ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 15
Woolhope and Cotteswold Clubs many years ago, the late Prof.
John Phillips said, "I would urge all persons belonging to field
clubs, not selfishly to retain the specimens they gather, but to
deposit them where they may be of use to their fellow-
explorers."14 Such advice may be repeated with advantage
to-day. Most members would, no doubt, be willing, if solicited,
to share their captures with the museum, but they are probably
not aware that such objects would be valued. Good examples
of common things systematically collected are, however, much
needed in many museums. It is a great encouragement to a
young collector, who is not likely to secure rarities, to come to
this museum and be able to identify the common species which
he has collected.
By preserving the bulk of the local collection in cabinets
much space is gained in the exposed table-cases for the exhibition
of more attractive specimens not of local origin. While the
prime function of the Museum is to illustrate the natural history
of Essex, it has always been very properly regarded as a
desirable object of the Club to render the collection of wide and
even general educational value. Mr. W. Cole, in a suggestive
paper, read seven years ago before the South-Eastern Union of
Scientific Societies,15 emphasized this idea, and advocated the
formation, even in a small local museum, of what is often called
a "type or index collection." As long as a student limits his
studies to the products of a special area, he finds himself unable,
in consequence of the serious gaps in every local collection, to
take a general and systematic view of any organic group. My
friend, Mr. H. M. Platnauer, the accomplished curator for so
many years of the York Museum, has aptly remarked that
"Teaching from a local collection was like teaching from a text-
book from which whole chapters and many pages have been
torn."16 A visitor would form, in truth, but a poor idea of the
group of the marine mollusca, for example, if he limited his
attention to the shells of the Essex coast ; but by the exhibition
of a few typical shells from tropical seas, he gets a glimpse of the
beauty and wealth of nature's resources in this department.
Hence the table-cases in the Stratford Museum contain an
14 "On the Geology of the Malvern Hills."
15 "The Objects and Methods of a Local Museum." Trans. South-Eastern Union Scien.
Soc. for 1897, p. 17.
16 The Museums Journal, vol. 11; (1902), p. 54.