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CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



ascent from a stock common to their class and with that of rep- 

 tiles. Here, too, a system of explanatory labels should be freely 

 employed in connection with the specimens, as well as designs 

 upon the walls giving the most recent conceptions of the avian 

 genealogical tree. Exhibited next in sequence should be natur- 

 ally mounted examples of the lowest forms of existing birds, with 

 preparations of their skeletons, and other essential systems of 

 their anatomy. The linkage of these forms with those now ex- 

 tinct should be clearly indicated, as, for example, in the case of 

 the ostriches and the nioas, the modern eagles with Harpagor- 

 nis, the Loons with Hesperornis, and so on, down the entire line, 

 for every natural group of the Class. These latter should follow 

 next, the most lowly organized groups coming first, and all ar- 

 ranged upon a plan, whereby the bird itself was shown (male, 

 female, and young), its seasonal changes, its structure, geo- 

 graphical distribution (by labels and maps), and, if any, its eco- 

 nomical importance to man. The matter of affinity of the various 

 natural groups can be largely shown by their juxtaposition in the 

 exhibition rooms, and by explanatory labels. Too much import- 

 ance cannot be attached to the free use of printed labels — clear 

 concise, and instructive. Now this is an ideal outline for a typi- 

 cal museum, designed to illustrate one class of animals in zool- 

 ogy; it also represents the highest purposes and aims a museum 

 can have — that is, the permanent preservation of material, ar- 

 ranged upon a plan capable of receiving additions and altera- 

 tions, and the whole subservient to the ends of education of the 

 people, letting aside all other kinds of museums as not prop- 

 erly falling within the scope of the present work, it may be said 

 that the same ideal plan should be applied to every other depart- 

 ment of biology, and to geology. Taken as a whole, neither the 

 people nor the government of the United States appreciate the 

 necessity of creating and sustaining such educational institutions 

 as these, but the time will come when they will. We have our 

 museums, to be sure, but in these days they are more designed 

 to serve as storehouses for material, rather than to meet the 

 demands of education. The time is now ripe for the latter class; 

 science is strong enough to throw off the yoke of myth and super- 

 stition, exemplified in a heterogeneous collection of mounted 

 animals of any kind in her museums, arrayed upon a Noahchian 

 basis, and to place in their stead scientific serial exhibits, that 

 will present to the minds of the people the true manner in which 



