100 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



The number of visits paid to the Library during the year 

 by Students and others (irrespective of the staff and persons 

 to whom the use of a key is granted) was 791. 



Index Museum and Morphological Preparations. 



Of the additions made during the past year to the exhibits 

 in the Entrance Hall, collectively known as the Index 

 Museum, the most noteworthy are a collection of Peas and 

 Pods grown by Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., for the purpose of 

 verifying Mendel's Theory of Heredity, and presented by 

 him to the Museum ; a large series of Eggs of the Common 

 Guillemot, selected to show the great variation in shape, 

 ground-colour, and markings that may occur within the 

 limits of a single species of Bird ; and an exhibit of 

 specimens of the Lancelet, with enlarged drawings of the 

 various species, and enlarged wax-models of the adult and 

 larvae of the common species. 



An extensive series of coloured models of Deep-Sea 

 Fishes, stuffed specimens of British Freshwater Fishes, and 

 coloured specimens of Fishes mounted in alchohol have 

 been prepared and placed on exhibition in the Hall pending 

 their transfer to the Fish Gallery, while in the Fish Gallery 

 a plaster cast of the skeleton of the Basking Shark (Selache), 

 purchased in the rough state from the Bergen Museum, has 

 been set up and coloured in such a manner as to differentiate 

 the calcified from the cartilaginous parts. 



A collection of Burrowing Animals selected from the 

 various Classes of the Animal Kingdom has been prepared for 

 the purpose of showing how the fossorial habit has been 

 acquired independently in the different groups, but yet in some 

 cases, for example, in the different Orders of Mammals, has 

 resulted in a general similarity in the shape of the body, the 

 form of the skull and limb-skeleton, the characters of the 

 fur, and other evidences of Convergence. 



Morphological investigations have been undertaken to dis- 

 criminate, by their relative solubilities in potassic hydrate 

 solution, the various kinds of invertebrate skeletal matter 

 included under the name " Cliitin, " and to trace out the 

 life history of the unicellular parasite that occurs in the 

 intestine of the Sea-mouse (Aphrodite). 



Further additions have been made to the Mimicry Series 

 and the Embryological Series mentioned in the last report, 

 and much work has been done in re-spiriting and re-mount- 

 ing such of the anatomical preparations as were in need of 

 attention. 



