6
ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS.
Our Club indeed has became rather famous for its annual
Fungus Forays in the Forest. Some of the common fungi of
Epping Forest are so conspicuous as to attract general
attention, and it should always be the object of our Museum to
enable a student—or even a chance visitor—to identify any
natural object which he may find in the course of a Forest
ramble. In the Museum at Chingford there is a good collection
of preserved specimens of the local fungi, accompanied by
coloured drawings, and well displayed in a series of wall-cases.
Some of the specimens, I believe, were prepared by that skilful
naturalist, the late Mr. English, of Epping. Nor should we
omit to notice the set of original drawings of flowerless plants,
executed specially for the Museum by our veteran friend, Dr. M.
C. Cooke. This series of large drawings, framed and glazed, is
mounted on screens in the Upper Room of the Museum, where it
offers in an attractive form much information to the visitor.
So far as the zoology of Epping Forest is concerned, popular
interest seems to centre in the Insects—if, at least, we may judge
from the large number of visitors who carry butterfly-nets and
other entomological gear. The Curator, whom we all know to-
be an enthusiastic entomologist himself, has done well to
minister to their tastes by a remarkably fine display in the Oak
Room Here the instructive specimens illustrating the life-
history of the Forest butterflies and moths, with their food-
plants, is especially noteworthy. As most insects suffer
deterioration by the action of light, they are here preserved in
flat glass-cases, which are provided with covers that may be freely
opened by the public, whilst the covers themselves are glazed
and serve for the display of a most attractive series of coloured
plates of insects, taken, I believe, from Curtis's Entomology,
The effect of this admirable method of utilizing the covers of the
cases contrasts very favourably with the ordinary practice of
screening the specimens from light by means of moveable covers
of American cloth, or other opaque material—a method which
is rather unsightly and decidedly uninstructive.
With regard to the Mollusca, reference should be made to the
fine collection of land and fresh-water shells from the woods and
lanes, the ponds and streams, of the Forest District, which has
been on loan for many years by the courtesy of Mr. Walter
Crouch, by whom they were collected and to whom the Museum