l86 CASTOROLOGIA. 



sculptor, to pose the figure and give expression ; lie must, in fact, 

 be chemist, anatomist, naturalist and artist in one. 



A Natural History Museum should never be considered as merely 

 a public resort for pleasure ; it has no affinity to the " dime museum" 

 with its monstrosities, and ' ' chamber of horrors ' ' for popular diver- 

 sion, but should aspire to the level and assume the offices of the art 

 gallery and the public library ; in a word, it should take the foremost 

 place among popular educational institutions. It is a manifest mis- 

 apprehension on the part of the officers of a museum to reject with 

 indifference a common local specimen, in order to display a parcel of 

 trash from a foreign country, which, without history or value, has 

 as its only merit that it has been carried a long way. No stronger 

 proof of this tendency need be given than the fact that the Museum 

 of the Natural History and Geological Survey Department of Can- 

 ada has just secured, as a priceless acquisition, a specimen of the re- 

 cently exterminated American buffalo {Bison Americayms), which, 

 we believe, will constitute the only perfect example in all British 

 North America ; while fifteen years ago, specimens would not have 

 been thought worth the cost of transport. Though it may become 

 the dignit}^ of a government to enrich the national museum with ex- 

 changes from foreign countries ; or in the case of university collec- 

 tions, it may be necessary to obtain comparative types from abroad ; 

 yet, for local societies to attempt more than the careful collection 

 and preservation of local specimens, implies losing the substance by 

 grasping for the shadow ; and though a national museum may 

 achieve results beyond the aspirations of a local society, the latter, 

 as a specialist, working the details of a section, would become of in- 

 dispensable value. The Grosvenor Museum, Chester, under the cura- 

 torship of Mr. R. Newstead, F. E. S., furnishes a type of all that a 

 local museum might and should be. 



Museums are divided, by Professor Flower, into those intended 

 for the instruction and the enlightened amusement of the people, 

 and those intended for advanced students ; and he then defines 

 a well arranged educational museum as "a collection of instruc- 

 tive labels illustrated by well selected specimens. " Simple as this 



