Oct. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



AND ACCLIMATISATION. 109 



also the additional advantage that whenever, in the progress of discovery, 

 it becomes desirable that the facts for the illustration of which the case 

 was prepared, should be exhibited in a different manner, this can easily 

 be done by re-arranging the individual case, without interfering with 

 the general arrangement of the collection. I believe the more clearly 

 the object is defined, and the illustrations kept together, the greater will 

 be the amount of information derived from it by the visitor, and the 

 interest he will feel in examining it. Such cases may advantageously 

 be prepared to show the classes of the animal kingdom by means of one 

 or more typical examples of each class ; the orders of each class ; the 

 families of each order ; the genera of each family ; the section of each 

 genus ; a selection of a specimen of each of the more important or strik- 

 ing species of each genus or section ; the changes of state, sexes, habits, 

 and manners of well-known or otherwise interesting species ; the 

 economic uses to which they are applied, and such other particulars as 

 the judgment and talent of the curator would select as the best adapted 

 for popular instruction, and of which these are intended only as partial 

 indications. No one, I think, who has ever had charge of a museum, 

 or has noted the behaviour of the visitors while passing through it, can 

 doubt for a moment that such cases would be infinitely more attractive 

 to the public at large than the crowded shelves of our present museums, 

 in which they speedily become bewildered by the multiplicity, the 

 apparent sameness, and, at the same time, the infinite variety of 

 the objects presented to their view, and in regard to which the labels 

 on the top of the cases afford them little assistance, while those on the 

 specimens themselves are almost unintelligible. When such visitors 

 really take any interest in the exhibition, it will generally be found that 

 they concentrate their attention on individual objects, whilst others 

 affect to do the same in order to conceal their total want of interest, of 

 which they somehow feel ashamed, although it originates in no fault of 

 their own. I think the time is approaching when a great change will be 

 made in museums of natural history ; and I have, therefore, thrown out 

 these observations and suggestions, by which it appears to me that this 

 usefulness may be greatly extended. In England, as we are well aware, all 

 changes are well considered and slowly adopted. Some forty years ago, the 

 plea of placing every specimen on a separate stand, and arranging theni in 

 rank and file in large glass cases, was considered a great step in advance, 

 and it was doubtless an improvement on the pre-existing plan, especially 

 at a time when our collections were limited to a small number of 

 species, which were scarcely more than types of our modern families or 

 genera. The idea had arisen that the English collections were smaller 

 than those on the Continent, and the public called for every specimen 

 to be exhibited. But the result has been that, in consequence of the 

 enormous development of our collections, the attention of the great mass 

 of visitors is distracted by the multitude of specimens, while the minute 

 characters by which naturalists distinguish genera and species are unap- 



