Pollard: The Modern Museum 93 



ranged systematically, as closely together as they could be placed, 

 and without much regard to geographical distribution. Each 

 specimen was perched comfortably on a nicely polished artificial 

 pedestal. The label bore the scientific name, the locality, and 

 the collector. That was all. Is it any wonder that- most visitors, 

 after running the eye over a case or two containing perhaps five 

 hundred birds, passed wearily on to another hall ? 



Visit the same museum today, and enter the same department. 

 The systematic collection is still there, it is true, for the benefit 

 of students ; but it contains only sufficient specimens to illustrate 

 properly the various natural groups, and the lay visitor need not 

 linger, for there are many more interesting features. In a num- 

 ber of box cases are shown the complete life histories of most 

 of our eastern birds ; the nest and the adults, and eggs, in their 

 characteristic setting, with carefully modeled accessories; in a 

 gallery above, even these groups are surpassed by the splendid 

 examples installed during the past two years, contained in cases 

 sufficiently large to include whole shrubs, trees, portions of a 

 swamp, etc., the semicircular backgrounds being cleverly painted 

 to give the impression of a wide panoramic view. Many rare and 

 little known birds are shown ; and the labels bear not merely the 

 names, but contain a mass of interesting information about the 

 bird. In yet another part of the hall is a series of cases showing 

 the birds found around New York; these specimens are changed 

 from time to time to correspond with the season. There are 

 numerous other features of the exhibits which I cannot now take 

 time to enumerate. 



The policy of the modern museum is, therefore, to utilize the 

 material at hand so that it may tell its own story and provide the 

 proper seasoning of instruction to preserve the appetite of in- 

 terest. Let me say here that the attitude of derision and some- 

 times of pitying contempt which is displayed by a portion of the 

 public toward the museum curator as a man of science is dis- 

 tinctly unjust. He is often credited with a desire to emphasize 

 technical matters, and is accused of ignorance as to the real needs 



