garpike, and the mud-fish, belonging to the extremely ancient type of the ganoids, the huge devil-fish of South Carolina, one of the most gigantic of the rays; with many others. Among its shells, the fresh-water Uniodæ are prominent; and, in the insect collection, the number of large and brilliantly-coloured butterflies is very striking as compared with those of Europe.

The next room takes us into South America, and here we are at once struck with many remarkable contrasts. First, there is the comparative scarcity of large mammalia, the higher groups being represented by the llama, the tapir, a few small deer, and the jaguar, which is common to North America; while such low and ancient types as the sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos abound, together with an unusual number and variety of large rodents, and many peculiar forms of monkeys. Some of these are shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 3) from a photograph taken in a corner of this room. The extinct mammals are well represented by a fine skeleton of the Megatherium or giant sloth of the Pampas. The birds exhibit a wonderful richness and variety, with a similar preponderance of low types of organization. The blue and claret-coloured chatterers, the many-coloured little manikins, the strange white bell-birds, the wonderfully-crested umbrella-bird of the Upper Amazonian islands, the brilliant crested cockof-the-rock, and the innumerable tyrants, bush-shrikes, and ant-thrushes, all belong to a type of perching birds in which the peculiar singing-muscles of the larynx have not been developed, and which are but scantily represented in any other part of the world. The metallic trogons, with yellow or rosy breasts; the ungainly but finelycoloured toucans, with their huge but exquisitely-tinted bills; the green and gold jacamars; as well as the hundreds of species of those winged gems, the humming-birds, represent a yet lower and more archaic type of bird life nowhere so strongly developed as in this marvellous continent. The beautiful crested curassows are also a low form perhaps allied to the Australian mound-makers. Reptile life is abundantly represented, but except, perhaps, the iguanas, there are none to strike the ordinary observer as being especially characteristic. The insects, however, at once attract attention; the grand blue morpho butterflies; the exquisite catagrammas, with their fantastic markings beneath; the immense variety of the Heliconoid butterflies, with their elongated wings and antennæ and striking colouration, and the wonderful variety and beauty

of the little Erycinidæ, a family almost confined to South America. Among other insects we notice the strangelyformed and fantastically-coloured harlequin-beetle; the huge rhinoceros-beetle; the large lanthorn-fly, and many others, as being equally peculiar.

Passing next to the room which illustrates the opposite continent of Africa, we are presented with a contrast in the forms of life at once marvellous and interesting. From the poorest continent in mammals we pass to the richest, our eyes being at once greeted by the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, the buffalo, the giraffe, and the zebra, with a vast array of antelopes, the lion, and the great man-like apes. The most cursory inspection of these two rooms will teach the visitor a lesson in natural history that he will not learn by a dozen visits to our great national storehouse at South Kensington—the lesson that each continent has its peculiar forms of life, and that the greatest similarity in geographical position and climate may be accompanied by a complete diversity in the animal inhabitants.

When we examine the birds, the difference between the two continents is almost equally great, although not so conspicuous to any one but an ornithologist. The great bulk of the South American groups have no representatives whatever in Africa. Instead of toucans we have hornbills and turacos; instead of humming-birds we have the totally different group of sunbirds; instead of the tyrants, hangnests, and chatterers, we have flycatchers, starlings, and orioles; instead of bush-shrikes and ant-thrushes we have true shrikes and caterpillar-catchers-in almost every case a high grade of organization in Africa in place of the low grade in South America. Passing over the reptiles and fishes, as not presenting forms sufficiently well known or whose external characteristics are sufficiently distinctive, we find in the insects equally marked differences. The African butterflies have a peculiar style of form and colouring, distinguishing them from those of most other parts of the world, sober greens and blues or rich orange browns being common. The Heliconidæ of America are here replaced by the allied but distinct subfamily of the Acræide, while among beetles the huge goliaths and the monstrous tiger-beetles are altogether peculiar.

