INTRODUCTION. Xlll. 



connected with museums. It is notorious that few collec- 

 tions exhibited to the public will bear comparison with corre- 

 sponding series contained in private cabinets. Why should 

 this be any longer permitted ? It may arise in part from 

 the impression that in public museums it is unnecessary to 

 spend much on specimens. Public collections depending 

 chiefly on donations are however likely to be overstocked in 

 some departments, whilst entirely deficient in others. There 

 can be no excuse for extravagance, but a rigid economy may 

 be pushed too far. The trouble and great risk of collecting 

 in tropical climates must often be very inadequately repre- 

 sented by the apparently high prices asked for the chief 

 desiderata, and the rest of a collector's stock may remain on 

 his hands for years. 



Again, if a genus or a group is illustrated in nature by a 

 great number of distinct and beautiful forms, e. g., such 

 genera as Madrepor-a, Conus, Cetonia, &c., this surely is of 

 itself a biological fact which may claim, even on scientific 

 grounds, to be fairly and appropriately represented in a 

 collection. Even on the most severe estimate of what is 

 necessary for ■ an^ educational series, something must be 

 allowed simply for the sake of beauty and attractiveness; 

 that is to say, if museums are to avoid the fate of certain 

 parochial lending libraries which contain only such books as, 

 it is said, everybody ought to like to read. 



Why moreover should the public be encouraged to esteem 

 art treasures as so much more valuable than the choicest 

 productions of nature ? One hears of a pair of vases being 

 sold for two thousand pounds, a sum which would provide 

 twenty first-rate table cases, and stock them with very fair 

 illustrations of the whole of the invertebrate groups. It is a 

 happy circumstance that a museum of common objects may at 

 a trifling cost be established in almost any village, and, with 



