396 NOTES AND COMMENTS [DECEMBER 
The Biological Corner of a Natural History 
Museum. 
Proressor L. CUENOT discusses in La Feuille des Jeunes Naturalistes 
(xxix. 1899, pp. 195-197) the possibility and utility of collections to 
illustrate facts and problems of general biology. He instances the 
cases in the entrance hall in the British Museum (Natural History), 
and some illustrations which he saw in the University Museum in 
Cambridge, but he protests, like Herrera, that what has hitherto been 
the exception should in the future prove the rule. 
He takes the chapters in L’ Année Biologique, and suggests that, 
although one must not expect too much in museum illustration of 
these, one may reasonably look for more than is at present offered. 
At Nancy he has himself tried to realise some of his ideals. Regenera- 
tion, parasitic castration and peculiarities of sex-inhibition, homochromy 
and other protective adaptations, variation, sexual dimorphism, 
convergence, and the like may be vividly illustrated without great 
difficulty. Even heredity he would illustrate by generations of mice, 
and the recapitulation-doctrine by placing young Comatulas in their 
stalked stage beside Pentacrinus. There is obviously no difficulty 
except that of time and money, which applies to other kinds of exhibits, 
and the pains of thought which inhibit many of these valuable sugges- 
tions. It is only fair to note, however, that the number of these 
biological exhibits is rapidly increasing both at home and abroad. 
Linné’s Type Specimens of Fishes. 
ONE of the many excellent outcomes of Dr. Giinther’s presidency of 
the Linnean Society will be seen in his Anniversary Address for May 
last, just issued. In this address he deals with the fish preserved in 
Linné’s own collection, which has been in the possession of the Society 
for about a century. How little they have been valued by the 
Society may best be gathered from the fact that Dr. Giinther records, 
“in order to render them more secure in the future, your Council has 
ordered them to be transferred [from loose sheets of paper] to dust- 
proof glass-topped boxes.” One only hopes that Dr. Giinther will see 
that every precious Linnean specimen is placed in a glass-topped box 
before he leaves the presidential chair; it is difficult to understand 
why this was not done years ago. 
The fishes owned by Linné consist of 168 skins, and came from 
three sources, Scandinavia, Germany (chiefly freshwater), and South 
Carolina. They are all preserved like plants in a herbarium, and 
on the sheets of paper are usually notes in Linné’s handwriting, While 
those from South Carolina usually have a band of paper round the tail, 
