INTRODUCTOKY COLLECTIOX. 
31 
principal modifications of all these parts, can easily be followed 
out by any one wishing to become acquainted with them. 
Bays lY. and V. completing the west side of the hall, will, Contents of 
in a similar manner, show the most important points in the Bays^^ 
structure of reptiles, amphibia and fishes. In the latter has completed, 
already been placed a very fine skeleton of the Great Blue Shark 
{Car char oclon rondeletii) from iSTew Zealand, with the names of 
all the parts affixed to them. 
Of the bays on the east side of the hall, E'o. YI. is for the 
illustrations of the articulated classes, Crustacea, Arachnida, 
Myriopoda and Insecta, as well as of the Annulosa and Yermes. 
The table case contains an extensive series of preparations 
showing the structure of insects. ISTo. YII. is for the MoUusca, 
Echinodermata, Coelenterata, Porifera and Protozoa. In this 
bay the arrangement of tlie series illustrating the general 
characters of the shells of Mollusca is nearly complete. The 
remaining three, YIIL, IX., and X., are for the morphology 
of the vegetable kingdom: the first containing the Cryptogams, 
the next the Gymnosperms and the Monocotyledons, and the 
last the Dicotyledons. By this arrangement the lowest or 
simplest forms of animal or plant life, those on the border- 
land, as it were, of the tAVO kingdoms, will be brought into 
contact, and at the two ends of the series, in Bays I. and X., 
will be found the groups which show in the highest degree 
the special attributes of the division to which they belong. 
In Bay YIII. are illustrations of the general characters of Cryptogams, 
the Cryptogams, one of the two great sub-kingdoms of the plant 
world, and distinguished from the Phanerogams — the flowering 
or seed-plants — by the absence of a seed. Except in some of 
the lowest forms sexual reproduction occurs, but the oospore, 
the result of the union of the male and female cells, does not 
<levelop into an embryo and remain enclosed within a seed-coat 
formed from the tissue of the mother plant. 
In the first group of Cryptogams which occupies the wall-case 
on the left, the plant shows no distinction into root, stem, and 
leaf, but consists of a more or less uniform structure called a 
Tliallus ; hence the name Thallophytes. The lowest forms, or 
Frotopliytcs, are unicellular organisms, and can only be repre- 
sented in such a collection by considerably magnified drawings. 
