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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 593 



is to admit into his collection no specimen, unless it be well mounted, and a fair 

 representative of its species. He has not the excuse of his colleague in charge of a 

 large museum, who has to retain those monsters which are literally his betes-noires, 

 viz., specimens to which a history is attached, iind the removal of which would 

 sooner or later be resented by some of his fellow- labourers. The only too frequent 

 presence of such badly mounted specimens in Provincial Museums is not always 

 the fault of the curator. The slender means with which he is provided are generally 

 insufficient to encourage taxidermists to bestow the necessary amount of skill and 

 time on their work. Besides, taxidermy is an art which depends as much on 

 natural gift as drawing or modelling ; and as long as we are obliged to be satisfied 

 with receiving into our collections mediocre specimens, mediocre staffers wiU take 

 up taxidermy as a trade without there being one among them who is naturally 

 qualified for it. 



The direct benefit of a complete collection of the flora and fauna of the district 

 in which the Provincial Museum is situated, is obvious, and cannot be exaggerated. 

 The pui'suit of collecting and studying natural history objects gives to the persons 

 who are inclined to devote their leisure hours to it a beneficial training for whatever 

 their real calling in life may be : they acquire a sense of order and method ; they 

 develop their gift of observation ; they are stimulated to healthy exercise. Nothing 

 encourages them in this pursuit more than a well-named and easily accessible collec- 

 tion in their own native town, upon which they can fall back as a pattern and an 

 aid for theii' own. This local collection ought to be always arranged and named 

 according to the plan and nomenclature adopted in one of those numerous mono- 

 graphs of the British Fauna and Flora in which this country excels ; and I consider 

 its formation in every Provincial Museum to be of higher importance than a collec- 

 tion of foreign objects. 



The majority of Provincial Museums contain not only biological collections, but 

 very properly, also, collections of art and literature. It is no part of my task to 

 speak of the latter ; but before I proceed to the next part of my address, I must 

 say that nothing could more strikingly prove the growing desire of the people for 

 instruction than the erection of the numerous Free Libraries and Museums now 

 spread over the country. The more, the healthier their rivahy, the safer their 

 growth will be, especially if they avoid depending on aid from the State, or placing 

 themselves in the hands of a responsible minister ; if they remain what they are — 

 municipal institutions, the children and pride of their own province. 



However great, however large a coiintry or a nation may be, it can have, in 

 reality, only one National Museum truly de3er\'ing of the name. Yours is the 

 British Museum ; those of Scotland and Ireland can never reach the same degree of 

 completeness, though there is no one who wishes more heartily than I do that they 

 mav' approach it as closely as conditions permit. The most prominent events in the 

 recent history of the British Museum (to which I must confine the remainder of my 

 remarks) are well known to the majority of those present : — that the question either 

 of enlarging the present building at Bloomsbury, or of erecting another at South 

 Kensington for the collections of Natural History, was fully discussed for years in 

 its various aspects; that, finally a Select Committee of the House of Commons 

 reported in favour of the expediency of the former plan ; that the Standing Com- 

 mittee of the Trustees, than whom there is no one better qualified to give an opinion, 

 took the same view; and that, nevertheless, the Government of the time decided 

 upon severing the collections, and locating the Natural History in a separate build- 

 ing, as the more economical plan. 



The building was finished this year at a cost of 400,000/. exclusive of the 

 amount paid for the ground on which it is erected. It is built in the Romanesque 

 or round-arched gothic style, terra-cotta being almost exclusively employed in its 

 construction. It consists of a basement, ground floor, and two storeys, and is 

 divided into a central portion, and a right and left wing. Its principal (southern) 

 facade is G75 feet long. As you enter the portal you come into a cathedral-like 

 hall, called the 'Index Museum,' 120 feet long, 97 feet wide, and 68 feet high; 

 behind this there is a large side-lighted room for the British Fauna. On each side 

 of the hall there is a side-lighted gallery, each 278 feet long, by 50 feet in width ; 



1880. Q Q 



