46 A MODEL MUSEUM. 



museum meditari avend. Moreover, St. Andrews had 

 its "Literary and Philosophical Society;" and Cupar, 

 the county- town of Fife, its " Literary and Antiquarian 

 Society," both of which were nourishing, and claimed 

 Groodsir as member. 



In 1837 he began a natural-history museum 

 alongside of his strictly anatomical and pathological. 

 He had been gathering from the second year of his 

 medical studies, and now wished to establish a collec- 

 tion worthy of the name and his own curatorship ; 

 and for this purpose explored the quarries of the 

 neighbourhood and dredged the sea-depths towards 

 the Isle of May. He had capital hands, and showed 

 dexterity and neatness in all his work, and specially 

 in preserving the skeletons and skins of fishes. So 

 busy was he in this direction that his friends concluded 

 he was bent on ichthyology proper. It cannot be said 

 that he made great progress in geology, though a 

 future page will show that he had a penchant in that 

 direction. Owing to its arrangements, classification, 

 and display, his museum was talked of as a model one, 

 and attracted many visitors — even young men of science 

 from Edinburgh. He presented his fossil fishes, sup- 

 posed to be gems in rarity and character, to the Lite- 

 rary and Philosophical Society of St. Andrews. It 

 was a source of regret in after years that he had not 

 retained this nucleus of a collection in his own hands, 

 as in the course of time its extension would have been 

 greatly promoted, and especially after his rise to the 

 anatomical professorship. 



