CONCLUSION. 299 



taken place in some of our great museums de- 

 voted to natural history — such as that of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, London — during the 

 last generation, will have noticed that a number 

 of specimens which used to be in the foreground 

 are now either discarded as mere lumber or are 

 given much less prominent positions. Our fore- 

 fathers seem to have had pretty much the same 

 idea in o-ettino- tog-ether scientific collections as 

 has the enterprising showman who caters for that 

 section of the public which revels in "rarities" 

 and "freaks." Even the records of that most 

 solemn and weighty body, the Royal Society, show 

 that the learned Fellows were at one time almost 

 as fond of what is called in Western Eng-land a 

 "gape show" as are the modern patrons of a 

 "dime museum." Interspersed with accounts of 

 the researches of Leeuwenhoek and of Isaac 

 Newton are papers relating some wondrous tale 

 — often upon the most shadowy authority — which 

 nowadays would hardly find a place in an odd 

 corner of a newspaper. Thus in the year 1 700 a 

 learned Fellow read an account of various giants 

 which he had "heard of," some of which were 

 II or 12 feet high ; and about the same time a 

 specimen was shown of a "monstrous animal" 



