MUSHKOOM-GKOWING-PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS. 
129 
failures in mushroom-growing; but these arise only from want of care 
in the preparation of the material, and when mushrooms are once 
established, or rather when their cultivation is thoroughly understood, 
it is astonishing in what queer places they will make their appearance 
from time to time. I have not unfrequently had them pushing up in quite 
small flower pots, when the soil in which the plants were potted had 
been mixed with the remnant of some old exhausted mushroom bed. 
Under cover, say under the stage of a greenhouse, which is a very use¬ 
ful* place to turn to such account during the winter, the temperature 
should range between 50° and 55°, but never exceed the latter, or 
the produce will become weak and “ spindly,” and very soon cease 
altogether. Close covering with some loose material will to a great 
extent prevent evaporation; but should the surface of the beds become 
very dry, a slight syringing with salt and water is all that will be 
required. 
AN IMPEOVED SYSTEM OF AEEANGEMENT IN 
PEOVINCIAL MUSEUMS. 
BY F. T. MOTT, F.R.G.S. 
It will be generally admitted that the majority of provincial 
museums are not quite ideal either in their selection of objects, or in 
their method of display and arrangement. I wish to suggest a plan 
suitable for general adoption, by which the largest amount of informa¬ 
tion may be conveyed in the most attractive form, and at the least 
expense. 
For the sake of convenience let us consider what should be done in 
the single department of Ornithology. A provincial museum generally 
possesses a number of stuffed birds, but these are not generally objects 
of beauty and delight, and the uninstructed public walk round 
bewildered, making much of the spots on an Argus-pheasant, or the 
protuberance on the head of a hornbill, but getting little information 
about birds in general. It has often been urged that provincial 
museums should devote their attention solely to the Natural History 
of their respective districts. But the objections to tliis are that 
visitors would get too exalted a notion of the importance of the local 
fauna in relation to that of the whole world, and that much valuable 
information, only to be got from foreign forms, would be lost. It has 
also been recommended that while the local fauna is treated as a distinct 
department, there should be a typical collection of the fauna of the 
globe entirely separate from that of the locality. I would suggest, as 
the most desirable system, a combination of these two proposals, in 
such a way as to utilise the advantages of each without the awkward 
and arbitrary separation into two departments. Let a range of good 
