and structure, their singular habits and mode of life, their distribution over the surface of the earth, and their first appearance in past time. To do this effectively requires a mode of exhibition very different from that which has been usually adopted in museums.

Throughout the animal kingdom, at least one or more species of every important family group should be exhibited; and in the larger and more interesting families, one or more species of each genus. The number of specimens is not, however, so important as their quality and the mode of exhibiting them. A few of the more important species in each order, well illustrated by fine and characteristic specimens, would be far better than ten times the number if imperfect, badly prepared, and badly arranged. Let any one look at an artistically mounted group of fine and perfect quadruped or bird skins, which represent the living animals in perfect health and vigour, and by their characteristic attitudes and accessories tell the history of the creature's life and habits; and compare this with the immature, ragged, mangy-looking specimens one often sees in museums, stuck up in stiff and unnatural attitudes, and resembling only mummies or scarecrows. The one is both instructive and pleasing, and we return again and again to gaze upon it with delight. The other is positively repellent, and we feel that we never want to look upon it again.

I consider it therefore an important principle, that in a museum for the people nothing should be exhibited that is not good of its kind, and mounted in the very best manner. Fortunately, specimens of a large number of the most beautiful and extraordinary animals are now exceedingly common, and every well-marked group in nature may be illustrated without having recourse to the rarer and more costly species. Carrying out these views, we should exhibit our animal in such a way as to convey the largest amount of information possible. The male, female, and young should be shown together, the mode of feeding or of capturing its prey, and the most characteristic attitudes and motions, should be indicated; and the accessories should point out the country the species

inhabits, or the kind of locality it most frequents. A descriptive tablet should of course give further information; and in the immediate vicinity, specimens showing any remarkable points of its anatomy, and any useful products that are derived from it, should be exhibited.

Each group of this kind would be a study of itself, and should therefore be kept quite distinct and apart from every other group. It should be so placed that it could be seen from several points of view, and every part of each individual composing it closely examined. To encourage such examination and study, seats should be placed conveniently near it a point strangely overlooked in most museums, where it seems to be taken for granted that visitors will pass on without any desire to linger, or any wish for a more close examination. It would add still further to the interest of these typical groups, if it were clearly shown how much they represented, by giving a list of all the well-known species of the genus or family, with their native country and proportionate size, and indicating, by means of a coloured line, which of them were exhibited in the museum. This would be an excellent and most intelligible guide to the collection itself, and would enable the visitor to judge how far it gave any adequate notion of the variety and exuberance of nature.

It would also, I think, be advisable, that as far as possible each well-marked and important group of any considerable extent should occupy one room or compartment only, where it would be separated from all others, where the attention could be concentrated upon it, and where the extent to which it was illustrated could be seen at a glance. This has not, I believe, been yet attempted in any museum; and when I come to speak of the building arrangements, I will explain how it can be easily managed. In this room, a department would also be devoted to the comparative anatomy of all the more important species and groups exhibited; and a large map should be suspended, showing in some detail their geographical distribution. Here, too, we should place specimens or casts of the fossil remains of the family, with restorations of some of the more important species;

and along with these, diagrams, showing the progress of development of the group throughout past time, as far as yet known.

This mode of attractive and instructive exhibition might be well carried out in the Mammalia, Birds, and Insects; less perfectly in the Reptiles and Fishes, whose colours can hardly be well preserved except in spirits. Even here, however, by using oblong earthenware vessels with glass fronts, instead of the usual bottles, many fishes and marine animals could be exhibited in life-like attitudes and with their colours well preserved. Mollusca may be well illustrated by means of models of the animals, as also may the marine and fresh-water Zoophytes. The more minute and delicate animals should be shown by means of a series of cheap microscopes or large lenses, fixed in suitable positions; and with a careful outline of the animal's history on a tablet or card, close by.

