MUSEUMS. 15 
exhibition in fluid or as dry preparations, have continued during the 
year. Dredging excursions to obtain fresh specimens of fishes with 
other much-desired marine forms, their preservation and fixing, or 
the casting of those fishes too large to place in jars, in plaster or 
papier-mache, with the necessary careful painting of the same, have 
oceupied much of the time of the Assistant Curator, his Laboratory 
Assistant and the Taxidermist during this as during last year, and 
several cases of fishes have now been placed on exhibition. 
In the Upper Gallery, where the systematic collections are 
arranged, additions have been made from time to time to. the 
Mammals. The general labelling of the cases and of their contents 
has also been proceeded with as rapidly as it could be undertaken by 
the printer. During the year continued progress has been made in 
placing on exhibition cases to illustrate the classification of the 
Fishes. Many casts have been prepared; and a large number of the 
better stuffed specimens have been re-prepared and coloured; but as 
previously remarked it will be a considerable time before a really 
good collection, properly preserved and mounted for exhibition, can 
be accumulated. 
In the re-arrangement of the Invertebrata the mollusca are now 
completed and displayed in the desk cases in which they were 
formerly exhibited, although not so suitable as cases of a more erect 
form, which would occupy less floor space. The plan adopted in the 
Vertebrate groups has been followed in the arrangement of the 
mollusca. Examples of the main genera of each of the families have 
alone been placed on view, so that the classification of the group may 
be more easily grasped by the student without his being over- 
burdened by a plethora of species. The bulk of the collection—one 
of the most complete in England—has been relegated to a study 
series, meantime arranged in drawers beneath the exhibited series, 
but which will, the Director hopes, in due course be arranged in 
glass-covered, “stopped” drawers, so as to be always accessible to 
the specialist, without loss of time to him and without the necessity 
of intruding upon the time and services of an assistant. 
A large collection, consisting of several thousand thin sections of 
timbers for microscopic purposes and micro-photographs of the same, 
