332 PRACTICAL TAXIDERjMY. 



satisfy a few workers, I very miicli fear that tlie general bulk 

 of tlie ratepayers would be hardly satisfied with a museum 

 arranged on so severely scientific principles. It must be con- 

 sidered that a public museum differs from a private one in 

 a very material point. In the former there is a diversity of 

 tastes to please, and it is often difficult to know the exact 

 point where the line should be drawn ; in a private museum, on 

 the contrary, there is but one person to please, and that the 

 owner, consequently he may indulge his crotchets without fear 

 of doing damage to anyone but himself. I considered that 

 public museums must always be affected by matters of expe- 

 diency and local feeling, and that the will of the majority must 

 always be studied, when it has common sense for its basis. To- 

 this end I worked, and not wishing to be so much in love with 

 my own system as to be blind to advice, I wrote to ten of the 

 most eminent men of science — men of European repvitation, and 

 whose dictum on museum matters cannot be questioned — setting 

 forth, under the heading " Scheme A " and " Scheme B," the 

 pros and cons of both, not favouring one or the other in the 

 slightest, giving no clue whatever to my leaning to either, and 

 resolving to be guided entirely by the opinion of the majority, 

 or, should it be a close tie, to refer it to an umpire. Of these 

 ten, eight returned unqualified approval of having a general 

 collection for Leicester, and also of that plan which kept the 

 "general" and "local" collections entirely distinct; one gave 

 no opinion, and one eminent man suggested an alternative 

 scheme of a typical collection somewhat like Professor Owen's 

 " Index Museum " at South Kensington, and which could be 

 carried out afterwards witliout reference to the question at- 

 issue. 



As regards the pictorial mounting of the specimens in 

 zoological order — the thing I was most doubtful about — both 

 for the " general" and the "local" collections, five out of the ten 

 unhesitatingly favoured pictorial mounting — if well done — of 

 both collections, and four more said nothing for or against it. 



Nearly every one of these gentlemen wrote me a lengthy 

 letter, giving most valuable advice — advice which has in all 

 cases been acted on where practicable. 



Dr. A. C. Giinther, F.H.S., &c., Keeper of the Department o£ 