Connected with this, as with the botanical division of the museum, there should be a students' department, to which all should have free access who wished to obtain more detailed knowledge. Here would be preserved, in the most compact and accessible form, in cabinets or boxes, all specimens acquired by the museum and which were not required or were not adapted for exhibition in the popular department. Here, too, should be formed a complete local or British collection of indigenous animals, according to the extent and means of the institution, with the best zoological library of reference that could be obtained. In this department, donations of almost any kind would be acceptable; for, when not required for popular exhibition, an immense number of specimens can be conveniently and systematically arranged in a very limited space, and for purposes of study or for identification of species are almost sure to be of value. One of the greatest evils of most local museums is thus got rid ofthe giving offence by refusing donations, or being forced to occupy much valuable space with such as are utterly unfit for popular exhibition.

ETHNOLOGY. We now come to the last department of our ideal museum, and it is one to which a large or a small proportion of space may be devoted, according to the importance that may be attached to it. In accordance with the plan already sketched out for other departments, the following would be a fair representation of Ethnological science.

The chief well-marked races of man should be illustrated either by life-size models, casts, coloured figures, or by photographs. A corresponding series of their crania should also be shown; and such portions of the skeleton as should exhibit the differences that exist between certain races, as well as those between the lower races and those animals which most nearly approach them. Casts of the best authenticated remains of prehistoric man should also be obtained, and compared with the corresponding parts of existing races.

The arts of mankind should be illustrated by a series, commencing with the rudest flint implements, and passing through those of polished stone, bronze, and iron-showing in every case, along with the works of prehistoric man, those corresponding to them formed by existing savage races. Implements of bone and of horn should follow the same order.

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Pottery would furnish most interesting series. Beginning with the rude forms of prehistoric races, and following with those of modern savages, we should have the strangely-modelled vessels of Peru and of North America, those of Egypt, Assyria, Etruria, Greece, and Rome, as well as the works of China and of mediæval and modern Europe.

The art of sculpture and mode of ornamentation should be traced in like manner, among savage tribes, the Oriental nations, Greece, and Rome, to modern civilization. Works in metal and textile fabrics would admit of similar illustration. Characteristic weapons should also be exhibited; and painting might be traced in broad steps, from the contemporary delineation of a Mammoth up to the animal portraiture of Landseer.

This comprises a series of Ethnological illustrations that need not occupy much space, and would, I think, be eminently instructive. The clothing, the houses, the household utensils, and the weapons of mankind, can hardly be shown with any approach to completeness in a Popular Museum; and many of these objects occupy space quite disproportionate to their intrinsic interest or scientific value. They could in most cases be sufficiently indicated by drawings or models.

Situation and Plan of Museum.

The museum here sketched, beginning with illustrations of the earth and its component minerals, passing through the whole vegetable and animal kingdoms, and culminating in the highest art-products of civilized man, would combine a very wide range of objects with a clearly limited scheme, and would, I believe, well answer to the definition of a Typical Museum of Natural History. Although of such wide scope, it need not necessarily occupy a very large space; and I believe it might be instructively carried out in a building no larger than is devoted to many local museums. This brings me to say a few words on the kind of building best adapted to such an institution as is here sketched out.

In his President's address to the British Association at Norwich, Sir Joseph Hooker made some admirable remarks on the situation of museums. He observed:

"Much of the utility of museums depends on two conditions often strangely overlooked, viz. their situation, and their lighting and interior arrangements. The provincial museum is too often huddled away almost out of sight, in a dark, crowded, dirty thoroughfare, where it pays dear for ground rent, rates, and taxes, and cannot be extended. Such localities are frequented by the townspeople only when on business, and when they consequently have no time for sight seeing. In the evening, or on holidays, when they would visit the museum, they naturally prefer the outskirts of the town to its centre. The museum should be in an open grassed square or park, planted with trees, in the town or its outskirts; a main object being to secure cleanliness, a cheerful aspect, and space for extension. Now, vegetation is the best interceptor of dust, which is injurious to the specimens as well as unsightly, whilst a cheerful aspect, and grass and trees, will attract visitors, and especially families and schools."

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Evidently, then, the proper place for the museum is the centre of the park or public garden. This furnishes the largest and cleanest open space, the best light, the purest