402 REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK. 



of the pieces of work that are waiting to be taken in hand. 

 In the fossil room almost every specimen requires remounting 

 or re-labelling or both. We have done this for most of one 

 side of the ground floor, but to get any further will require so 

 much time to be spent in the work of identification that for 

 the present it is not to be thought of. There is enough work 

 waiting in the fossil room alone to keep one well qualified 

 man busy for several years. The rock collection needs a 

 thorough re-arrangement on the lines begun by Mr. Oppe. 

 The fine Tankerville collection of corals has long needed 

 cleaning, mounting, and arranging. Some day there is to be 

 on the gallery of the bird room a representative selection of 

 the birds of the world, and there are skins in the museum 

 which would furnish nearly all the specimens needed, if we 

 could once get them mounted. Something should be done at 

 once to make the fishes — now perhaps the poorest section of 

 the whole museum — rather more presentable and useful ; and 

 in the same room all the invertebrates, with the exception of 

 the mollusca, are urgently in need of fresh fitting up, and in 

 many cases of complete replacement. Then again several of 

 the reference collections, especially Alder's shells and some of 

 the sets of insects, require much attention and labour before 

 they can be regarded as in satisfactory order. It should be 

 remembered, too, that all the pieces of work above mentioned 

 are of a very detailed nature. The proper fitting up of the 

 two rows of cases representing the invertebrates will take more 

 time than would the overhauling of the entire museum if it 

 contained only such objects as those in the ethnology corridor. 

 And there is further a completely new section of the museum, 

 a section for botany, to be established as soon as possible. 



It is plain that this programme — which comprises only the 

 work that any curator would at once see to be urgent, without 

 reference to any modern educational developments — is one 

 which we could not expect to carry out in a year or two. 

 There would be little to complain of if we were only making- 

 reasonable progress in it each year. This, however, we are 

 by no means able to do under present conditions ; and the 



