322 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



highly questionable whether all these valuable types should 

 be kept as mounted specimens, &c/' 



I am very thankful to the Editor for having mentioned 

 this important question. When preparing the ' Catalogue of 

 the Birds in the Senckenbergian Museum/ and arranging 

 all the specimens according to my catalogue, I had on several 

 occasions to notice how specimens had faded. I have more 

 than once spoken to the authorities of the Museum (which 

 unfortunately, according to the rules of the Society, change 

 every second year) of the injury that all mounted birds 

 necessarily undergo, and have recommended that a col- 

 lection of skins should be made. Moreover, I have, in my 

 catalogue and elsewhere, repeatedly offered remarks to the 

 same effect. There were, however, no ornithologists then 

 on the committee, and there are none now ; therefore birds 

 are continually mounted " for the sake of the public/' and 

 there is probably no hope that the valuable types will ever 

 be reduced into skins and placed in well-protected drawers 

 for the future use of students. 



But not only in the Frankfort Museum are hundreds of 

 valuable types exposed to the light, for, as is well known, 

 all the older Museums of Germany contain only mounted 

 birds. Above all, the Berlin and Bremen Museums are 

 full of types, all mounted and more or less exposed to the 

 light, besides being very inconvenient for scientific use. For- 

 tunately, in Berlin at least (since Dr. Beichenow took matters 

 in hand), types will not for the future suffer from being 

 mounted ; but should not the authorities, at least of the 

 Berlin and Bremen Museums, consider whether it is advisable 

 to keep so many types of birds mounted ? 



Moreover, it is not only in Germany that skins were, until 

 lately, always mounted ; matters are the same at Leydeu 

 and at Paris. At Paris, especially, it is really lamentable to 

 see the most valuable types and uniques exposed to full day- 

 light, and this even at hours when the public is not admitted 

 to the galleries. I deeply regret to learn that there, even to 

 this day, all types are mounted, although a good number of 

 skins are kept in reserve, apart from the mouuted collection. 



