Bibliographical Notice. 2G9 



BIBLIOGIUPIIICAL XOTICE. 



The Ilistori/ of the CoUedioas contained in the Xulural Histon/ 

 Departtnents of the British Museum. — Vol. II. Appendi.x:. General 

 History of the Department of Zoology from 1656 to 1895. By 

 Dr. Albert Gun'tileu, F.R.S. 



Tug history of a museum is in the main a history of its collections, 

 just as tlie history of a nation is in the main a history of its ordered 

 generations : in the one case as in the other the creative designs of 

 Directors and Dictators are limited by the condition of the material 

 — whether crude and chaotic or fashioned and tempered — that they 

 find ready to their hands. 



In this volume we have a plain history of the zoological collec- 

 tions of the British Museum, comprehending a term of forty years, 

 written by one who practically all that time moved among them, 

 gave them shape, and stiove to make them fertile — a most memo- 

 rable work both in itself and in its authorship. 



Like all the work of its author, it is a model of lucid method, 

 full also of expert suggestion, and religiously free from ostentation. 

 The growth and arrangement and vicissitudes of the collections, 

 their maturation and fructification in monographs and descriptive 

 catalogues, the conditions and circumstances of the famous donations, 

 the changes and developments in the curatoriate, the distribution 

 of the annual grants — all the arcana are revealed, period by period, 

 in orderly sequence ; and we survey the hidilen machinery of a 

 great educational institution with the same chastened feelings as a 

 passenger who has been shown round the engine-room of a big ship 

 by the chief engineer. 



Quite outside its native and domestic value as an official epitome 

 of the inner workings of a scientific department, this authoritative 

 history of the premier natural history collection of the world Avill 

 naturally become canonical to the whole fraternity of museum 

 administrators, who in turning to it for guidance and policy will 

 also get comfort and will even learn resignation. 



" Quce caret ora cruore nostro ? " AVhat Curator's heart has not 

 been tilled with " hot unutterabilities " by the ligneous behaviour 

 of his Board ? Let the oppressed spirit be consoled. For here ho 

 will find it recorded of the wise Dr. Gray, whose first great admini- 

 strative measure was to arrange the collections in the two recipro- 

 cating series — for exhibition and for study — now so universally 

 adopted, that he had to carry out this reform in the face of con- 

 siderable opposition, and found his most telling argument in its 

 favour in the one that it saved room. So true is the paradox that 

 the British governmental mind, which loves a smooth theory as a 

 limpet love* a rock, can yet be moved more surelv bv takin* 



