skins, 
skeletons, and skulls) of Marsupials and Monotremes, and nearly 400 specimens of 
other orders. The collection of Birds is a particularly valuable one, comprising no 
fewer than about 10,000 specimens—a fair number of representatives of the Aus- 
tralian species mounted, the rest unmounted. There are upwards of 6000 specimens 
of Reptiles of all orders, mostly in spirits. The Batrachia, too, have not been over- 
looked. The collection of Fishes is very extensive ; on a rough estimate there are 
about 13,000 specimens of all kinds, mounted and in spirits. 
Of the Invertebrata the Insecta are the most largely represented, and it would 
be quite impossible to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the immense 
multitudes of representatives of all orders that fill the drawers of the insect cabinets. 
s 
