Dr. J. E. Gray on Museums and their Uses. 285 
complete collection of specimens that can be brought together, and 
in such a condition as to admit of the most minute examination of 
their differences, whether of age, or sex, or state, or of whatever 
kind that can throw light upon all the innumerable questions that are 
continually arising in the progress of thought and opinion. 
In the futile attempt to combine these two purposes in one con- 
secutive arrangement, the modern museum entirely fails in both 
particulars. It is only to be compared to a large store or a city 
warehouse, in which every specimen that can be collected is arranged 
in its proper case and on its proper shelf, so that it may be found 
when wanted; but the uninformed mind derives little instruction 
from the contemplation of its stores, while the student of nature 
requires a far more careful examination of them than is possible 
under such a system of arrangement, to derive any advantage; the 
visitor needs to be as well informed with relation to the system on 
which it is based as the curator himself; and consequently the ge- 
neral visitor perceives little else than a chaos of specimens, of which 
the bulk of those placed in close proximity are so nearly alike that 
he can scarcely perceive any difference between them, even supposing 
them to be placed on a level with the eye, while the greater number 
of those which are above or below this level are utterly unintel- 
ligible. 
To such a visitor, the numerous species of rats, or squirrels, or 
sparrows, or larks that crowd the shelves, from all parts of the 
world, are but a rat, a squirrel, a sparrow, or a lark; and this is 
still more especially the case with animals of a less marked and less 
known type of character. Experience has long since convinced me 
that such a collection so arranged is a great mistake. The eye both 
of the general visitor and of the student becomes confused by the 
number of the specimens, however systematically they may be brought 
together. 
The very extent of the collection renders it difficult even for the 
student, and much more so for the less scientific visitor, to discover 
any particular specimen of which he is in quest ; and the larger the 
collection, the greater this difficulty becomes. Add to this the fact 
that all specimens, but more especially the more beautiful and the 
more delicate, are speedily deteriorated, and in some cases destroyed 
for all useful purposes, by exposure to light, and that both the skins 
and bones of animals are found to be much more susceptible of 
measurement and comparison in an unstuffed or unmounted state, 
and it will be at once apparent why almost all scientific zoologists 
have adopted for their own collections the simpler and more advan- 
tageous plan of keeping their specimens in boxes or in drawers, 
devoted each to a family, a genus, or a section of a genus, as each 
individual case may require. : 
Thus preserved and thus arranged, the most perfect and the 
most useful collection that the student could desire would occupy 
comparatively a small space, and by no means require large and 
lofty halls for its reception. As it is desirable that each large 
