148 THe Otrawa NATURALIST. - [November 
founded in several of the larger American cities and in some of 
the smaller ones and in many towns local historical societies 
have begun museums. Libraries, however, have increased more 
rapidly than ever before, until it is our boast, here in Massachu- 
setts, that there is not a single inhabitant who has not free access 
to a public library. It is very desirable, therefore, that attention 
should be called to the formation of museums. 
As art museums and certain specialized museums are usually 
established by endowment and are placed in the hands of boards 
of trustees, the museums most likely to be formed or which re- 
quire consideration at this time are the educational museum of 
natural history (taken in its widest sense to include mineralogy, 
geology, archeology and ethnology, as well as the usual branches 
of zoology and botany), which is generally connected with some 
school or college, and the local museum illustrating the fauna, 
flora, etc., of some definite area, usually with political rather 
than natural boundaries, and nearly always the offspring of a 
local society or club. 
It is hardly necessary here to suggest that the educational 
museum should contain well balanced collections, covering all of 
the departments of science within its scope in due proportions, 
that it should practically be a condensed encyclopedia illustrated 
by type specimens. Such a collection should be attractively ar- 
ranged and well labelled, with copious references to books and 
papers treating of the specimens it contains on the groups to 
which they belong. Large special collections should not be 
merged in a museum of this sort, they should be kept in separate 
rooms or, better still, in separate buildings. The educational 
museum may be made equally perfect in its way whether it fills 
a single small room or occupies a series of large halls, so long 
as the relative proportions of its. departments are rigidly adhered 
FO). 
But the museum most likely to be established at the present 
time is the local museum. The formation of the many local his- 
torical societies, taken in connection with the increasing interest 
in the study of plants and birds, and the great demand and con- 
sequently the great supply of the so called ‘‘nature books,’’ in- 
