84 THE MUSEUM OF THE vn 



mode in which they are grouped. This series, arranged in 

 the floor cases on the left side of the western museum, 

 includes selected specimens of nearly all the orders, and in 

 many cases of the families, both of the living and extinct 

 forms ; illustrated both by their hard and imperishable parts 

 as the " corals " or stony skeletons of the Actinozoa, the shells 

 of Mollusca, and the tegumentary structures of the Articulata, 

 and by the softer and more destructible parts of the bodies 

 preserved in spirit. The various groups are distinctly separated 

 from each other and clearly named. Students who desire to 

 pursue the study of any of the sections more deeply than 

 the small selected series of exhibited specimens will allow, 

 will find the remainder of the specimens mentioned in the 

 catalogues, arranged in drawers below the cases. The series 

 does not extend beyond the invertebrata, as the peculiarities of 

 the remaining classes of the Animal Kingdom are abundantly 

 illustrated in other parts of the museum. 



Although locally far removed, occupying one portion of the 

 upper gallery of the middle museum, a small but interesting 

 special collection, illustrating the subject of Helminthology, 

 may be mentioned here. It was thought that the importance 

 in a medical and social point of view of those animals which 

 infest the interior of man and the principal domestic and 

 other animals, justified a more extended exhibition of their 

 modifications than could be assigned to any other group of 

 animals of such inferior organisation, and by the aid of the 

 well-known helminthologist, Dr. Spencer Cobbold, the present 

 collection was arranged and catalogued in 1 8 6 6 ; the materials 

 being mostly already in the collection, though scattered in 

 other series or hidden in the storerooms. The collection 

 contains upwards of 200 specimens, and may still be some- 

 what extended. The intention is to show every parasitic 

 animal which, under any circumstances, can affect the human 

 body, and a selection of the principal types of those that 

 inhabit the lower animals, especially such species as are 

 associated with man. If increased beyond these limits, the 

 collection would become interesting only to the student of 

 detailed systematic zoology, and therefore not a legitimate 

 object for our museum. 



