288 Dr. J. E. Gray on Museums and their Uses, 



A selection of a specimen of each of the more important or striking 



species of each genus or section. 

 The changes of state, sexes, habits, and manners of a well-known 



or an otherwise interesting species. 

 The economic uses to which they are applied ; and such other 



particulars as the judgment and talent of the curator would 



select as best adapted for popular instruction, and of which 



these are only intended as partial indications. 



No one, I think, who has ever had charge of a museum, or has 

 noted the behaviour of the visitors while passing through it, can 

 doubt for a moment that such cases would be infinitely more attrac- 

 tive to the public at large than the crowded shelves of our present 

 museums, in which they speedily become bewildered by the multi- 

 plicity, the a})parent sameness, and at the same time the infinite 

 variety of the objects presented to their view, and in regard to which 

 the labels on the tops of the cases afford them little assistance, 

 while those on the specimens themselves are almost unintelligible. 



When such visitors really take any interest in the exhibition, it 

 will generally be found that they concentrate their attention on in- 

 dividual objects, while others affect to do the same, in order to con- 

 ceal their total want of interest, of which they somehow feel ashamed, 

 although it originates in no fault of their own. 



I think the time is approaching when a great change will be made 

 in the arrangement of Museums of Natural History, and have there- 

 fore thrown out these observations as suggestions by which it appears 

 to me that their usefulness may be greatly extended. 



In England, as we are well aware, all changes are well considered 

 and slowly adopted. Some forty years ago, the plan of placing 

 every specimen on a separate stand, and arranging them in rank and 

 file in large glass wall-cases, was considered a great step in advance, 

 and it was doubtless an improvement on the preexisting plan, espe- 

 cially at a time when our collections were limited to a small number 

 of species, which were scarcely more than types of our modern 

 families or genera. 



The idea had arisen that the English collections were smaller 

 than those on the Continent, and the public called for every speci- 

 men to be exhibited. But the result has been that, in consequence 

 of the enormous development of our collections, the attention of the 

 great mass of visitors is distracted by the multitude of specimens, 

 while the minute characters by which naturalists distinguish genera 

 and species are inappreciable to their eyes. 



It was not, however, the unenlightened pubHc only who insisted 

 on this unlimited display ; there were also some lea'ding scientific 

 men who called for it, on the ground that the curator might be in- 

 duced to keep specimens out of sight in order to make use of them 

 for the enlargement of his own scientific reputation while the scien- 

 tific public were debarred the sight of them, and that valuable spe- 

 cimens might thus be kept, as the favourite phrase was, " in the 

 cellars." But any such imputation would be completely nullified by 



