xxiii] LIFE IN LONDON 405 



This mode of exhibiting bird skins is especially suitable 

 for artificial light, and I believe that if a portion of the 

 enormous wealth of the national collection in unmounted 

 bird skins were used for evening display in the public 

 galleries, it would be exceedingly attractive. Different 

 regions or subregions might be illustrated by showing 

 specimens of all the most distinct and remarkable species 

 that characterize them, and each month during the winter a 

 fresh series might be shown, and thus all parts of the world 

 in turn represented. And in the case of insects the per- 

 manent series shown in the public galleries might be thus 

 arranged, those of each region or of the well-marked sub- 

 regions being kept quite separate. This would be not only 

 more instructive, but very much more interesting, because 

 such large numbers of persons have now visited or resided 

 in various foreign countries, and a still larger number have 

 friends or relatives living abroad, and all these would be 

 especially interested in seeing the butterflies, beetles, and 

 birds which are found there. In this way it would be possible 

 to supply the great want in all public museums — a geogra- 

 phical rather than a purely systematic arrangement for the 

 bulk of the collections exhibited to the public. The syste- 

 matic portion so exhibited might be limited to the most 

 distinctive types of organization, and these might be given 

 in a moderate-sized room. 



Having thus prepared the way by these preliminary 

 studies, I devoted the larger portion of my time in the years 

 1867 and 1 868 to writing my " Malay Archipelago." I had 

 previously read what works I could procure on the islands, 

 and had made numerous extracts from the old voyagers on 

 the parts I myself was acquainted with. These added much 

 to the interest of my own accounts of the manners and 

 character of the people, and by means of a tolerably full 

 journal and the various papers I had written, I had no 

 difficulty in going steadily on with my work. As my 

 publishers wished the book to be well illustrated, I had to 

 spend a good deal of time in deciding on the plates and 



