1885.1 
Analyses of Books. 
99 
who come with a definite purpose of improving their knowledge 
of natural productions, or, as it might be put, who seek the solu- 
tion of questions which have occurred to them during readme: or 
reflection. 
The observers, who may reach 78 per cent, have no conscious, 
definite purpose, but “ fix their attention with more or less intel- 
ligence on the objects displayed.” The loungers reach, in 
Liverpool, 20 per cent, though in South Kensington they would 
doubtless be relatively more numerous. 
-the author concludes that “ observers are more numerously 
attracted by the birds than the invertebrate animals. These 
proportions are reversed in the case of students.” 
I he first part of the pamphlet closes with a recommendation 
or curators to organise. The following quotation from the late 
rrof. Stanley Jevons should never be forgotten : — “ I venture to 
suggest, in conclusion, that the best possible step which could 
now be taken to improve the museums of the United Kingdom 
would be the constitution of a Museum Association on the lines 
of the well-known Librarians’ Association. If the curators of 
all the public museums would follow the example of other pro- 
fessional bodies, and put their heads together in a conference, 
they might evolve out of the existing chaos some unity of ideas 
and aCtion. At any rate they would take the first important step 
of asserting their own existence. There have been enough of 
Blue-books and Royal Commissions, and we have heard too 
much of what ‘ my Lords ’ have got to say. Let the curators 
themselves now speak and aCt, and let them especially adopt as 
their motto — Union, not Centralisation.” Admirably said ; but 
in all museums which are in any way connected with the Science 
and Art Department, the motto will be — Centralisation, not 
Union. Too often, also, attempts at professional organisation 
have resulted mainly in the establishment of a new set of 
examinations ! 
In his secoud part Mr. Higgins discusses “ Museum Desi- 
derata.” He complains, with justice, that “ many museums, in 
which the collections are fairly adequate, are rendered almost 
worthless to the public by deplorable deficiencies in the naming 
of the specimens : either the labels are inaccurate or altogether 
absent, or the ink has faded, or the writing is small and illegible; 
or the vibrations set up by the feet of visitors have severed 
specimens and their names into a most perplexing remoteness ; 
or the objeCts are crowded, overlapping each other and concealing 
the names ; or the label omits the locality where the specimen 
has been obtained.” 
In large families, containing many genera, the matter is still 
worse: — “Where the group begins and where it ends, what 
characters bind it together, what are its neighbours, and what 
the habits of life distinguishing its constituents, might be matters 
of complete indifference in some museums.” In short, the 
