180 Notes and Comments. 
shared by many of Mr. Butterfield’s museum colleagues. We 
had thought that the remarks made in The Museums Journal 
were perhaps by one of Mr. Butterfield’s colleagues. Appar- 
ently we were wrong, and we are therefore on firmer ground. 
But the matter might never have been referred to in The 
Naturalist at all if ‘The Provincial Curator’ had received 
the fair treatment which he felt he ought to have had in the 
Museums’ Associations’ official organ; though the safety of 
Museums concerns naturalists as much as Museum officials. 
Mr. Butterfield knew the Provincial Curator was dissatisfied, 
as a letter to that effect was sent to him by his colleague long 
ago. That was also ignored. And now he says our remarks 
are ‘misleading or wholly unjustifiable.” That is a definite 
charge, and we challenge it. We leave it with Mr. Butterfield to 
prove his statement. 
PROTECTIVE COLOURATION. 
Museum Curators were first told to decorate the tops of their 
museums for protective purposes. When it was suggested 
that this might not be wise, it was insinuated that the cura- 
tors might get into trouble with their Committees for neglect 
of duty. This was shown to be an improper insinuation, and 
the editor was asked, as a guide to less important museums, 
what had been done at his institution at Hastings, and what, 
if anything, had been done at the national museums. We 
had good reasons for thinking that no decorations had been 
made anywhere. To this no reply was forthcoming, nor were 
we treated to the old gag that it would not be wise to say what 
had been done. In each case, the Provincial Curator’s letters 
were apparently purposely delayed in appearing; it was 
certainly not due to considerations of space, nor on account 
of the latenesss of the date at which they were received. 
A REPLY WANTED. 
However, as we have been told that our remarks in The 
Naturalist were ‘ misleading’ or “‘ wholly unjustifiable,’ we 
shall be glad to know in what way this was so. Mr. Butterfield 
says he can give a‘ serious and effective reply,’ and that such 
would be ‘ an easy task, if an uncongenial one.’ We hope and 
trust he will do so, seeing that it will not cause him any 
trouble. As to the task being uncongenial, that need not 
worry him at all; it certainly won’t worry us. Of course, if 
he wishes to ‘ amuse’ our readers, all well and good, but we 
certainly hope there will be more in his uncongenial task than 
the statement that he knows our insect haunting woods, our 
purple moors, and the ferny Upper Wharfe, and that he once 
read The Naturalist. 

Naturalist,. 
