184 
president’s address. 
is tlie maimer in which my specimens are mounted. If a 
purely scientific arrangement is wished for, a collection should 
be formed entirely of skins, as being more convenient for 
examination and requiring less space to store. The stuffed 
abortions in the majority of our museums cannot give a 
student the slightest idea of what the bird is in life ; rows 
upon rows of these mummies are placed upon turned stands, 
all of one pattern; and whether the bird in life would 
frequent rocks, trees, sea coast, or marshes, it matters not; 
they are all placed in like circumstances in the glass cases. 
In my collection I have endeavoured to reproduce as far as 
possible the natural habitat of each species, employing surround¬ 
ings to denote the locality which the species would frequent. 
Moreover I have shewn the life-history from the young to the 
adult where possible, and thanks to the improvement of late 
years in taxidermal art, birds can be made to look perfectly 
natural, lacking only vitality, which it is impossible to give. 
Many collectors I know consider that the bird ought to 
be the most conspicuous object in the case without any 
surroundings, as in their opinion they detract from the 
specimen itself, but I hold that a collection of skins, which 
I mentioned before, is preferable to specimens mounted in 
this style. Of course I am well aware that the surroundings 
can be overdone; the bird itself should be of the first import¬ 
ance, but if judicious treatment of the accessories be shown, 
they rather add to than detract from the appearance of the 
bird. I shall exhibit in the Town Hall this evening some of 
cases representing the class of work and system I am 
endeavouring to carry out. 
Many of the auxiliaries in the mounting of the specimens, 
such as sand, shingle, grasses, &c., also rocks and stones from 
which the models have been taken, were procured from the 
same spots as the birds themselves. 
I am happy to say that a portion of our national collec¬ 
tion, under the care of Mr. R. B. Sharpe, F.Z.S., is being 
mounted in a somewhat similar manner. Probably many 
here present have had the pleasure of viewing these new 
cases in the galleries of South Kensington. 
It may be thought by some that our immediate district is 
rather a poor locality in which to study Ornithology, but if 
I had time to read over some of my notes, I think the 
number of species of birds to be found in the neighbourhood 
of Birmingham would astonish my hearers; but this only 
goes to prove what I have long contended, that it is not 
objects and specimens in any locality that are deficient, but 
Natural History students to discover them. 
