1894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 165 



systematic sides of them ; and thus the curators of such a museum 

 become finicking speciaHsts, keener to find one spot more on a 

 leopard's coat or one scale less on a butterfly's wing than they are 

 to discover and exempHfy fundamental features of organic structure. 

 That this deficiency is due to no causes necessarily attached to 

 museum work is clearly shown by the instructive and beautiful cases 

 placed in the entrance hall of the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington, some of which it is now intended to imitate in the 

 Harvard Museum. On the contrary, we believe that the deficiency, 

 where it occurs, is caused by the severance of the museum from the 

 active workers, by the consequent absence of laboratories with proper 

 facihties, and by the financial difficulties in the way of keeping up a 

 complete library of other than merely systematic literature. The 

 only way to overcome these difficulties, which we know to be in force 

 in all parts of the world, is to bring about a more intelligent co-opera- 

 tion of the various government and private establishments with 

 kindred aims, and to resolutely sweep aside the petty jealousies and 

 red-tape restrictions that have no other effect than to hinder true 

 progress. 



In this very report before us is a case in point. '"It is to be 

 hoped," writes Professor Agassiz, " that some arrangement may yet 

 be made between the representatives of the leading Universities 

 and the Fish Commissioner by which the exceptional facilities for 

 marine research now existing at the Fish Commission Station at 

 Wood's Holi, may be made available fjr original investigation." 

 The Fish Commission itself cannot spend money on questions with 

 no direct practical bearing on fishery ; at the same time it has at 

 Wood's HoU an expensive plant, too extensive for its own needs. 

 If, however, the government bureau and the leading universities 

 could only be induced to co-operate, it would be possible to raise a 

 fund large enough to relieve the Commission of its purely scientific 

 work, and to afford sufficient means for its publication. 



Birds' Eggs at the British Museum. 



While alluding to the introductory educational series at the 

 Natural History Museum, we should not omit to notice the admirably 

 instructive exhibit of birds' eggs, with which Sir William Flower has 

 recently enriched the central hall. After a description of the structure 

 of an egg, illustrated by a diagrammatic section, the characters of 

 number, form, size, texture and colour, are successively elucidated by 

 specimens and labels. The number of eggs laid in one nest, and sat 

 upon together, though tolerably uniform in each species, varies greatly 

 in different species. Thus, the Manx Shearwater has but one egg, 

 the Swift and Ring-dove two, while clutches of the long-tailed Tit 

 and the red-legged Partridge are exhibited with nine and twelve eggs 

 respectively. In form, eggs may vary from almost spherical, as in 



