The common division of all natural objects into animals, vegetables, and minerals, is one which admits of scientific application; 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 organisms 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 kingdom must needs be superficial and unsound. External characters always give inadequate notions of structure, whilst in some cases they even mislead by suggesting false analogies: every one knows that this is the case, for example, with the group of whales.

essence.

As comparative anatomy has advanced, the systematic zoologist has been led to look less at the exterior, and more at the interior; less at the surface, and more at the substance. Supposing we had occasion to classify a collection of watches, it would clearly be but a poor arrangement to put all those with gold cases into one group, all with silver cases in another, with pinchbeck in a third, and so on. We know, in fact, that the case is but the secondary part of a watch, and that the essence of its structure is to be found in that assemblage of wheels which we call the "movement". To understand its structure, therefore, we must open each watch; and we can then place together those which are really similar in We might thus form several groups, according as the escapement is a verge, or horizontal, or duplex, or lever. Such an arrangement would certainly commend itself to the watchmaker, though the dilettante might rest satisfied with the primitive method of classification by cases. In like manner, to satisfactorily illustrate and classify a zoological collection, it is necessary to expose as fully as possible the internal organisation of the creatures which are represented. Thus, each stuffed specimen belonging to the great group of back-boned animals should be accompanied by its skeleton; or, failing that, by the skull and other typical parts. And, if possible, the characters and disposition of the viscera, or internal organs, should also be exhibited by means of preserved specimens, by models, and by diagrams. Even where dissections are introduced, they will afford but little information to the inexperienced visitor, unless accompanied by corresponding drawings with clear references to the several organs. Without this, a stranger standing in front of a preparation usually fails to see anything but a flabby mass of confused parts dangling in a bottle of spirit; in other words, the most careful dissection needs popular interpretation. Those animals which are destitute of an internal

skeleton will of course be represented by such other hard parts as they may possess; but these should stand side by side with preparations, casts, and diagrams, illustrating their internal economy.

Let it not be supposed that in advocating as perfect a mode of illustration as can possibly be attained, I am also advocating the accumulation of many individual specimens. It seems sufficient, indeed, to exhibit merely a few types of the larger groups and sub-groups. But the selection of an average representative of a group as a type may lead to too high a notion of the sharpness of division between the several groups; may lead, in fact, to the false impression that nature is as sharply cut into sections as is suggested by our classification, which by necessity is in large measure artificial. It must be remembered that in nature we often pass, by the most gradual transition, from one group of organic forms to another; and it becomes, therefore, highly instructive to exhibit in a collection such transitional forms as will help to give a philosophical view of nature, without attracting too much attention to our confessedly arbitrary landmarks. Hence, in addition to an average specimen from each group, there should be exhibited judiciously selected aberrant forms— forms which would serve to mark a passage from one group to another; that is to say, each group should be represented by the most typical and by the least typical example which can be found; by a specimen taken from the centre, and a specimen or two from near the circumference of the group, where it is conterminous with another, or even overlaps it. Thus, the great group of Carnivora might be represented, not only by a dog and a cat, and if possible by a bear, as central types, but also by a seal, which would be taken as it were from one of the margins of the group where it abuts upon the whales.

But whilst a collection such as that here sketched out

might satisfy the requirements of the scientific student, it would be well to appeal to our practical instincts by illustrating the uses of animals to man in the shape of a collection of Economic Zoology; that is to say, a collection showing the application of animal products to industrial purposes, similar to the well-known series of the Department of Science and Art at Bethnal Green. As an example of the importance of these animal products, one might refer to the information which would be given to the public by exhibiting a series illustrating the manufacture of textile fabrics from raw materials derived from animal sources, such as woollen and silken goods.

In that section of our natural history museum which deals with the vegetable kingdom, this technological division would be much more important than the corresponding part of the animal series. So large a proportion of the objects with which we daily come in contact are derived from vegetable sources, that a department of Economic Botany can hardly fail to attract even those who have no pretensions to scientific education. Who, with a healthy spirit of inquiry, does not care to learn something about the sources and mode of preparation of those vegetable substances which are used as articles of food or of medicine, as materials for textile industries, or for constructive art? The admirable Museum of Economic Botany at Kew has attained, under Dr. Hooker, to a state not far removed from perfection; and thus offers a model which other museums might seek to imitate in humble measure. But an immense amount of information can be imparted to an intelligent visitor by the exhibition of a very unambitious collection, got together with comparative ease and at moderate cost.

The strictly scientific portion of the botanical department would of course be represented by an Herbarium, which ought to contain a complete illustration of the Flora of Wales.

But a well-filled Herbarium, though valuable to the student who wishes to consult a typical collection, scarcely forms a feature in a public museum; and the dried specimens hidden in their cabinet appeal but little to the ordinary visitor. To give, however, a popular insight into plant-structure, a few large sectional models might be advantageously exhibited in the general collection. Thus, the flower of a buttercup and a rose, a dandelion and an oak, would illustrate respectively the large divisions of thalamifloral and calycifloral, monopetalous and apetalous exogens; whilst a lily and a grass might severally represent the petaloid and glumaceous groups of endogens. The larger divisions of the flowering plants being thus represented, it would remain for a few models and diagrams to convey some general notions of cryptogamic structure. The display of diagrams, or large drawings, should indeed be encouraged in all departments; and an intelligent curator will thus utilise every foot of wall-space. Where resources are not limited, an attempt should be made to illustrate the local flora by a collection of living specimens. A botanical garden becomes, in fact, as valuable an adjunct to the vegetable department as an aquarium to the animal department; but there are few museums in this country so fortunately situated as to secure such an association.

Turning to the mineral section of our typical museum, it is necessary to somewhat expand our view. For, in order to give anything like a fair notion of the mineral kingdom, it is absolutely necessary to exhibit a tolerably large series of the more commonly occurring species. Especial attention should of course be paid to those minerals which are either of interest to the geologist as rock-constituents, or of importance to the technologist. But the selection of a few representative species could hardly be satisfactorily effected, since mineral species are less easily grouped around typical centres than are either animals or plants. In fact, the classification