22 The Improvements effected in Modern Museums. 



state this cannot be often done without injury; and an artist 

 always requires theni to be taken out of the case for his purpose. 



" In the futile attempt to combine these two purposes in one 

 consecutive arrangement, the modern museum entirely fails in 

 both particulars. It is only to be compared to a large store or 

 a city warehouse, in which every specimen that can be collected 

 is arranged in its proper case and on its proper shelf, so that it 

 may be found when wanted ; but the uninformed mind derives 

 little instruction from the contemplation of its stores, while the 

 student of nature requires a far more careful examination of them 

 than is possible under such a system of arrangement, to derive 

 any advantage ; the visitor needs to be as well informed with re- 

 lation to the system on which it is based as the curator himself; 

 and consequently the general visitor perceives little else than a 

 chaos of specimens, of which the bulk of those placed in close 

 proximity are so nearly alike that he can scarcely perceive any 

 difference between them, even supposing them to be placed on a 

 level with the eye, while the greater number of those which are 

 above or below this level are utterly unintelligible. 



" To such a visitor, the numerous species of rats, or squirrels, or 

 sparrows, or larks that crowd the shelves, from all parts of the 

 world, are but a rat, a squirrel, a sparrow, or a lark ; and this is 

 still more especially the case with animals of a less marked and 

 less known type of character. Experience has long since con- 

 vinced me that such a collection so arranged is a great mistake ; 

 the eye, both of the general visitor and the student, becomes con- 

 fused by the number of the specimens, however systematically 

 they may be brought together. 



" The very extent of the collection renders it difficult even for 

 the student, and much more so for the less scientific visitor, to 

 discover any particular specimen of which he is in quest ; and the 

 larger the collection, the greater this difficulty becomes. Add 

 to this the fact that all specimens, but more especially the more 

 beautiful and the more delicate, are speedily deteriorated, and in 

 some cases destroyed for all useful purposes, by exposure to light, 

 and that both the bones and skins of animals are found to be much 

 more susceptible of measurement and comparison in an unstuffed 

 or unmounted state, and it will be at once apparent why almost 

 all scientific Zoologists have adopted for their own collections the 

 simpler and more advantageous plan of keeping their specimens 

 in boxes or drawers, devoted each to a family, a genus, or a sec- 

 tion of a genus, as each individual case may require. 



" Thus preserved and thus arranged, the most perfect and the 

 most useful collection that the student could desire would occupy 

 comparatively a small space, and by no means require large and 

 lofty halls for its reception." 



The British Museum plan of exhibiting stuffed fishes and rep- 



