HOME MUSEUMS. 
45 
Lastly, the Sivallows and Martins , as far as I can see, are not 
less numerous than they used to be ; and if they were, would 
man, at any rate in England, be to blame for it ? 
As regards some of our larger birds, owls, hawks, crows, 
&c., there is indeed much reason to be anxious about them ; 
but in my neighbourhood they are not being exterminated by 
our land owners, one at least of whom knows their value well. 
Woodpeckers of the rarer kinds are to be seen occasionally, and 
the green species is common. 
I still believe that England is the favourite home of small 
birds, and will continue to be so. In no other country in which 
I have travelled are they so abundant as with us, and in spite 
of occasional outbreaks of tigerishness, I think I see a gradual 
improvement in the relations between Englishmen and animals ; 
in fact I have had a striking instance of it only this very morn- 
ing. The Selborne Society should not despair of success in the 
good work it has taken in hand ; and I must confess that the 
tone of Mr. Gordon’s paper was such as to have made me despair 
had I not had abundant evidence at hand of a very different 
kind from his. 
W. Warde Fowler. 
HOME MUSEUMS. 
HAVE been asked to speak from practical experience 
of the great pleasure of possessing a Home Museum. 
I will therefore try to show how mine has grown from 
one wall case of specimens of nuts and seeds, hung up 
in the billiard room, to the collection which is now dignified by 
the title of the Museum. 
As I have taken an interest from my earliest years in all 
kinds of foreign seeds, such as those of palm-trees, tropical 
plants, fruits, &c., friends were often kind enough to give me 
any they had obtained in their travels abroad. Some I met with 
in various shops, and thus in time I had sufficient to fill one 
side of a wall case, measuring four feet by two feet, with a 
glass front. In the opposite side of the case I thought it would 
be interesting to arrange specimens of many kinds of drugs 
used in making ordinary medicines. I therefore obtained from 
chemists such articles as castor oil seeds, a piece of Turkey 
rhubarb, specimens of different barks from which quinine and 
other tonics are made, colocynth gourd, aloes, manna, and a 
great number of gums and other substances which are required 
in the healing art, not forgetting a few blister beetles and cochi- 
neal insects. 
The case was lined with white paper, and divided into 
columns by thin slips of beading nailed down with small brads. 
