21 6 REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK 



CURATOR'S REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK. 

 1910-1911. 



The three most important pieces of museum work I have to 

 report upon this year are those on the fishes, on the large 

 beetle collection, and on a transitory but desirable object, an 

 exhibit of living wild flowers. 



Apart from a certain amount of labelling, the work on the 

 fishes has consisted chiefly in the preparation of casts. We 

 have succeeded, after a good deal of experiment, in making 

 a considerable advance on the ordinary methods of taking 

 plaster casts of fishes, and though it is too soon to boast, I 

 hope we shall be able before long to put up a series of casts 

 which will carry still further the already great improvement in 

 the fish collection, and make it more nearly what such a 

 collection ought to be in a museum so close to a great fishing 

 centre. I may mention here also that the cast of a white- 

 beaked dolphin, referred to in the last report, has been finished 

 and placed in position. The colouring of it was extremely 

 well done by Mr. Fletcher. 



The large beetle collection spoken of above is the one we 

 are forming by a combination of the three fine collections 

 made respectively by the late T. J. Bold, Mr. John Gardner, 

 of Hartlepool, and Mr. Bagnall. Its installation demands an 

 immense amount of minute work. So far we have been 

 carrying it on under Mr. BagnalPs supervision at his house at 

 Penshaw, where Mr. Fletcher and I have as far as possible 

 been spending one evening a week upon it. The completed 

 collection promises to be remarkably full — certainly one of 

 the most valuable reference collections of Coleoptera in the 

 country. 



An exhibit of fresh wild flowers, such as many museums 

 maintain in the summer, is a thing we have long had in mind. 

 This year we have found it possible to make a beginning with 

 it, and during the greater part of the summer we have had a 



