338 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
fully appreciate how much more such groups tell and suggest 
than does the individual specimen; hut it must be apparent to 
any one that a good group makes a much stronger and more- 
lasting impression on the popular visitor than does the single¬ 
specimen, and that while very likely he fails at first view to> 
carry away a consciousness of all that it depicts yet he certainly 
has gotten more than he would have received from the weari¬ 
some procession of older days. The striving after realism of 
environment has called into co-operation the artist and the me¬ 
chanic. The scenic backgrounds of some groups are worthy of 
exhibition as works of pictorial art. 
As it is apparent that people are interested in motion and 
that live animals hold the attention more than do mounted ones,, 
a few attempts have been made by commercial museums to in¬ 
troduce motion into such groups; but as these motions must be 
monotonous repetitions of mechanical movements, having little 
real similiarity to those of live animals, these ventures have not 
met with success. However, it is probable that as applied to 
certain phases of animal dynamics we may yet see its success¬ 
ful though restricted application to popular museum exhibition. 
The use of the phonograph to record sounds of animate and 
inanimate nature may not unlikely he a museum development: 
of the not far distant future. Our popular works on ornithol¬ 
ogy find it necessary to indicate by musical scale and words, in 
a most unnatural and unsatisfactory manner, the song notes of 
birds which could he much better imitated by phonograph. 
Half the impressiveness of some mammalian colonies lies in the 
vocal sounds that they produce and everyone is interested in 
the speech of various races of men. 
Live exhibits of plants, insects, marine and fresh-water in¬ 
vertebrates and of reptiles, batrachians and other small animals- 
have for some years found acceptance with museum men as val¬ 
uable accessories to the permanent preparations. 
Attention is being given to atmosphere, and we find, executed' 
or planned, rooms in which the whole decoration is in harmony 
with the exhibits shown so that we are aided in overcoming the 
incongruities due to the transposition of the counterfeit of na- 
