U THE HANCOCK MUSEUM AND ITS HISTORY 



several respects a rather special one. There are few kindred 

 bodies, for example, which make themselves responsible for so 

 large a district. Again, very few have such great traditions 

 to live up to as those which its past history holds before this 

 Society, and of which the succeeding articles will give some 

 idea. But above everything else, it is the museum that most 

 strongly affects the Society's position. The museum is one of 

 its chief sources of strength, and at the same time the cause 

 of most of its difficulties. Without the museum, the member- 

 ship, small though it actually is, would probably be still 

 smaller; for the museum forms a kind of centre for the 

 Society's existence, and many members look upon their 

 annual guinea as practically a subscription towards museum 

 maintenance. And on the other hand it is the attempt to 

 maintain a museum — a function now generally discharged by 

 the municipal authorities — that puts so severe a strain upon 

 the resources of the Society, and makes so difficult the full 

 carrying out of its aims. The museum is a magnificent 

 possession, but a possession that brings with it a very large 

 responsibility. Many unique collections, brought together by 

 great local naturalists, have been placed there to be preserved 

 for the use of later generations (and it should be understood 

 that their preservation is by no means a passive duty : it 

 involves a large amount of work each year); the building and 

 the grounds have to be maintained ; and above all, if so large 

 a museum is to justify its existence at all, it must place before 

 the public in its show cases a systematic series of natural 

 objects, so selected and arranged as to arouse in the casual 

 visitor an interest in nature, and provide an objective text- 

 book, so to speak, for those who come for help and guidance 

 in more serious study. 



As for the responsibility involved in the upkeep of this 

 particular museum, it will be sufficiently appreciated by those 

 who are alive to the unique interest and value of such 

 collections as John Hancock's birds, Thomas Bold's Northum- 

 brian insects, Col. C. H. E. Adamson's Burmese butterflies, 

 the beautiful collections of birds' eggs and lepidoptera given 



