368 ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY 



merely confused by their multiplicity. For example, the 

 grand ornithological gallery at the Jiritish Museum contains 

 between two and three thousand species of birds, and 

 sometimes five or six specimens of a species. They are very 

 pretty to look at, and some of the cases are, indeed, splendid ; 

 but I will undertake to say, that no man but a professed 

 ornithologist has ever gathered much information from the 

 collection. Certainly, no one of the tens of thousands of 

 the general public who have walked through that gallery 

 ever knew more about the essential peculiarities of birds 

 when he left the gallery than when he entered it. But if, 

 somewhere in that vast hall, there were a few preparations, 

 nplifying the leading structural peculiarities and the 

 mode of merit of a common fowl ; if the types of 



the genera, the leading modifications in the skeleton, in 

 the plumage at various ages, in the mode of nidification, 

 and the like, among birds, were displayed ; and if the 

 other specimens were put away in a place where the m-n 

 of science, to whom they are alone useful, could have free 

 access to them, I can conceive that this collection might 

 become a great instrument of scientific edi 



The last ient of the teacher to which I have 



adverted is examination a me;* ion now so 



thoroughly understood that I need hardly enlarge upon it. 

 ;ld that both written and oral examinations are indis- 

 pensable, and, by requiring the clescrip'ion of specimens, 

 may be made to supplement demonstration. 



Such is the fullest reply the time at my disposal will 

 allow me to give to the question how may a knowledge of 

 ogy be best a' .cated ? 



But there is a previous question which may be nv 

 and which, in fact, I , '<> move. It 



is the question, why should training masters be em 

 to acquire a knowledge of this, or any other branch of 

 .ical science 7 What is the use, it is said, of attempting 



ysical science a branch 



Is jr ; ., in pursuing such stud 



will be led astray from the acquirement of rnorc impor' 



ractive k < / An : '.HI 



learn something of science without prejudice to their useful- 

 ness .1 good of then- v ..-ig to instil that 



Business is the acq 

 of riding, writing, and a; c ? 



These questions are, and will he, very commonly a^ked, 



