10 Department of Zoology. 



1856-1861. he was able to supply every book required from the Great 

 General Library. No taxidermist or articulator was attached 

 to the staff; the work of preparing or mounting skins and 

 skeletons was done outside the Museum by private persons. 



To supplement in some measure the inadequate working 

 strength of his staff, Dr. Gray availed himself of the temporary 

 services of a number of specialists who seemed to him particularly 

 qualified to undertake the arranging and cataloguing of certain 

 parts of the collection. In the period 1856-61 the following 

 were thus engaged by the Trustees : 



Dr. A. Guntlier commenced his work in the Museum in 1857, 

 and was at first employed for the continuation of the Catalogue of 

 Reptiles and Batrachians : that work he completed in 1858. He 

 then undertook the general Catalogue of Fishes, Dr. Kaup (who 

 had previously worked at the Lophobranchs and Apodal Fishes) 

 being unable to give the time requisite for so great an under- 

 taking ; the eight volumes of this catalogue occupied the next 

 twelve years, three appearing within the period 1856-61. 



In Mollusca, Dr. Gray obtained some help from Dr. L. 

 Pfeiffer and Dr. P. P. Carpenter; the latter prepared the 

 Catalogue of the Mazatlan Collection presented by him in 

 1857 ; the catalogue was published by the Trustees in the 

 same year. 



Mr. C. Spence Bate was during this period engaged on a Cata- 

 logue of Amphipodous Crustacea, which was published in 1862. 

 Probably the author's private collection was considerably richer 

 than that in the British Museum, and the value of the catalogue 

 as a record of a named and well-arranged collection is still 

 more impaired by the author's want of care in labelling the 

 types of his descriptions. 



In 1856 G. Newport's first (and only) part of a Catalogue of 

 Myriopoda was published, leaving the Chilopoda in a fair state 

 of arrangement. 



As regards Goleoptera, Dr. Gray seems to have had difficulty 

 in finding an entomologist who would undertake more than the 

 arrangement of some family in which he was specially interested 

 at the time ; thus he engaged for the Cassididse the help of 

 Prof. C. H. Boheman (Cat. 1856), for the Hispidse Dr. J. S. Baly 

 (Cat. 1858), and for some groups of Halticidx, the Rev. Hamlet 

 Clark (Cat. 1860). T. Vernon Wollaston prepared a catalogue 

 (1857) of his Madeira Collection of Coleoptera which had been 

 acquired for the Museum. 



