i894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 167 



lent examples of this may be seen in the groups illustrating the nesting 

 habits of British birds in the Bird Gallery. Though the greater 

 number of species of birds lay eggs all of which are of tolerably 

 uniform character, varying only within narrow limits, there are some 

 cases in which the eggs of different individuals of one species present 

 a remarkable diversity, as shown by the eggs of the Guillemot 

 (Lomvia troile). 



This beautiful exhibit is rather hidden in a dark corner ; but we 

 hope that the rapacious schoolboy will ferret it out, and learn that 

 there is something more to be done with eggs than merely to rob the 

 nests of diminishing species. All who see it must acknowledge what 

 beautiful results can be attained in museum work by any curator who 

 spends little money, but much time and brains. 



Deficiencies in Museums. 



That is one side of the picture ; but there is another, not so 

 pleasing. At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of London 

 an eminent palaeontologist read a most interesting paper on the 

 wonderful series of bones lately obtained by Mr. Lewis Abbott from 

 a fissure-deposit, apparently of Pleistocene age. He had, however, 

 occasion to lament that the value of his paper was considerably 

 marred by the great difficulty he had met with in obtaining skeletons 

 of many very common species for the purpose of comparison, and by 

 the consequent uncertainty of some of his specific determinations. 

 Some of his hearers were probably astonished to learn how large a 

 number of our common British birds were unrepresented by a single 

 bone in either our great National Collection or in that of the College 

 of Surgeons. Among the species so conspicuous by their absence, 

 the speaker mentioned the Swallow, the Song-thrush, the hairy- and 

 feather-legged Buzzard, not to mention many species of Ducks and 

 Gulls. Other of his hearers may have been filled with sorrow rather 

 than surprise, remembering that this is not the first time such a 

 complaint has been made. The Catalogue of Fossil Birds, officially 

 pubHshed by the Trustees of the British Museum itself, remarks on 

 the absence of skeletons of the existing species of Anas, and publishes 

 a list of the fossil species which is, for that reason, avowedly imperfect 

 and probably incorrect. Three years ago the author of this 

 Catalogue said, at a meeting of the Zoological Society, whose 

 President is, our readers will remember, the Director of the Natural 

 History Branch of the British Museum: "With regard to the 

 question of extinct species, the unfortunate imperfection of our 

 English collections of recent avian skeletons renders it in some cases 

 impossible to determine definitely the species to which the specimens 

 belong." 



It is all very well to attract the public with superb specimens of 

 the taxidermist's art ; it is most important that the collections should 



