1. — ^This pressing need of space has necessitated an arrangement of the 

 collections which is most bewildering and confusing to, even the most 

 intelligent visitor. At present he enters (See Plan I.) Gallery A, 

 and traverses the other Mammahan Rooms B, C, D, beginning with the 

 Marsupials and ascending to the higher Apes and Man, which he finds 

 along with the Derby Minerals, in Room E, whose exit is to the outside. 

 To discover the continuation of the animal series the visitor has to 

 retrace not only the classificatory order he has been following, but his 

 footsteps also, and having passed through the Mayer Museum, both its 

 middle and upper floors, he at last reaches the Bird Galleries, K, J, I, 0, P, 

 to find them not only confusedly arranged, but placed in the midst 

 of the Invertebrates, with which they have no affinity. The Reptiles and 

 Fishes he discovers in the midst of Metallurgical and Mineralogical 

 Collections, separated from the Birds by such lowly forms as Corals 

 and Sponges. 



Thus different groups of the animal kingdom, which are related to 

 each other, are, on account of the difficulty of housing them otherwise, 

 separated far from each other. No arrangement more confusing to the 

 student or ordinary visitor could probably have been devised tlian is the 

 present — none certainly more calculated to prove tBI^the o^n plaint of 

 the dulness of this, as of most other Museums, is justly founded. 



II. — A Biological Collection, such as that in the Free Public Museums, 

 should be arranged pre-eminently for those who have little or no 

 knowledge of Science, but who have a craving to become acquainted 

 with the plants and animals that sm-round them, or a desire to increase 

 the knowledge they may have acquired by observation. This arrange- 

 ment need not be less useful to the University Student. The 

 exhibition should also be such as to attract those who have no 

 object beyond amusement or relaxation ; they should find the Museum 

 a book with its pages open and its narrative so clearly set out, that they 

 are unawares following a connected story, unfolded from room to room 

 before their eyes, which may excite their interest and further attention. 



There is no book of instruction, however, with any pretence to being 

 logical, but begins with propositions that are simple and elementary, and 

 leads from them to the more complex. 



A Biological Museum should, therefore, be as it were a Book of animals 

 and plants, explained in words understandable of all persons of ordinary 

 education, commencing with the description of the simpler forms, and 



