66 Animal Geography . [January, 
searched for. If it be asked why so little attention is given 
to this and to other interesting problems connected with 
the distribution of organic life, one important cause has 
been pointed out by Mr. Wallace — the total want of a 
museum geographically arranged. Our museums, more or 
less complete, are arranged morphologically. Birds, rep- 
tiles, inserts, &c., which approximate in their structure are 
placed together, quite irrespective of the locality from which 
they have been obtained. Such collections are obviously 
indispensable, and all we recommend concerning them is 
that they should be made much more complete and more 
accessible than is now the case, and should invariably be 
placed in some central position, and not in a remote, even 
though fashionable, suburb. But along with such we want 
also a museum geographically arranged, where we may see, 
e.g., in one hall the fauna of India, in another that of New 
Guinea, of Australia, of Madagascar, or of the Cape. Who 
can doubt that if such collections were accessible, relations, 
similarities, contrasts would strike us which escape unno- 
ticed when the species of the whole world are placed side 
by side. It would likewise be instructive to exhibit the 
species of every country in juxtaposition with their nearest 
allies or representatives in other countries, and to show 
specimens of widely-distributed species from the centre and 
the extremes of its range. Surely if any nation can produce 
such an institution it ought to be England ; yet hitherto we 
have little even pointing in this direction save the col- 
lections of “ British ” birds and inseCts, which have been 
multiplied both by public institutions and by private 
collectors, and which are the less instructive because 
Britain is not a definite zoological district, but merely 
an impoverished portion of the north-western PalaearCtic 
region. Is it too much to hope that the great Colonial 
Museum which looms in the future, and which by the 
special favour of all good powers is to be placed on the 
Thames Embankment, may include a department of the 
kind desired ? 
We must now, however, take our leave of Mr. Wallace 
and of his truly magnificent contribution to Natural History. 
If we cannot pronounce the work as in all respeCts perfeCb 
— if we here and there entertain a doubt or desire fuller 
information — the cause lies not in any shortcoming on the 
part of the author, but in the extent and the complexity of 
the subject and in the limited state of our present know- 
ledge. The plan which he has traced with so masterly a 
