48 Department of Zoology. 



1879-1881. of the labour and time it entails, and not always equally 

 satisfactory to both parties. 



The acquisition of duplicates was always carefully avoided, 

 but whenever large miscellaneous collections were received either 

 as donations or as purchases, a small number of specimens proved 

 to be absolutely useless for the Museum, and they were set aside, 

 without being entered in the registers. During the progress of 

 the catalogues duplicates were also weeded out of the general 

 collection. The " Transit of Venus " collections and those 

 received from the East India Company contained a large number 

 of such specimens, which were distributed among certain 

 Museums by the desire of the donors ; and as the Trustees had 

 received applications from several other Museums and Institu- 

 tions for duplicates, they decided to deal in a similar manner 

 with the stock which had accumulated in the course of time. 



The list of applicants soon comprised, beside the Museums of 

 Edinburgh and Dublin, a number of provincial and colonial 

 Museums ; the Trustees therefoi'e sanctioned some rules by 

 which the distribution was to be regulated, the principal ones 

 being (1) that when a sufficient number of duplicates are available 

 for distribution the applicants should be invited, in rotation, to 

 make their own selection; (2) that in inviting applicants 

 preference should be given, as a general rule, to priority of 

 application; (3) that the recipient should remove the selected 

 specimens at his own expense ; (4) that the recipient should 

 engage to return to the Trustees any specimen which might have 

 been placed inadvertently among the duplicates, or which should 

 afterwards prove to be a desideratum in the British Museum. 



Henceforth, almost every year duplicates were disposed of 

 in this manner. In 1880 and 1881 21,779 duplicates, of which 

 about 14,500 were Insects, chiefly Coleoptera, were given to the 

 Museums of Edinburgh and Dublin, seven provincial Museums 

 and the Museum at Cape Town. 



STUDENTS AND VISITORS. 



While the Natural History collections were still at Blooms- 

 bury, the official annual returns of the number of students 

 included also persons who on private days visited, by special 

 permission, the public galleries. Many of them, indeed, were 

 bond fide students. The number of visits by students and 

 visitors rarely reached 4000 per annum, but in 1881 it rose 

 abruptly to 7407. This increase was evidently due to the 



