26 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAV. 



ends armed with powerful suckers ; and among the lower 

 forms the beautiful glass models of the sea-anemones and 

 polyps. 



This systematic collection differs from the usual collec- 

 tions exhibited in public museums in the following im- 

 portant points. It is strictly limited to a series of typical 

 species, which may be from time to time improved by the 

 substitution of better or more representative specimens, 

 by alterations of arrangement, &c., but which are never 

 to be extended, because they are already quite as numerous 

 as the average intelligence even of well-educated persons 

 can properly understand. The skeletons and fossil types 

 are all exhibited in juxtaposition with the stuffed speci- 

 mens. Each class of animals is exhibited by itself, with 

 ample explanatory labels to teach the spectator what he is 

 examining, and what are the main peculiarities of the 

 different groups. Of course, in a comparatively new insti- 

 tution, the best and most illustrative species have not 

 always been obtained, or the best and most instructive 

 methods of exhibiting them hit upon. In all these matters 

 improvements will be constantly made, while the space 

 devoted to each class and the number of specimens ex- 

 hibited will undergo no material alteration. 



Illustrations of Geographical Distribution. 



We will now pass on to the special feature of the 

 museum and that which is most to be commended, the 

 presentation to the public of the main facts of the geo- 

 graphical distribution of animals. This is done by means 

 of seven rooms, each one devoted to the characteristic 

 animals of one great division of the earth or ocean, which 

 we will now proceed to describe. 



Beginning with a room devoted to the North American 

 fauna, we at once note its general characteristics, in its 

 wolves, foxes, bears, and seals ; its numerous deer and 

 squirrels, its noble bison now approaching extinction, 

 while a grand skeleton of the mastodon exhibits its most 

 prominent mammal of the immediately preceding age. A 

 closer examination shows us its more special peculiarities, 



