ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 245
part of an Egyptian mummy, Indian gods, a case or two of shells,
the bivalves usually single and the univalves decorticated, a sea
urchin without its spines, a few common corals, the fruit of a double
cocoa-nut, some mixed antiquities, partly local, partly Etruscan, partly
Roman and Egyptian, and a case of minerals and miscellaneous
fossils—such is the inventory and about the scientific order of their
contents." These words were spoken more than twenty years ago,
During that time science has grown rapidly in this country, fostered
chiefly by the Department of Science and Art; whilst local museums
have multiplied under the Public Libraries Act of 1855. Yet there
are too many provincial collections to which Professor Forbes's
language may still be fitly applied. Hence, a word on the principles
of classification and the method of exhibition to be carried out in a
local scientific museum may not be out of place.
The common division of all natural objects into animals,
vegetables, and minerals, is one which admits of scientific applica-
tion ; and consequently our museum must contain at least a
zoological, a botanical, and a mineralogical collection. Let us seek
to define what each of these separately should contain, and how it
should be arranged, commencing with the zoological department.
The popular notion of a zoological collection is that of an
assemblage of stuffed animals, butterflies, and shells—pretty, curious
or rare. Viewed, however, from a purely scientific standpoint, such
a collection presents the smallest possible value, since it fails to
impart sound notions, either of the essential structure of the organisms
which are represented, or of those relations between different organ-
isms on which modern classification is grounded. The more closely
the attention is confined to external forms the less scientific will be
the arrangement of any zoological collection. What would be
thought, for example, of a library in which the books were never
opened, but were got together and placed on the shelves, solely with
reference to the characteristics of their binding ? Yet, in collecting
shells without reference to the structure of the creatures that inhabit
them, or in exhibiting stuffed animals without seeking to illustrate
their internal organisation, we are simply amusing ourselves with the
binding without troubling to read the contents of the volumes. It is
true, the lettering on the back of a book generally gives some clue to
the character of the work ; but it is one thing to know a book by its
cover and quite another to be familiar with its contents. As long as
we look merely on the outside, our acquaintance with the animal