The next room we enter is the Indian, or Indo-Malayan ; and here the scene again changes, though not so radically as we found to be the case in passing from South America to Africa. There are still many great mammalia, but of distinct characteristic forms; the tiger replaces the lion, deer and bears are abundant groups, which are entirely unknown in Africa, the orangs and the long-armed apes replace the gorilla and the chimpanzee, true wild cattle are found as well as buffaloes, while the musk-deer, the strange flying lemur, and the gigantic fox-bats are characteristic forms unknown elsewhere. Among birds, the most typical group is that of the pheasants, which reach their highest development in the peacock and many-eyed argus; the hornbills are of a different type and more varied forms than those of Africa; the cuckoo family is abundant and varied, while the gorgeously-coloured broadbills and ground-thrushes belong to the low type of perchers so abundant in South America. Among the insect tribes we especially notice the glorious yellow and green-winged ornithopteræ, the princes of the butterfly world; the huge atlas moth, the largest of lepidoptera and probably the largest-winged of all insects; the three-horned rhinoceros beetle; the grand buprestidæ, and the strange leaf-insects of Java and Ceylon.

We now enter the room devoted to the Europe-Siberian fauna, the chief object in it being a fine skeleton of the great Irish elk, while its most representative living mammals are deer, wolves, wild boars, bears, wild oxen, wild sheep and goats, the chamois, and some peculiar forms of antelopes. Its most prominent birds are its partridges, grouse, bustards and pheasants, but it is deficient in gay-coloured perching-birds as compared with all other regions. Its reptiles are few and insignificant, as are its fresh-water fishes. In insects its chief characteristic is the abundance of beetles of the genus Carabus, its dungfeeding lamelliscorns and its fritillary butterflies.

Lastly, the Australian room brings us into an altogether distinct world of life. All the conspicuous mammals are of the marsupial type, from the giant kangaroos down to the diminutive kangaroo-rats and flying-opossums; and these comprise representatives of all the chief types of the higher mammalia in the form of herbivorous, carnivorous, rodent, and insectivorous marsupials. Among the birds we have such peculiar forms as the emu, the moundmaking brush-turkeys, the lyre-birds and bower-birds, the birds of paradise, the cockatoos and lories, the brushtongued honey-suckers, and the varied and beautiful forms of the kingfishers and fruit-pigeons-an assemblage of peculiar and brilliant developments of bird life hardly to be equalled except in South America. The recently extinct forms-the colossal kangaroos and wombats of Australia, and the huge dinornis of New Zealand-were equally remarkable.

The six rooms now briefly described complete the exposition of the geographical distribution of land animals, and the visitor who makes himself thoroughly acquainted with their contents by repeated inspection and comparison, will obtain a conception of the general aspects of animal life in each of the great divisions of the globe which hardly any amount of reading or of visits to ordinary museums would give him. It is a remarkable thing that so interesting and instructive a mode of arranging a museum, and one so eminently calculated to impress and educate the general public, has never been adopted in any of the great collections of Europe, in all of which ample materials exist for the purpose. It is a striking proof of the want of any clear perception of the true uses and functions of museums that pervade the governing bodies of such institutions, and also perhaps, of the deadening influence of routine and red-tapeism in rendering any such radical change as this almost impossible. But we have yet to see some further applications of the same principle at the Harvard Museum.

Two rooms not yet opened to the public are being prepared to illustrate the fauna of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans respectively. Here will be exhibited specimens of the peculiar forms of whales and porpoises, seals, walruses, and sea-lions, the oceanic birds, the fishes and mollusca characteristic of each ocean, while separate cases will illustrate the land fauna of the more remarkable of its oceanic islands. On my suggesting to Professor Agassiz that the northern and southern portions of these faunas were usually distinct, he thought that these might be perhaps exhibited at opposite ends of each room.

By the kindness of Prof. Agassiz and of Mr. Samuel Henshaw, his representative at the museum, I have been able to give a view of a corner of the European room, showing the goats, deers, bears, rabbits, and other characteristic