5 



the gallery. I do not of course mean to say that these rooms 

 are complete. They contain carefully chosen but sufficiently 

 extensive selections from our collections in the different classes 

 to give an excellent idea, for instance, of the classes of Mam- 

 mals, Birds, or Reptiles (both living and fossil). These speci- 

 mens are zoologically arranged, and include all that is likely to 

 interest and instruct the public. The specialist, meanwhile, will 

 find in the store-rooms and work-rooms all he needs for his 

 studies, with facilities for doing his work unmolested at all times. 

 The space now devoted to the different classes of the animal 

 kingdom contains all that we can hope to give for public exhi- 

 bition, and, indeed, all that is desirable to give, no matter how 

 extensive the collections may become hereafter ; limited collec- 

 tions well assorted and labelled l)eiiig far moi'e intelligible to the 

 general visitor than larger and more indiscriminate ones. This 

 plan enables us to place on exhibition picked specimens, and to 

 make the contents of each room, little by little, as significant as 

 possible. It shows us at once our blanks, and the resources of 

 the Museum can be expended in filling them. This still leaves 

 us in the present building three exhibition rooms not yet com- 

 pleted. One of these rooms is to be devoted to the systematic 

 collection of Mollusca, a second room will contain the systematic 

 collection of the Fishes on the main floor, and in the gallery of 

 the same room will be placed the systematic collection of the Ar- 

 ticulates. These two rooms I hardly hope to open to the public 

 before two or three years are over. The third room will con- 

 tain on the main floor the Faunal collection of South America, 

 while the gallery will receive the Fauna of Australia. The two 

 exhibition rooms to be added on the completion of the new part 

 of the wing will be devoted to Europeo- Asiatic, Indian, and 

 African Faunal collections. We shall thus have on one floor, 

 when this arrangement is finished, a series of systematic collec- 

 tions of the various classes of the animal kingdom, each class be- 

 ing placed by itself, so that the visitor will see only one thing at 

 a time, and will not be bewildered by room after room or case 

 after case of specimens which to him seem to have no meaniiig. 

 In the synoptic room, for instance, he will get an excellent idea 

 of the great types of the animal kingdom. He will then pass 

 to a room containing a special class, perhaps that of Birds. 

 There he will find a systematic collection of the class, giving 



