CX11 PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
Mr. Gray, on behalf of the Committee of the Marine Station at 
Millport, exhibited and described a series of specimens which that 
Committee had presented to the Museum. 
Mr. Alex. M. Rodger, as Delegate of the Society to the Inter¬ 
national Zoological Congress at Berlin held last summer, gave the 
following report:— 
A VISIT TO NORTH GERMANY AND DENMARK. 
In August this year I attended the Zoological Congress in Berlin,, 
and at the same time visited several of the Continental Museums. 
The Trustees of our Museum, on hearing of my intention, very 
kindly approved of my going in such a way as to render certain 
fundamental considerations of small moment. 
From Leith to Hamburg is plain sailing—sometimes. Nautical 
inconveniences, however, are quickly forgotten some 30 hours after 
leaving the Forth. The sail up the Elbe is smooth and interesting. 
Heligoland was passed in the early morning while we were still in 
our boxes. 
At Cuxhaven the first pilot takes charge of us, and we steam on 
past the entrance to the great Kiel Canal, on to Germany’s greatest 
port. 
The traveller cannot help feeling the tremendous possibilities of 
a city such as Hamburg, with its great river, miles of docks and 
wharves, and he instinctively contrasts it with London, Glasgow, Liver¬ 
pool, and New York. It is Germany’s greatest port, and outside 
britain no other city approaches it commercially. With character¬ 
istic German method and attention to detail, the visitor is put on 
shore and through the customs with little loss of time. Then to a 
hotel. Let me say that hotels are excellent, food very good, tea not 
fit to drink, coffee delicious, living very reasonable. On engaging 
your room a form must be filled in stating your name, town, pro¬ 
fession, etc. This suggests police. 
We set off at once, plan in hand, to visit the Natural History 
Museum. The Hamburg Natural History Museum is the most 
modern we saw, having been opened in 1891. It is a massive 
rectangular building, measuring about 260 by 114 ft. The ground 
floor contains the mammals, arranged along three walls, while on the 
left are the mineral and palaeontological collections. In the centre 
of this floor also, on a raised platform, is placed a fine series of 
skeletons of Whales and other aquatic mammals. These include 
the Blue Whale, Finner, Narwhal, Swordfish (Orca), and a splendid 
Blackwhale Skull, containing the balena or whalebone. The series- 
also contains skeletons of the Walrus, the Sea Elephant, etc. 
The systematic collection of mammals is arranged in a series of 
14 upright cases standing at right angles to the wall, thus forming 
a series of bays, each of them lighted by a side window, besides 
sharing the roof-light. The light is good; the fittings seemed to me 
to be fairly good, though somewhat heavy. There is material in 
abundance, but I did not admire the method of mounting, the 
labelling, or the colours employed. A universal khaki colour per- 
