“PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 493 
emplified by Mr. Roosevelt’s ‘safari’ in Hast Africa at the present time. 
We may hope that we may never again see an expedition without a single 
trained naturalist on its staff, such as the last Stanley led across Africa. 
A still better plan is to send out expeditions of trained naturalists to do 
definite pieces of work. Such expeditions as Andrews and Foster Cooper 
and Osborn to the Fayum for fossils, of Cunnington and Boulenger to the 
same region to investigate the fauna wt the lake, or Wollaston and his 
companions to the Ruwenzori district, yield a harvest one hundred times 
more abundant than the best of other schemes. 
Yet even here I would plead for a little more organisation. One must 
not suggest too rigid a scheme, and it is to be hoped that in the future, as 
in the past, there will always be found wealthy men willing to devote their 
energies to the advancement of zoology. Such work as has been done by 
Mr. Godman on the fauna of Central America, one of the richest regions 
in the world, and now, owing to his munificence, one of the best known. 
The stately array of volumes embodying these results is paralleled by the 
magnificent monographs in which the results of the Prince of Monaco’s 
marine researches are recorded, and by the monographs of the Princeton 
Expedition to the Argentine, financed by one of the richest of the mil- 
lionaires of the United States. We trust that such enterprises will always 
continue. 
With regard, however, to expeditions financed from public funds which 
are sent out officially, it might be possible to have more international co- 
operation. Just as the members of the Geodetic Survey meet from time to 
time and determine the next step to be taken in the triangulation of the 
world, so it seems to me might the members of the chief museums of the 
world meet, say, triennially, and draw up certain thought-out plans for 
the exploration of the zoological world. 
With regard to working out the material when collected, the existing 
museums of the world are too few, and their staffs are too small to deal 
not only with the huge collections which are constantly pouring into their 
buildings, but even with the accumulated stores already housed there. 
In our smaller state museums it is not uncommon to find men who are 
responsible for the whole of the Arthropoda. Only within the last few 
months I have had to try and find a curator for a Metropolitan museum 
who was expected to be a specialist in fishes, molluscs, and arachnids. 
Now is it possible to expect such men, able and zealous as they are, 
to accurately determine species in these vast and complex groups? 
My own feeling is—but I fear I shall carry no one with me— 
that we must specialise ‘still further. I should like to see each of 
the great classes of the animal kingdom assigned to one of the great 
museums of the world. Just as an example—which is only an example, 
possibly a bad one—I suggest that all the type specimens of Amphibia be 
sent to one museum, say, if you like, that of Berlin or St. Petersburg ; in 
return for this that museum should distribute to others its types of fish, 
birds, &c. Then, at this museum there would arise a series of specialists 
capable of deciding swiftly and accurately on the validity of the claims of 
any new species of amphibian that may be advanced. Again, a student of 
Amphibia, -instead of wandering round the museums of the world if he 
wishes to study species, would find all he wants within the four walls of 
one building. When once the type is described and deposited, it would 
be the duty of the museum to distribute co-types and accurately named 
specimens of the same species to other museums in some recognised order. 
Smaller groups might be allocated to smaller museums, e.g., the fleas to 
Tring and the ticks to Cambridge—at both of these places there are now 
specialists working out world collections of these pests. What I want is 
a world’s Clearing House for animals. J know I shall be told that my 
suggestions can never be realised, that international jealousies would 
