80 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



its being housed at the Public Library, but Prof. M'Coy wanted 

 it transferred to the University. The matter aroused some 

 public feeling, and a meeting was called to support the Philo- 

 sophical Society, but before it could be held the Professor had 

 the specimens quietly transferred to the University, and having 

 once got possession of them, there they remained for some forty 

 years, notwithstanding the protests of the members of the society 

 and their friends. That the incident aroused some feeling in 

 those early days is indicated by a poem in Melbourne Punch of 

 7th August, 1856, accusing the other professors of aiding Prof. 

 M'Coy in his raid, and points out that 



" prison 



Is the regular goal 



Of each larcenous soul 

 Who prigs {as the adage runs) what isn't his'n." 



In Punch of the following week is a cartoon entitled " The 

 Successful Foray; or. The Professor's Return," in which the 

 Professor is depicted, with a portfolio marked " Herbarium " 

 under his arm, directing the removal of a trolly-load of beasts, 

 birds, and fishes to the University, which appears in the back- 

 ground. An accompanying poem, *' The Raid of the Museum," 

 commences 



" There was a little man, 

 And he had a little plan 

 The public of their specimens to rob, rob, rob, 

 So he got a horse and dray. 

 And he carted them away, 

 And chuckled with enjoyment of the job, job, job," 



Though years afterwards brought by Act of Parliament, as 

 Director of the Museum, under the control of the Trustees of 

 the Public Library, he always proved a difficult man to deal with, 

 and to the last remained master of the situation. However, as 

 Mr. Armstrong acknowledges, he succeeded, in face of great 

 difficulties, in making the Museum a credit to the colony and a 

 fine memorial of its first Director ; and, greatly as it has been 

 improved since his death, the credit of collecting, determining, 

 and describing a large portion of the contents will always belong 

 to its first Director, whose knowledge of natural history was 

 exceptionally wide, besides which he was the possessor of an 

 extraordinarily keen memory. The Weekly Times (Melbourne) 

 of 26th May last contains some excellent illustrations of the 

 leading features of the Museum (miscalled " Technological " in 

 the paper) in its new building, which will help distant readers 

 to a better understanding of the description of the Museum given 

 in the May Naturalist (vol. xxiii., p. 24), and the page is all 

 the more interesting because it includes a study of the Director, 

 Prof Baldwin Spencer, C.M.G., and the Curator of Zoology, Mr. 

 J. A. Kershaw, F.E.S. 



