for the year 1916-17. xvii 



This under present conditions we must continue to do. In addition 

 to funds we need the whole time of an exhibition officer of deep scienti- 

 fic knowledge, of wide sympathies, of artistic taste, with a talent 

 for languages, and above all with the teaching instinct. He would 

 have to have a stafE of trained guides and preparators. What we 

 have is the odd moments of four scientific men engaged in other 

 work and on tour for a large part of the year. 



In these circumstances all we can do, unless we are to stagnate, is 

 to add patches of new cloth to the old garment, with results that 

 are often, at any rate until the whole is replaced, incongruous. A plan 

 was prepared by Mr. S. W. Kemp some years ago for a complete 

 re-organization of the large invertebrate gallery. He contemplated 

 a sweeping away of all the old cases, all the old labels and 

 most of the old specimens. His scheme was. therefore, a dra.stic^ 

 one, more particularly as it was to be applied to a gallery in which 

 extraordinary pains had been taken, with great success in some 

 directions, in the labelling and display of the collections. As the 

 Trustees, however, were able and willing at the time to. spend a 

 considerable amount of money I agreed to carry 



nie'iiTorfhe MoHuS^^' ^^ °^^* ^^ P^^'^ '^^^^ ^^^ ^^^®^ sufficient to con- 

 tain the molluscs and one or two other groups, 

 as well as several faunistic exhibits, were ordered from a Chinese 

 carpenter. Before many of them had been constructed war broke 

 out and the price of glass Avent up. We were unable to go on with the 

 scheme, except very slowly. Sufficient of the cases for the re- 

 arrangement of the molluscs are now. however, finished. . Dr. Gravely 

 has undertaken the exhibition of this interesting group of animals 

 and will shortly go. on tour to the sea-coast to obtain additional 

 specimens for dissection and the like. The rest of the gallery, re- 

 maining for the time being in its old state, will be very much less 

 satisfactory than it was before ; but we hope to change the whole 

 of the exhibits gradually as funds permit. In the present financial 

 crisis we can hardly ask for special grants. 



The fact that Dr. Meerwarth of the Ethnographical Museum of 



the Russian Academy of Sciences happened to be staying in Calcutta 



made it possible for him, in return for dupli- 



m.'!--!r-''"f"'^"*f^*''^ cate specimens to be given to the Petrograd 

 musical instruments. ^ ^ e i i 



Museum, to re-arrange a part of the ethnogra- 

 phical . exhibits. We chose the musical instruments as being perhaps 

 the most representative Indian collection in the gallery and agreed that 

 they should be arranged in such a way as to illustrate the evolution 

 of the different types. Dr. Meerwarth has given me the following 

 note : — 



" In March and April 1917 I undertook to arrange the very rich 

 and valuable collection of musical instruments which forms a part 

 of the Ethnological Section. I also compiled a catalogue in which 

 I tried to show the development of the complicated types from the 

 most primitive instruments of savages. I have divided the material 



02 



