180 
PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS. 
wall-cases be provided not less than eight feet high, three feet deep, and 
divided into five feet bays, each bay glazed with a single sheet of plate- 
glass. Let one or more of these bays be devoted to each order, 
according to its size and importance. On the ground line of these 
cases place the collection of local birds, and let the life-history of these 
be illustrated in the most complete and elaborate manner. The 
permanent residents and summer visitants should be shown (male and 
female) with their nest, eggs, and young, in perhaps two or three 
stages, set up in a pictorial manner, showing the position and 
materials of the nest, the manner in which the old birds provide food 
for the young, and the mode in which the half-fledged brood begin 
to seek their own living. The winter visitants should be shown (male 
and female only) without nest or young, and the casuals by such 
single specimens as can be obtained. Every specimen exhibited in 
this department should have been actually procured in the district, 
no imported or foreign skins being admitted. It would be competent 
for each provincial museum to work up this department very com¬ 
pletely, and it would be highly interesting and instructive to all 
visitors. Taking the ground line for the local birds, and giving it an 
average height of three feet six inches, let there be a clearly-marked 
division, not necessarily a straight line (a wavy and irregular one would 
be both more convenient and more artistic), but a distinct division at 
about that height; and on this second stage let those birds be 
exhibited which are British, but have never been found in that 
locality. These should be shown with less pictorial elaboration, in 
pairs, male and female, but generally without nests or young. Above 
these let there be exhibited a few of the most striking and typical 
foreign birds, set up in a simple manner, without any pictorial details. 
Each order would be distinct, and there would be the best oppor¬ 
tunity of comparing the local birds with those of Britain generally, 
and of the whole world; while a real notion of the life of birds would 
be conveyed by the full portraiture of those forms with which 
the local visitors would be most familiar. In those cases in 
which an order is not represented in the locality at all, an additional 
piece of instruction would be conveyed by leaving a blank space of 
say six to twelve inches on the ground line, with a printed card stating 
the fact that the order, Steganopocles for instance, is not represented 
in this locality. All specimens or groups of one species should be 
very distinctly labelled, and to avoid the spottiness produced by a 
number of white labels, the labels should be lightly tinted with some 
neutral and harmonious colour, or with the same colour as the ground, 
or tree stump, or foliage on which the group is placed ; the English 
name in plain black letters a quarter of an inch high, the scientific 
name in type of half that size, and the locality or native country, are 
all the particulars which should be given on the labels. A cheap 
popular guide-book should be prepared, giving further details. 
A museum arranged on this principle in all its departments of 
Natural History, would be novel, and would certainly have more local 
