574 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 68. 



"While the complete divorce of recent and 

 extinct animals is unfoi'tuuate, Prof. Flow- 

 er's plan, on the other hand, goes to the 

 opposite exti'eme, and while it may be ap- 

 plicable to such a collection as that of the 

 Eoyal College of Surgeons, it does not seem 

 applicable to the exhibition series of a large 

 museum. 



The question really at stake is, shall ex- 

 tinct animals be treated from a zoological 

 or a geological standpoint ; is it more impor- 

 tant to exhibit the relationship of animals 

 to one another as if they lived at the same 

 time, or to show the forms of life which ex- 

 isted at a given geological epoch, and the 

 various steps by which the existing order 

 of things has been reached. No museum 

 is large enough and rich enough to do both 

 these things on an extensive scale, and the 

 decision is practically unanimous that it is 

 the province of paleontology to show the 

 faunas of the past as it is that of zodlogy to 

 s'how the fauna of the present. A purely 

 zoological arrangement of all animals in a 

 museum, recent and extinct, would proba- 

 bly fail of its own weight and extent. Prof. 

 Flower himself recognizes the fact that 

 there are difiBculties in the way of a strictly 

 zoological arrangement, for in the ' Guide 

 to the British Museum of N'atural History ' 

 he says : " Notwithstanding the objections 

 which may be urged against this primary 

 division of living things, it is one which 

 prevails largely in museums, and which, 

 owing to certain conveniences, as well as to 

 the difficulty and expense of rearranging 

 extensive collections and reorganizing the 

 staff in charge of them, will probably be re- 

 tained for some time to come." 



Arranged geologically fossils tell the con- 

 dition of life at any given stage, and show 

 how fauna after fauna has arisen and passed 

 away before that of the present was reached. 



It might be thought that a collection could 

 be arranged phylogenetically, but this is a 

 physical impossibilitj', for, even were space 



available, specimens could not be so ar- 

 x'annged as to act as a genealogical tree and 

 show at once their common ancestry, lines 

 of descent and relations to one another. To 

 do this is the province of a diagram or dia- 

 grams, and there is usually some wall space 

 well fitted for this very purpose that is 

 otherwise unavailable or could not be used 

 to better advantage. Morever, the lines of 

 descent of the majority of vertebrates are 

 wholly or partly hypothetical, and this is a 

 serious drawback to arranging a museum 

 on a phylogenetic plan. Series to illustrate 

 the line of descent of a group or species 

 whose phylogeny is known are, however, 

 invaluable and most instructive, and the 

 museum which is fortunate enough to pos- 

 sess the necessary material cannot do bet- 

 tet than to provide them. Just such a series 

 is that illustrating the phylogeny of the 

 horse, on exhibition at the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, in New York 

 city. 



The relations of extinct to existing ani- 

 mals are to be shown in two ways, or in two 

 departments of a museum : firstly, in a syn- 

 optic, or index series ; and secondly, in a 

 general sj'stematic system of skeletons. The 

 synoptic series may be compared to a gen- 

 eral introductory work on zoology, prepared 

 with special reference to the needs of the 

 public and those commencing the study of 

 zoology. A systematic series is a detailed, 

 descriptive catalogue, whose object is to 

 furnish information for the advanced stu- 

 dent. The idea of the synoptic series is yet 

 in the earlier stages of development, and it 

 seems not improbable that this will eventu- 

 ally come to occupy a large space in a bio- 

 logical museum. In the systematic osteo- 

 logical series the province of fossils is to 

 round out the collection, to bridge over gaps 

 between apparently unrelated forms and 

 supply the missing steps which time has re- 

 moved from the phylogenetic stairway. A 

 most striking example of the need of intro- 



