314 OUT OF DOORS. 



glass cover to keep the dust off, and there is no need of 

 camphor or turpentine, whose oppressive vapours per- 

 vade our museums, and give direful headaches to the 

 visitors. You may take at random any of the five 

 hundred specimens, say a bird, put it in a box, together 

 with moth-eaten furs, feathers, and blankets, with mite- 

 covered insects, and with a pint or two of the terrible 

 dermestes that scourge of museums prolific, sharp- 

 toothed, and voracious, capable of devouring a case-full 

 of birds in a marvellously short time, and leaving no 

 relics of the once beautiful inmates except some wires 

 and a little tow clinging to them. Put the chest aside 

 for twenty years, and when the accumulated dust has 

 been brushed off, the bird will be found bright and un- 

 injured as when it was first placed in the box. 



In fact, the apparently frail and perishable skin has 

 been rendered so impregnable to all ordinary foes that 

 it can only be injured by main force, fire, or water, and 

 even in the latter case could be soon re-modelled into 

 its former shape. To all appearance, indeed, the light 

 and delicate fur and down are likely to outlast the 

 edifice of stone and iron in which they are sheltered, 

 and to be a more enduring memorial of their preserver 

 than monuments of brass or cenotaphs of marble. It 

 will be seen, too, that by the plan of employing the 

 mere skin the whole of the body is set free for the 

 purposes of the anatomist : no slight advantage in the 

 case of a rare or choice specimen. 



Such are the results, but what of the means? 



