VII. COLLECTION OF FISH, 



COLLECTIONS of natural history are generally 

 designed to unite the most interesting and the 

 most curious amongst the productions of nature; 

 to show in each family the objects best calculated 

 to give an idea of its characteristic forms, and 

 those which indicate the link between one fa- 

 mily and another ; to establish the principles of 

 classification ; and also to show the natural state 

 and the origin of the different substances circu- 

 lated by means of commerce. To this end they 

 must be well classed, but it is not necessary that 

 they should be very numerous. A garden con- 

 taining fifteen hundred well chosen plants is suf- 

 ficient to give an idea of the vegetable kingdom ; 

 and all that is essential to be examined, in order 

 to have a notion of zoology, may be contained in 

 one room. 



But the collections of the Museum are destined 

 to a much more extended and important purpose ; 

 namely, the progress of science. The object for 

 which they were formed, that towards which 



27. 



