1882.J 
Correspondence . 
179 
THE UNFITNESS OF THINGS. 
To the Editor of the journal of Science. 
Sir, — Mr. W. Sowerby, writing in the “Journal of the Society 
of Arts,” gives some amusing instances of the manner in which 
the harmonies of Nature are distorted by artists. Thus a 
water-plant [N elumhium) is made to twirl and twine over trellis- 
work like a convolvulus, and a group of Bengal tigers are repre- 
sented crouching at the foot of an Australian gum-tree. But 
we may see errors as palpable in the grouping of organic forms 
even in the British Museum. Not far from the cabinets con- 
taining the Hewitson collection of butterflies there may be seen, 
under a bell-glass, a group of birds mostly — if not all — neo- 
tropical, and accompanied by insedts from the same region ; but 
amidst the latter are placed some purely Oriental forms, such as 
Sagra and Chrysochroa ! Surely a national museum should not 
mis-teach animal geography ! — I am, &c., 
Scrutator. 
