CORRESPONDENCE. 



take far more than one visit to do, 

 even very cursorily, he must turn 

 to the left through the old Statuary 

 Gallery, then to the right along the 

 Egyptian one, and then at the end 

 of it to the left through a door down 

 a narrow and rather dark passage, 

 ■which will lead him to the " Ento- 

 mological room." What ordinary 

 visitors have seen are merely some 

 showy duplicates exposed to the 

 light in open cases upstairs. 



The Entomological room con- 

 tains, I believe, 3,000 cabinet glazed 

 drawers of insects, vast numbers of 

 them in each of the Orders, of the 

 most wonderful beauty of colour and 

 markings, or the most astonishing 

 variety of singular and fantastic 

 shapes and forms. 



I read with much interest the letter 

 of a correspondent of the "Times" 

 H. C. recently, having long con- 

 templated writing on the same sub- 

 ject myself, and agree w4th every 

 word that he says, except as to the 

 facility with which he thinks that 

 the work so necessary to be done 

 might be accomplished ; here I must 

 say he is lamentably mistaken. Mr. 

 Frederick Smith, whose name I am 

 glad he has mentioned, is indeed a 

 most valuable public officer in that 

 department ; his politeness is only 

 equalled by his patience, and his 

 labours are worthy of all praise. 

 But will it be believed that since the 

 loss to the Museum of the energetic 



services of Mr. Adam White, Mr. 

 Smith is the single and only officer 

 in charge of this vast collection, to 

 which such great additions are being 

 made almost every day, some of 

 them most extensive ; as for instance 

 the splendid collection recently pre- 

 sented to the country by Mr. E. 

 Bowring. Not only so, but even 

 that one officer cannot devote his 

 time to the work that is so heavy, 

 but in addition to laborious sci- 

 entific correspondence and ordinary 

 official letters, he is continually in- 

 terrupted by visitors, scientific and 

 unscientific, either of whom, as may 

 be sux^posed, will be often equally 

 exacting, and equally prove a trial 

 to his patience, great as it is. 



The whole collection, in conse- 

 quence, is in such a state, that not 

 the small and temporary staff that 

 the *' Times " correspondent san- 

 guinely thinks will be sufficient, 

 would at all suffice for anything like 

 the amount of work that has to be 

 done, but several permanent paid 

 officers should be appointed, and 

 with much better salaries than have 

 heretofore been paid ; one, I would 

 say, for each Order, and they should 

 further be assisted by several pro- 

 fessionals in the work of re-setting, 

 the whole collection, as suggested 

 above. 



(To be contvnued.) 



