344 PEACTICAIi TAXIDERMY. 



bones and complete skeletons of animals should be collected, as 

 being of the greatest service to all students, be they medical 

 or biological. Also that explanatory charts and lists take the 

 place of labels for the vertebrates, and that all information as 

 to range and distribution of species be given. Further, that 

 anatomical diagrams and figures explanatory of the structure 

 and form of animals be provided, together with all facilities for 

 the study of biology from a scientific stand-point. I have also 

 laid down the axiom that a very small museum must and should 

 confine itself to objects collected in its immediate vicinity, but 

 that a fairly large museum would ever be in a disjointed and 

 unfurnished state if it relied solely on such specimens. It must, 

 therefore, have a general collection; and care should be taken 

 in the selection of specimens so that they may fill up the blanks 

 occurring in the "local." 



Another thing I am quite assured of ; it is that the manage- 

 ment should exercise a wise discretion in refusing unsuitable 

 objects (chiefly of ethnology) or duplicates of common forms, 

 and never receive a collection if fettered with the condition that 

 " it must be kept separate." Order, method, neatness, and care- 

 ful cataloguing I say nothing about, for I assume that all 

 principals must practise these virtues to do any good whatever 

 with the collections entrusted to their care. 



