ADDRESS. 1 7 



of life, all require much room for their display. This method of exhibition, 

 •wherever faithfully carried out, is, however, proving both instructive and 

 attractive, and will doubtless be greatly extended. 



Guide-books and catalogues are useful adjuncts, as being adapted to 

 convey fuller information than labels, and as they can be taken away for 

 study during the intervals of visits to the museum, but they can never 

 supersede the use of labels. Anyone who is in the habit of visiting 

 picture-galleries where the names of the artists and the subject are 

 affixed to the frame, and others in which the information has in each 

 case to be sought by reference to a catalogue, must appreciate the vast 

 snpeiiority in comfort and time-saving of the former plan. 



Acting upon such principles as these, every public gallery of a 

 museum, whether the splendid saloon of a national institution or the 

 humble room containing the local collection of a village club, can be 

 made a centre of instruction, and will offer interests and attractions 

 which will be looked for in vain in the majority of such institutions 

 at the present time. 



One of the best illustrations of the different treatment of collections 

 intended for research or advancement of knowledge, and for popular 

 instruction or diffusion of knowledge, is now to be seen in Kew Gardens, 

 where the admirably constructed and arranged herbarium answers the 

 first purpose, and the public museums of economic botany the second. 

 A similar distinction is carried out in the collections of systematic botany 

 in the natural history branch of the British Museum, with the additional 

 advantage of close contiguity ; indeed, as an example of a scheme of good 

 museum arrangement (although not perfect yet in details) I cannot 

 do better than refer to the upper story of the east wing of that institu- 

 tion. Tbe same principles, little regarded in former times in this coun- 

 try, and still unknown in some of the largest Continental museums, are 

 gradually pervading every department of the institution, which, from its 

 national character, its metropolitan position, and exceptional resources, 

 ought to illustrate in perfection the ideal of a natural history museum. 

 In fact, it is only in a national institntion that an exhaustive research 

 collection in all branches of natural history, in which the specialist 

 of every group can find his own subject fully illustrated, can or ought to 

 be attempted. 



As the actual comparison of specimen with specimen is the basis of 

 zoological and botanical research, and as work done with imperfect 

 materials is necessarily imperfect in itself, it is far the wisest policy to 

 concentrate in a few great central institutions, the number and situation 

 of which must be determined by the population and the resources of the 

 country, all the collections, especially those containing specimens already 

 alluded to as so dear to the systematic naturalist, known as author's 

 ' *'ypcS)' required for original investigations. It is far more advantageous 

 to the investigator to go to such a collection and take up his temporary 

 1889. 



