Vlll REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK 



Much-needed but not taken up in recent years : 



Bird-room gallery — large numbers of bird skins to be mounted. 

 Insects — exhibition sets of orders of insects other than butterflies 



and beetles. 

 Reptile collection — general overhauling. 



Fossils — enormous quantity to be identified, labelled and arranged. 

 Rock collection — overhauling and bringing into useful order. 

 Geological sections — large-scale coloured sections for geological 



room. 

 Store-specimens and duplicates — much overhauling required. 



The work shown here as " actually in hand " was none of it 

 in hand at the beginning of the year under review. Then and 

 for some time afterwards we were chiefly occupied with (a) 

 the casts of fishes, (b) the beetles, and (cj to some extent with 

 the whale's skeleton. Later, with the prospect of having Dr. 

 Eltringham's butterflies to deal with, we had to leave the fishes 

 in order to get the exhibition series of beetles finished. For 

 the same reason we had to postpone putting together the 

 whale's skeleton, especially as we had to take in hand (d) a 

 fresh skeleton, that of a lion. For the last four months of the 

 year we were engaged for the most part upon (e) Dr. 

 Eltringham's butterflies. Work in one other department, (/) 

 that of the minerals, has been pursued with continued vigour 

 by Mr. P. Walther. Notes on these various lines of work 

 follow. 



(a) Casts of fishes. Among the more striking casts made 

 and painted were those of a large angler, a cod, a dogfish and 

 a large ballan wrasse. One of the most annoying instances 

 of work having to be temporarily shelved is this of the fish 

 collection. We cannot fix the casts in the cases until all, or 

 nearly all of them are finished, and consequently we are 

 having to leave the show cases of the fish collection in a very 

 unfinished condition. 



(b) Beetles. The general series from all parts of the world 

 has been finished and put on view. With the British reference 

 collection good progress was made in the earlier half of the 

 year ; a large part of the work was done for us by Mr. Geo. B. 



