THE ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 
89 
Museum in 1841, and in the second to that of John Anderson 
as Curator and subsequently Superintendent of the Indian 
Museum in 1865. Blyth’s tenancy of the post, combined 
with the foundation of an independent Geological Survey, 
gave the Museum as a museum a zoological trend, which was 
strongly confirmed by Anderson’s work, although he was an 
archaeologist, an ethnologist and a historian as well as a 
naturalist. As the Museum consisted, after the separation of 
the geological collections, of a single section or department 
in w’hich zoology, anthropology and archaeology were com¬ 
bined under a head w’ho was primarily a zoologist, the ap¬ 
pointment of superintendent came to be regarded as a 
zoological one, and all who have held it since have been 
zoologists. As soon, however, as a second section was added 
under an independent head the position of the former officer 
became an anomalous one and misunderstandings naturally 
arose. The new bye-laws accepted by the Government of 
India in 1912 made the position somewhat clearer by assert¬ 
ing definitely that the superintendent had control over all 
the buildings of the Museum and over all the servants on 
duty in the public galleries. They also made it clear that 
the officer in charge of the zoological section should be, 
under existing conditions, both Superintendent of the Indian 
Museum^and Secretary to the Trustees. There is, however, 
no Director of the Indian Museum, and the superintendent has 
no authority outside his own section {i.e. the Zoological and 
Anthropological Section, over which he has of course com¬ 
plete control) to interfere in internal arrangements, except 
in cases of extreme urgency. The system has obvious ad¬ 
vantages, which, so long as a true esprit de corps animates 
the heads of the different sections, greatly outweigh its in¬ 
herent difficulties. 
