2
ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS.
better than seize the opportunity afforded by the Annual Meeting
to plead very urgently on behalf of this part of the work of our
Club.
It should be our proud endeavour to make the little Museum
in the old Hunting Lodge an attractive centre of scientific
instruction to the multitudes who visit the Forest every season.
To do this is by no means an easy matter. It requires much
knowledge and great skill, a good deal of labour, and a little
money. If the Club undertakes to furnish gratuitously the
knowledge, the skill and the labour, surely it is not unreasonable
to expect the money to be forthcoming from some other source.
As a matter of fact, however, the members of our Club have
done much themselves in furnishing funds, but their donations,
though generous, are still insufficient for the work at present
contemplated. According to a recent estimate the sum of £200
is now required to bring the arrangement of the Museum within a
reasonable approach to completeness. With this moderate sum,
it is believed that it would be possible to procure such glass-
cases and specimens as are urgently needed to make the
museum representative of the Natural History of the Forest
District. It seems absurd that a work of this importance should
be delayed through any difficulty in raising so comparatively
trifling a sum !
The Museum at Chingford may be regarded as a Monograph
of the Natural History of the Forest, illustrated with realities and
not semblances—a monograph which may be read by every
visitor more readily, yet more profitably, than any illustrated
book. Instead of turning over the pages of a volume and
admiring the plates, the visitor passes from case to case, seeing
in most instances the veritable objects instead of their mere
presentment on paper, and learning about these objects many a
useful lesson from the descriptive labels, with which they are
invariably accompanied. In a "Museum Leaflet," issued by our
Club ten years ago, Mr. W. Cole explained the purpose of the
Museum to be two-fold ; first, to "promote a love for the out-of-
door study of Natural History, etc., among the intelligent
visitors to the Forest," and secondly, "to form a store-house for
the preservation of authentic series of forest-specimens."(1) Both
these objects have been already, to a great extent, fulfilled—
(1.) A short account of the Epping Forest Museum. E.F.C. Museum Leaflets, No. 1. 1895.