316 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



tave fallen foul of tlie fundamental principles of nearly all 

 museums — black cases, and animals on "hat-pegs." "What do 

 you propose ? I propose, in the first place, mahogany, walnut, 

 or oak cases ; and, in the second place, the pictorial mounting 

 of all specimens, and not only do I propose it, but I claim in 

 the Leicester Museum to have done on a large scale what has 

 hitherto been applied to small matters only. First, as to the 

 wood ; I delight in oak, and, although I know how much more 

 liable it is to " twist " than first-class mahogany, yet if of good 

 picked quality, dry and sound, and properly tongued and framed, 

 there is not much to fear, and its light and elegant appearance is 

 a great gain in a large room, added to this it improves by age 

 and is practically indestructible. 



Now for the pictorial mounting of specimens; and here 

 let me say that, for any person to lay down a hard-and-fast 

 line as to what natural history specimens should be, or 

 should not be, collected by provincial natural history museums 

 as a whole, is about as sensible a plan as saying that a 

 nation as a whole must drink nothing but beer or nothing 

 but water. It is apparently forgotten that general principles 

 cannot apply to museums ranging in size from 20ft. by 

 12ft. to that of Liverpool with its several large rooms, each 

 one larger than the entire " museum " of small towns. I 

 think it may be laid down as a common-sense proceeding 

 ihat, if a provincial museum consists of only one or two 

 rooms of the size above given, the managers should strictly 

 confine themselves to collecting only the fossils, animals, and 

 plants of their own district. If, however, like Leicester, they 

 possess a zoological room 80ft. in length by 40ft. in width, and 

 of great height, together with smaller rooms, then the proposi- 

 tion to strictly confine themselves to local forms is unwise in 

 the extreme. How would it be possible to fill so much cubic 

 space with the few specimens — even if extended unwarrant- 

 ably, and elaborately mounted — which many years of arduous 

 collecting might obtain ? Taking the list of vertebrates of any 

 midland county, how many of them do we find could be collected 

 if we left out of count the " accidentals ? " Here is a list : 

 Fishes, 26; reptiles, 10; birds, 110;* mammals, 26 (the fox 

 * About 80 only, of the 110, breed in any given midland district. 



