352 Sir W. H. Flower on the General 



the way of suggestions and specimens, been engaged in 

 arranging for the national Natural History Museum a more 

 complete series than has hitherto been brought together for 

 the purpose^. 



It forms part of the educational or introductory collection 

 placed in the Central Hall of the Museum, and bears the 

 same relation to the great collection of eggs in the Zoolo- 

 gical Dejjartment (the systematic arrangement of which, 

 under Mr. Seebohm^s supervision, is now on the point of 

 completion) as the illustrations of the morphology of the 

 limbs, beak, feathers, &c. in the same alcove of the Hall 

 do to the general zoological series of birds in the Ornitho- 

 logical Gallery. It also takes its place between the series of 

 eggs of reptiles and of mammals (represented at present only 

 by that of Echidna) in the two adjoining alcoves. 



The collection has been made and arranged upon the 

 principles which have always appeared to me to be those 

 which should regulate a public exhibition intended for 

 educational purposes. It is, or perhaps I should say aims at 

 being, in the oft-quoted words of Mr. Brown Goode, "■ a 

 collection of instructive labels, each illustrated by a well- 

 sehcied specimen." 



In preparing it the first point thought of was to find out 

 what are the propositions to be illustrated, and to reduce 

 them to definite and very concise language, and the next to 

 obtain the most appropriate illustrations of each. In making 

 a collection of this kind for the first time, the two operations 

 will to a certain extent proceed simultaneously and experi- 

 mentally. A proposition which has been laid down from 

 general and perhaps only partially accurate information may 

 require to be modified, or may even break down altogether, 

 when put to the severe test of actual proof by illustration. 

 The wording of the labels must be borne out by the speci- 

 mens, and the latter must for their part be the best that can 

 be selected to demonstrate the truth of the statements made 

 in reference to them. 



In commencing such a collection it is very necessary to 

 form some definite idea of the extent to which it should be 

 * [Sec a previous notice on this suljject, above, p. 325. — Ed.] 



